Carmine must’ve broken something inside her long ago. But it hadn’t broken her. She was strong.
Stronger than I cared to admit.
Leda wasn’t going to be the type of person that would take my hits lying down. She was going to meet me stride for stride, at least in my presence. What she did afterward, I wouldn’t know. But something about the way she held herself together told me she wasn’t about to cry on anyone’s shoulder.
A few silent moments passed before she drew in a breath and turned her intense gaze on me. “You aren’t what I expected either, Val—I mean, Lucas.”
“In what capacity?” I asked. My heart lurched at the sound of my name on her lips. How the hell was she doing this to me?
She smiled, and the corner of her eyes lifted ever so slightly. “I really don’t know. There’s something about you that I can’t put my finger on. But I know that you’re just… different. You don’t seem like the other Dons.”
“What do you mean?” My breath caught in my throat.
“The other Dons,” she explained. “Well, they have this way they act—like they own the world. But you? You act the entire opposite of that. Like the world owes you. Kind of makes me wonder. How did you get here?”
I froze. This wasn’t why I had come out here this morning. I didn’t come here to check on her because I wanted her to play therapist.
Leda’s smile dimmed when she caught the look on my face.
“I’m sorry,” she said quickly, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. “I didn’t mean to pry, I just meant that…”
I let her voice trail away as I fought the demons clawing their way inside of me.
Hell, she made me all kinds of uncomfortable, and my past would make her run for the hills. Would I really tell her that my drugged-out mother held it against me that I had ruined her fucking life? That she sold me to the worst people in the world?
That I was a bastard in more ways than one?
No. Hell, no.
Leda would never even begin to understand the darkness that molded me. And I had to remind her of that.
“Be careful,” I told her harshly. What little light she just shown me died out like fireflies in the morning.
“Lucas, I—” she started, but I already rose out of the chair and moved back into her bedroom, getting as far away from her as I possibly could.
***
It wasn’t until I was on my own balcony that I allowed myself to breathe.
What the fuck just happened back there? Had I really taken her breakfast, told her my name, and almost told her something completely personal about myself?
Leda was here for one reason and one reason only, for me to use. In every way someone could be used.
I had fucked her, and my damn traitorous cock wanted me to do it again.That was what drove me to have that stupid cozy moment with her.I thought.Had to be.
I took a fistful of my hair, tugging on the roots to bring on the mind-clearing pain that I had so relied upon over the years in order to think straight again. I didn’t give a shit about small talk or feelings or anything of that nature. I was a stone-cold killer before I became a stone-cold Don. the one that lurked in the shadows and had an air of mystery around me.
I didn’t need this shit. And I certainly didn’t need someone prying into my past. Especially now.
Almost everyone who knew my story was fucking dead, either by my hand, someone else’s, or circumstances of their own making. The past was dead, dead, dead. And once I put Adrian in the fucking ground, nobody could ever threaten me with it anymore.
You don’t care for Leda. You can’t.I told myself.
She was becoming a weakness I could not tolerate.
I released my hair and stared out over the fields of trees that kept my privacy. Something had to give. I had to put some distance between us because she had only been with me, what? A couple of days? I didn’t bring her here to play house.
A tortured laugh escaped me. Leda was dangerous, far more dangerous than I could have ever foreseen. Now, instead of her being the one with fear in her eyes, it was I who had to watch what I say and do aroundher.I was, but not because she could physically hurt me.