And now I was sold as an adult – not once but twice.
It had been downright repulsive as well, the men ogling me like I was nothing more than someone to warm their beds however they saw fit. Wasn’t that what Lucas was doing with me now?
I shook my head. I didn’t want to think like that. He told me that he loved me. He saw me as more than a bed partner.
Right?
A sudden chill ran through me. I really didn’t have any other confirmation. All I knew was that I was caught up in game played by Dons. My father’s downfall had triggered a system wide collapse of the former balance of power. My brother still had enemies. Judging by how much Lucas wanted to humiliate and destroy my family name when he first bought me, and his reluctance to get involved with Nico…
I was missing something.
There must have been another reason for me to be put up on the block. Somehow, I could still feel my father’s puppet strings subtly influencing the course of events.
What if this was all a ruse to get me to call out Nico? What if he was planning on buying his way back into the good graces of other Dons by giving them my brother? Then, they’d be obligated to support him and unseat Adrian.
I thought back to my brother’s words, how he had urged me to think about him and his ties to the police.
I brought my hands up to my upper arms, rubbing some feeling into them. What if I had done exactly what they or Lucas had truly planned for me to do? Call my brother and provoke him into action. What if that was the real ruse?
Nico wasn’t coming after me just yet, which was good. But I set both Nico and Lucas on an inevitable path together.
“No,” I stated with a quick shake of my head. Lucas wouldn’t do it. He wouldn’t do something like that to get back in good with the other Dons him.
But the moment the thought crossed my mind, I thought about our own conversation tonight. He needed help to get his Mafia back. And what better way than to get others to do the fighting for you with a token gesture of appreciation?
This was exactly the kind of thing my father would orchestrate. Planned out so many moves ahead that by the time you realized you were trapped, it was already too late.
I needed to warn Nico. Just in case my hunch turned out to be right. For all I knew, I just set my brother up for a fall I knew nothing about.
A pang of worry and loss shot through my chest when I thought about Nico and just how nice it had been to hear his voice.
I missed him and his family. They were the only things in my life that I was attached to until Lucas had come along.
And now, Lucas was rapidly becoming someone irreplaceable to me.
When he came to dinner tonight, I had wanted to lock us up in a bubble, to just revel in what we had together as Lucas and Leda. When he wasn’t around, I ached to find him, to make sure that he was all right.
Was this how Nico felt about Rory, and Rory about him? No wonder my brother constantly worried about his wife.
Was this how Lucas truly felt about me?
Turning away from what should have been a calming rain, I walked back into the bedroom, stopping short of the bed. Lucas was still asleep, his arm slung over his head and his lips parted, almost in that arrogant smile he wore so well. My heart twisted in my chest as I gazed down at him. I cared about him far too much, worried about him when no one else did, and now I had to worry about him betraying my own brother.
Why couldn’t I have fallen for someone easy? Why couldn’t I have walked away years ago, changed my last name and forgotten all about this mess?
Now I was in love with the very man who could ruin me, who could destroy everything I cared about. I hated it. I didn’t want to be in love with Lucas, but the heart knew what it wanted.
So instead of walking away, back to my bedroom, I climbed back into bed, biting my lip as Lucas shifted against me and pulled me tightly against him, his breathing evening out a moment later. The only thing I could hope for was that Lucas wasn’t a part of this crazed plan I had concocted on my own. I didn’t want to have to choose between those that I loved more than life itself and the man I had only begun to understand.
“Leda.”
Tears came to my eyes as I heard him breathe my name in his sleep, wishing that things were so different between us. Life wasn’t fair sometimes, and this was one of those times.
I just had to hang onto the hope that he wasn’t going to be the death of me in the end. There had to be happiness between us, a future, or else I wasn’t going to even remember who I was by the time Lucas finished with me.
Maybe I should have just been sold off to Adrian, or worse, someone like my father. At least I would understand what was to come.
Chapter 28