Leda
I shook out of the sudden memory, surprised that it had snuck up on me like that.
That had been my father’s negotiating style. He liked to play with people, and they always ended up the same way. I could only imagine the looks of hopefulness, maybe even relief, before his victims saw the flash of the barrel. I didn’t want to think about the overwhelming feeling of failure they must’ve gone through.
He had tried to do the same to my brother. He tried to teach Nico the art of a D’Agostino negotiation, too, though I remembered my brother being horrible at it when he was younger.
I had watched him run from the study more than once and rubbed his back as he had thrown up after seeing how our father had been, vowing to never be like Carmine D’Agostino in every sense of the word.
Nico was a good one, but not in the sense that my father wanted him to be. Nico had successfully negotiated his way into the Feds’ good graces, giving them their number-one enemy in my father. In the process, it left him and Rory a chance at a real life, a real future without my father’s hand in it.
Unfortunately, that hadn’t been extended to me, and even though I felt like Carmine D’Agostino was far from having anything to do with my life right now, I was under yet another hand.
A hand that I actually cared about.
Lucas.
I should have run a long time ago. It would have saved me a great deal of hurt like I was feeling right now—a great deal of concern and worry that burrowed their way deep into my bones.
Sighing, I slumped against the wall next to the balcony door, and berated myself for letting Lucas get the upper hand again. I was supposed to lay into him, to relieve myself of some of the hurt that he had caused.
But all the encounter did was to make it ten times harder to refuse him. I hadn’t lied when I told him I was scared for him. Lucas was in a very precarious position: an entire Mafia after him, and at any moment he could lose everything—his war, me, and his own life.
I knew he was a reckless man who needed control and who would do whatever it took to get it.
But at what cost?
He had already lost Rocco and not once has he had the time to process, let alone even mention it. I could only assume that he either didn’t care, or he was pushing that emotion so deep inside that it was even worse than not caring.
Lucas was going to erupt one day, and woe to the person to whom he would unleash his fury.
If I’m not careful, that person would be me.
I shook my head as another question came up. What was Adrian’s end game here? Did he enter into a pact with my father? Did he willingly enter into a deal with Carmine D’Agostino? If he did, he was either very confident, or very stupid.
And in any case, I didn’t want to be there for the blowback of that entire debacle. Which led me down another question: was I now a pawn of my father’s games again? What was really going on?
It was a complete mess; that was what was going on.
See? Nice and simple. No need to worry about how fucked up everything is if I just admitted that it’s fucked up beyond all recognition.
I pushed away from the wall and felt the twinge in my stomach, pulling up my thin shirt to see the bruise on my stomach. Sure enough, there was a mark the size of a fist marring my skin, the area tender to the touch.
What would Lucas say if he saw that? Would he beg forgiveness for giving me to that monster? Vow to give me Adrian’s head on a platter?
Would he actually start to be nice to me again and not confuse me like he was doing constantly?
A snort escaped me, and I dropped my shirt. Lucas was always going to confuse me. He wasn’t an easy man to figure out, nor was he one to wear his feelings on his sleeves.
Something bad had happened to him to make him this way. It had nothing to do with him being a Don. I have seen Dons with emotions.
Lucas seemed to think I was his weakness. Actually, scratch that. He didn’t just think it, he literally told me that to my face.
I was his weakness.
Would he want to rid the weakness and endure a brief but intense pain? Or would he protect it?
How could I play that to my advantage? I didn’t ever again want to go through what I had gone through the other night. I never wanted to feel that terror, to know that there was nothing I could do about what was happening to me and no one was coming for me.