36. Luca
LUCA
Dear Diary,
Turns out heroics are punishable by incarceration.
Nyah’s mumbles about Dax replayed over and over in my head. Her words had been barely more than a slurred whisper, and yet they echoed so loudly in my ears it was as if she’d screamed them.
I took the steps down to my father’s office, knowing what I needed to do.
He lifted his gaze when I entered and sat back, folding his arms across his chest. “I wondered when I’d be seeing you. I just had Viktor in here with a lump on his head the size of Texas and his eyes so unfocused they were rolling back in his head. Enzo just took him to the hospital.”
“What a shame. Poor, poor Viktor.”
My father narrowed his eyes at the thick sarcasm in my tone. “Enzo told me you played the hero with my fiancée. Carried her up the stairs wearing your clothes.”
The same anger that had kindled inside me lit up again at the reminder of the way I’d found her in that cage.
Wild like a hurt animal who’d been cornered, the smell of her burnt flesh still hanging in the air, and my uncle’s gaze raking over every inch of her body in a way that made me want to put a bullet in his brain even more than I normally did.
There was no point denying it. My father had probably watched the entire thing on the cameras that monitored his cages. “I did.”
“So I assume that means you’ll be taking the punishment for her? Is that correct?”
My jaw clenched so hard it ached. “How long?”
“Seventy-two hours.”
I gaped at him. “She was in fucking agony! And you were just going to leave her there on that cold, dirty floor in her own piss and shit with no food for seventy-two hours?”
My father shrugged. “Well, thanks to you, she’s now tucked up in the luxury of her bedroom, hopefully with a better understanding of what’s expected from a woman about to become my wife. But someone has to do the punishment, Luca. And if it’s not her, then I guess it’s you.”
My skin crawled at the thought of spending seventy-two hours in those cages. But I’d known what I was getting into when I’d opened that cage and set her free.
This was how my father had always worked. One mindfuck after the next, not just with me, but with every man and woman in his circle.
It was how he’d gotten where he was. Because nobody ever knew what to expect.
It was what made him deadly. He could smile at you one minute, then cut your throat the next.
I wasn’t exempt just because I was his flesh and blood.
But all I had to tell him was what Nyah had said about Dax.
That she was in love with him.
And it would switch my father’s focus. I’d suddenly become the son who had his back, reporting that his fiancée had feelings for another man.
All my punishments could go away, and the scrutiny would be right back on Nyah.
A few years ago, it was the option I would have taken in a heartbeat. But a few years ago, I hadn’t watched my sister be married off to a man twice her age. I hadn’t watched her scream and cry at the altar, begging my father not to sell her off.
And I hadn’t sat by and let the whole thing happen, as cold and detached as the man who’d given me life.
I didn’t want to be that man again. So all I said was, “I’ll take her punishment.”
My father narrowed his eyes. “Do you have a hard-on for my future wife, son?”
“No.”
“Then why are you doing this?”
I didn’t have a good answer. So I said nothing.
My father shook his head. “You’re too much like your fucking mother. Soft. I tried to beat that out of you when you were younger. Told Virginia to stop fucking coddling you, and I thought I’d succeeded. You can’t walk in my shoes if you’re going to be weak, Luca.”
I wanted to scream that I would never walk in his shoes. Not willingly. That the only way I’d follow in his footsteps is if there was another walking behind me with a gun to my head.
But my father had already proven he could make that happen if he needed to. And that the Guerra brand on my chest meant I was as owned by him as Nyah was.
Carlos just tutted at me, making sure I knew I was the biggest disappointment.
Bruno appeared at his side, and my father jerked his head at me.
“My son here wants to play the hero, so let him. Strip him and lock him up for seventy-two hours. No food. Only give him water once he’s been reminded that how I punish my wife is my business and none of his.”
I didn’t try to fight Bruno’s meaty fingers wrapping around my arm and hauling me out of my father’s office like I was one of his enemies.
Perhaps I was exactly that. Because why hadn’t I told him the real truth about how Nyah felt about Dax?
The story they’d been spinning, that they had dated once or twice but been nothing to each other, was clearly a lie.
She was in love with him.
And if he had half a brain cell in his head, he would love her back.
Because you didn’t throw away the love of a woman like Nyah.
Fuck. My father was right. I was jealous. But not of what he and Nyah had, because after tonight, I knew she hated him with every fiber of her being.
But the way she felt about Dax was something to be envious of.
Something my father would kill him for in a heartbeat.
Bruno shoved me out of the office, right as Dax walked out of the gym, his gaze colliding with mine. “Luca? What the fuck?”
But instead of jealousy swamping me like I had thought it would, all I could think about was Nyah up in that room, drugged up so she didn’t feel the pain of her burns, but completely unprotected. I mentally cursed myself for sending Lynx home.
But without him here, and with me locked up in a cage, I’d inadvertently left Nyah completely unprotected and completely vulnerable.
I caught Dax’s eye and silently mouthed one word. “Nyah.”
He stared at me as I was dragged away. It was only at the last second that he nodded, a silent acknowledgment he understood what I meant.
And I found myself relaxed and calm while my clothes were cut off me and I took up Nyah’s spot in a prison of my father’s making.