He slowly shook his head. "No one followed us from here. I don't think he knows where she is. But he knows where her parents live."
My immediate reaction was to demand he take me to her. Or at the very least, go back and haul her gorgeous ass out of wherever the hell she was and bring her back to the lake house. But then I took a breath and concentrated on slowing my heart rate. "I'll send a few men over to watch her parents’ place."
"Do you want to talk about this?"
"No," I told him. Then hesitated. "But I appreciate your honesty, even if it makes me want to bash your face in."
"Just think about what I said, Luca."
I nodded as the last of my rage cooled to the ever-present simmer that had been there since I'd told her to leave. Unable to help myself, I asked, "Did Veda say anything to you about what she planned to do?"
"She said she's staying until her family can hold a memorial and mourn her sister, and she'll figure out what she's going to do after that."
Jesus Christ. Why wouldn't she just go? Why was she tempting me like this? "She already mourned her sister. She stayed holed up in her room for weeks doing just that."
"But not with her parents. She needs this time with her family, Luca."
He was right. I knew this. But I couldn't stand the fact that she was putting herself in harm's way for something that wasn't absolutely necessary. From what she'd said, her sister was a bitch to her and treated her no better than a lowly servant. I don't know that I would show my father or my own brother the same respect when the time came. "She's a fool."
He picked up his sunglasses from my desk. "What do you want me to do?"
That was the question, wasn't it. I knew what I wanted, but I also knew that what I wanted to do and what I needed do to retain my position in the family were two very different things. "Nothing," I told him. "For now, do nothing. I'll send two of our men over to keep an eye on her parents’ house. But that's it."
"Are you absolutely sure about this?"
No. I wasn't. But my hands were tied.
"Luca—"
Whatever he was about to say, I didn't want to hear it. "Call a meeting," I told him. "And get Tristan back here to report what he was able to find out about the other families. I want them all here at the club tomorrow night. We have a lot to do if I'm going to unseat my father from his throne."
He stared at me for a long moment, then picked up his sunglasses and put them back over his eyes. Pulling his cell from the inside pocket of his jacket, he started walking out of the office. "What time?"
"Nine."
With a terse nod, he left, closing the door behind him.
After he was gone, I went back to my chair and sank into it with a long sigh, staring at the numbers on the spreadsheet I'd been working on before Veda had come back to claw her way inside the open wound that housed my heart. But I might as well have been looking at a blank monitor screen, because I didn't see anything except her face. Didn't hear anything except her voice railing at me one second and moaning my name the next. And here, alone in this room, I could admit to myself what I refused to voice out loud to anyone else.
In the short time I'd known her, she'd become a part of my life. A part of me. And I fucking missed her more than I ever thought I could.
Closing the window on the computer screen, I rested my head in my hands and tugged at my hair. Enzo was upset with me. Hell, even Tristan didn't agree with the way I was handling things with Veda. Restless, I got up and refilled my whiskey.
I honestly didn't know how to get us out of the situation Veda had put us in when she was caught snooping around my office for my brother. According to the rules of the game that was my life—the only life I had ever known—I had no choice but to consider her a rat and dole out the appropriate punishment. Telling her to run was only a temporary reprieve. A wild chance that she'd run fast enough and far enough that I wouldn't be able to carry out what I knew I needed to do.
However, the thought of taking a gun and pointing it at her head made something clench inside of my gut, squeezing my lungs until I could barely breathe. I placed my hand in the middle of my chest, willing my heart to beat again. Her showing up here and walking back out alive was enough to send my father's words clanging around in my head. But he was wrong. I could do what needed to be done, if I had to, but I also knew her death would destroy me.
Life without Veda was a life I didn't want. I had no doubt that if I was forced to carry out my threat, I would do everything in my power to follow her into the black abyss as soon as possible.
The thought was appealing, if I were to be honest with myself. We'd be able to escape the problem of my father and brother and all of the stupid bullshit that came with them and be together wherever the fuck you go when this life was done.
The only problem with that plan was that I wasn't done with her luscious body in this world yet, and my physical craving for her far outweighed my desire to leave this fucked up world. Even now, not an hour after I'd had her, my body hardened at the thought of having her again.
I took another sip of my whiskey.
There had to be a way for me to keep her.
And the more I thought about it, the simpler the answer became. Enzo was right. No one other than Tristan, Enzo, and me knew what had happened. No one knew I'd forced her to leave. No one knew anything, not even my own men, and we could easily keep it that way.