“All in good time, Emil.” I said. “You’ll just have to trust me.”
Emil cocked an eyebrow but ultimately, he held his tongue.
“As you say, Don.” He gave me a curt nod and walked away.
I couldn’t reveal my play to Emil. The more people who knew a plan, the more likely somebody ended up talking. Right now, only Rocco and I were privy to this. When the time was right, Emil and the appropriate capos would be clued in.
Adrian blabbing about this shit was forcing my hand. Killing him would just prove to the capos on the fence that he was right. Leaving him alive meant that he continued to spread these rumors.
No, I needed this war to come now.
I had to escalate.
Which meant that giving up Leda was not a fucking option.
Chapter 29
Leda
I pushed off the bed with a sigh, taking a familiar route to the balcony and back again. When you were stuck in a prison that had nothing to do in the form of entertainment, you started memorizing every nook and cranny real quick.
Not that I was locked in or anything. I tried the door handle every day since Lucas stormed out. It was unlocked every time.
But I didn’t want to push my luck.
“Ugh.” I pushed my hair off my forehead. Lucas had been all that I could think about.
And dammit, every time the door opened, my heart would beat just a little faster, only to be disappointed when it wasn’t him.
He hadn’t come back since that morning. For two days my only companions were the guards who dropped off my food and left as quickly as they came in.
What had been a complete surprise was the bag full of everything that I had asked for. Yesterday, a gruff guard delivered it to me, not bothering to answer any of my questions. I spent all day pouring through the contents of the bag. There were a few trashy paperbacks, not the sort of thing I wanted to read, but better than nothing.
And then there were the beauty supplies I had asked for.
He actually bought them. This was my test to him, and it was a test that he failed. I had gotten to him. Somehow.
A small smile played on my lips as I thought about how quickly Lucas Valentino hightailed it out of my room when I had started asking a few questions about his past. When I took notice of what kind of person he acted like.
I wasn’t completely surprised at his reaction. In many ways, hewaslike most Mafia Dons—all business and next to no personal feelings.
But when I told him that he thought the world owed him rather than him owning the world?Thathad been the button. All I wanted at that moment was to exploit my advantage against him. But he walked away.
And I didn’t realize just how much I missed his presence.
The problem was, I was pretty sure that I started developing feelings for him. Oh, how I hated the fact that I had slept with him! But the feelings weren’t because of my no-longer-involved virginity. Actually, I was kind of glad to be done with it.
No, I didn’t like the fact that I hadn’t stopped dreaming about him, or that I continued to crave his touch.
More, the desire for wanting to know about his life spanned far beyond any plans for escaping. There was what I felt was a genuine interest.
And with that interest, came a terrible realization: if I wanted to know about him, then I’d be opening myself up to caring for him.
For a man who paid an obscene amount of money for my body.
Something had to be seriously wrong with me. I wasn’t even putting up a fight at this point, for God’s sake!
I was a D’Agostino, and yet I had caved at the first crazed touch from him.