Chapter 1
Leda
I clenched the gun to my chest, wincing from the muffled sound of each gunshot outside. I didn’t know what was going on outside of that door. I didn’t know if Lucas was keeping himself safe like he had promised.
I hated that.
Almost as much as I hated that the door refused to open, no matter how hard I pushed against it. Lucas must’ve locked the door from the outside after he put me inside.
In other words, I was trapped with nothing else to do but to worry about him.
Sighing, I bit the inside of my cheek hard enough to draw blood. Did he think I couldn’t defend myself? Lucas had been wrong about me from the moment we met. Admittedly, I was also wrong about him. But to put me down here like I couldn’t defend myself felt almost patronizing.
I had every right to be out there.
Lucas didn’t know what it was like to have Adrian do the things he had. The words he said to me then brought up more questions than answers about the man that I found myself in love with.
That, and I hadn’t been distracted enough to realize that Lucas hasn’t commented on why he put me back up on the block.
It made me question everything he had said to me, everything he had done with me through our time together.
Was everything just a lie? Was this just another part of it? Did Lucas truly know what love was?
I didn’t think so. Maybe he was confusing love with infatuation. And while we weredamngood in bed together, that couldn’t be the cornerstone of love. Love went deeper than that. You had to take the good days and the bad.
I had no real frame of reference other than my brother Nico and his wife Rory. And from all I’ve seen, I knew that it wasn’t ever going to be smooth sailings.
Nico hadn’t been the best person to Rory, but he sure as hell wouldn’t have used her the way that Lucas had used me tonight.
I had my own thoughts about why he did what he did. But until we escape here in one piece—or at least with non-life-threatening injuries—all of those thoughts were useless.
But then again, I was trapped down here. So I had nothing to do but ruminate on those thoughts. Even if there was nobody to answer them.
It must’ve had something to do with him continuing to be Don. Adrian made that plenty clear that Lucas’ position was built on rocky foundations. To know that he gave me up for a title. Well, to say that it all hurt would be the understatement of the century.
But then he came back.My brain reminded me.So what did that mean?
I sighed in frustration. I hated ruminating on these kinds of thoughts. I hated hurting for him. I hated knowing I had fallen in love with a man who might not return my feelings.
Did Lucas see me as some sort of pawn he could use?
Because if he did, then he was no different than my father.
Another thought popped into my head.Maybe he wasn’t any different at all, and you fell for it.
The yacht lurched to the side suddenly and threw me against the fiberglass wall. I lost my grip on the pistol. I righted myself as the yacht shuddered, expecting it to right itself.
But it didn’t.
Oh no…
If the yacht was listing to the side, then it could only mean that it was compromised. And if it was compromised, then I needed to get out before it sank.
Panic clawed its way into my throat, and I tucked the gun into the waistband of my pants before I raced to the door once more, beating on it in the hopes that it would open. Hell, I didn’t care who was on the other side at this point. I wasn’t going to go down with the yacht.
I wasn’t going to drown. It was my worst fear, sinking to the bottom of the river and not being able to catch my breath. I didn’t look at drowning as a peaceful death at all, and I sure as hell wasn’t going to experience it tonight.
Bracing myself, I beat at the door. “Help!” I shouted. “I’m trapped in here!”