Lucas had been specific in why he had put me up on the block to begin with.
The Mafia forced him to choose. And his first choice had been the Mafia instead of me. I could understand the decision. I could rationalize it. Hell, I grew up in a Mafia family. Without his family behind him, Lucas was just a man.
But that didn’t make things hurt any less.
But he came back.
He had changed his mind, and ultimately his choice was me.
God, why did this have to be so confusing?
Blowing out a breath, I shuffled to the bedroom, shivering in his coat the entire way. When Lucas had busted down the door tonight, I knew that he knew he made a mistake. Everything he did up to that moment told me that he wasn’t completely convinced he was doing the right thing.
And now, as we pulled away from New York on his yacht, I felt that he actually cared for me.
I yanked open the door to the bedroom that Lucas and I had shared and stepped into the warmth, stripping off his bloodied suit coat as I did. I wanted a bath, a long, hot bath to make me forget those cruel fingers on my throat. But given the urgency of the situation, there wasn’t a lot of time to do anything other than hope that we could get somewhere safe.
Lucas was worried. I could see it on his face, feel it in his touch, and hear it in his words.
He was going to need me.
Quickly, I pulled out a warm pair of pants and a long-sleeved shirt, pairing it with a sweater while the yacht sliced through the water. I slipped on a pair of fur-lined boots, and I gathered my hair up in a ponytail to keep it out of my face the best I could.
Once I was warm, I made my way to the top deck, watching as the city disappeared in the distance. Thank God. I was done with this place for a while.
There was one thing I still needed to confront Lucas about, and it was the comments that the asshole had made about him.
A whore who thinks he was a Don.
It made no sense what he had said. I knew that Lucas’s rise to his title wasn’t the traditional route apparently. But what did those words mean? Was that what Lucas refused to tell me?
And was it true that he lost all loyalty with his Mafia for me?
A secret thrill went through me at the thought. Maybe it was real. All of it. Maybe he did really care for me like he claimed. He made a mistake, but in the end, he chose me.
The object of my thoughts rounded the corner at that moment, and he stopped when he saw me.
He, too, had cleaned up, throwing on another long-sleeved shirt that wasn’t smeared with his blood. He still looked pale, but I knew it was going to be a hard time to get him to slow down right now.
He believed we were in danger, and until we were safe, he wasn’t going to listen to a word I said. “Tell me you bandaged the cuts,” I finally said instead.
“Rocco did,” Lucas replied, rolling his shoulders. His eyes looked at my neck, and I wondered if there were bruises there. “I’m so sorry, Leda.”
It would take months for me to forget what that other man nearly did to me.
I wouldn’t so quickly forget the way that Lucas had done to me either, but I felt safer with him right now. Despite everything he had done to me, I could still love him.
“Another time,” I answered.
Lucas nodded, and turned back to look at the inky black water of the Hudson. The skyscrapers were moving past us.
“He’s going to come after me,” he said after a moment. “And when he does, I need for you to do everything I say, Leda. Promise me.”
I swallowed hard. “Tell me that you will let me fight, Lucas.” I was so tired of being the victim.
I wanted to show them all that I wasn’t a wilting flower, that I could defend myself without their help.
That I wasn’t weak like they all thought.