I had to show Lucas that maybe having me on his side wasn’t a bad thing. He deserved love just like everyone else. He deserved to feel emotions.
He deserved to be loved, and heaven help me, I did love him.
I didn’t think I would want to. I didn’t think Icouldwant to love the man who had callously put me up for another man to purchase. I didn’t think that I would want to love a man who had blood on his hands, more blood than I probably would see in a lifetime.
But I did. God help me, I did.
So, Ihadto get through to Lucas. Ihadto show him that he could trust me, that he could love me and not have it make him a weaker person.
Most importantly, I needed to understand what was going on with this feud between him and Adrian and where I might fit in the future. I wasn’t going to be his pawn any longer.
I wanted to be his partner.
Chapter 9
Lucas
I watched as the guard patted the visitor down, trying to place his face among Adrian’s cronies. I had never seen him before, but that didn’t mean anything. Adrian had his own fucking followers, people that I hadn’t realized were his until it was too late. Now I was going to have to fight them all.
“What do you think?” Emil murmured as we stood near the door, waiting for the all-clear to talk to the visitor. “Do you think that he’s here for the girl?”
Oh, I had no fucking doubt that Adrian wanted Leda. He knew she was the one thing I wouldn’t give up. He had his choice to take her and tried to make a spectacle of it. Had he gotten a secret buyer, I wouldn’t have known any different, but he wanted to upstage me, to surprise me, and it hadn’t gone well for him.
Now he was out for revenge. Hell, it was the same thing I would have done in his shoes. He had a reputation to protect first and foremost.
But more importantly, he hadn’t killed me.
Which made me a threat to him.
He’d played his hand already and now we knew what was at stake.
I wasn’t about to let this shit slide, from the way he treated Leda to the way he had Rocco killed. Adrian knew I was faster, better trained, and well equipped to kick his ass on an even playing field. He and the Battery boys could keep hammering the rest of my properties, but both of us knew that there was going to be a day when we’re face-to-face.
That would be the day when his life ends.
For now, I needed to play it safe.
“If for some fucking reason he does go for her,” I finally said to Emil. “Kill him.”
I didn’t care what the repercussions were now. They couldn’t go any lower.
I worked my jaw as the guard moved from the car. The car was clean. Now to check the visitor. And then I would invite him in.
What could he possibly tell me that I was going to agree to at this point?
The visitor’s eyes were trained on mine even though I was several feet away from him, the smirk starting to fucking get on my nerves. Maybe I could just shoot him in the head and move on about my day. After all, his timing had ruined an otherwise needed and welcomed moment with Leda.
I still had blue balls over the way her skin had felt under my fingers; how close I had been to delving into her wetness.
Pulling myself back to the present, I glared at the visitor. The car looked harmless enough now that there wasn’t a bomb that my guard could see anyway. The man didn’t look like someone who should be part of Adrian’s army, making me pause.
Who the fuck was he then? In my day, I had shaken down a number of “guests” for Cosimo, and he had berated me every time I missed something.
I had never made the same mistake twice.
***
I walked into the study and found Cosimo sitting behind his desk. “Shut the door, Lucas,” he said, his fingers steepled together.