12. Lachlan
LACHLAN
The elevator doors slide open with a soft chime, and I step into the penthouse, exhaustion weighing down every muscle in my body. I scrubbed my hands in the warehouse bathroom, splashed water on my face, and changed my shirt. I thought I'd gotten all of the blood from Colin off of me.
I was wrong.
Adriana is standing in the kitchen with Matteo, pouring him a glass of juice, and they both turn when they hear me come in. The glass freezes halfway to the counter. Her eyes go wide, locked on something, and I follow her gaze down to my hands.
There's blood under my fingernails, crusted in the creases of my knuckles where I must have missed it when I washed up. Not much. Just enough.
Just enough for them to see exactly what I am.
"Lachlan." Adriana's voice is controlled, but I can hear the fear underneath it. She sets the glass down carefully and moves in front of Matteo, one hand reaching back to touch his shoulder. "What happened?"
"Work." I can still see Colin Donovan's face, still hear the sound of the gunshot echoing in that warehouse, and feel the weight of the gun in my hand. "It's handled."
Matteo is staring at my hands, his face pale and his eyes too wide. He's looking at me like I'm a monster, and maybe he's right.
"Matteo, go to your room," Adriana says quietly. There's something in her voice that makes my chest tighten. It's not anger or even fear. Just resignation, like she's seen this before and knows exactly how this goes.
"But Mama—"
"Now." She doesn't raise her voice, but the command is clear, and Matteo backs away from me, his small body pressed against the counter like he's trying to put as much distance between us as possible.
He edges around the kitchen island, never taking his eyes off me, and then he runs down the hallway toward his room.
I hear his door slam.
Adriana doesn't move. She's still standing there, her hand gripping the edge of the counter, and I can see her knuckles are white with the force of it. "You need to wash your hands," she says flatly. "And then you need to stay away from him until you can control yourself."
"I am in control." The words come out sharper than I mean them to, defensive, and I hate the way she flinches. "I'm not going to hurt him, Adriana. I would never—"
"He doesn't know that." She finally looks at me, and what I see in her eyes makes me feel like I'm being gutted. "He sees blood on your hands, and he thinks you're going to hurt him. Or me. Or both of us. Because that's what he's learned. That's what men like you do."
Men like me.
I want to tell her I'm nothing like the men who hurt her. But I can't, because I just killed a man for stealing from me, and I'd do it again without hesitation. That makes me exactly the kind of man she should be afraid of.
I turn and walk to the bathroom off the hallway, turning on the water and scrubbing at my hands until the skin is raw and red, and there's no trace of blood left.
I watch it swirl down the drain, pink and diluted, and I think about all the times I've done this before.
All the times I've washed someone else's blood off my hands and told myself it was necessary, that it was just business, that this is the world I live in and I can't afford to be weak.
But standing here now, knowing my son is terrified of me, knowing Adriana looks at me and sees just another monster, I'm not sure I believe that anymore.
When I come back out, Adriana is gone. The kitchen is empty, the glass of juice still sitting on the counter, and I can hear voices coming from Matteo's room. I move closer, staying in the hallway where they can't see me, and I listen.
"I want to go home." Matteo's voice is small and scared. It tears something in my chest. "Please, Mama. I want to go back. I don't like it here. I don't like him."
"We can't go back, baby." Adriana's voice is soft and soothing, but I can hear the strain in it, the effort it's taking her to stay calm. "I know you're scared. I know this is all new and confusing. But we're safe here. Lachlan isn't going to hurt us."
"He had blood on his hands." There's a pause, and then Matteo's voice drops to a whisper. "Did he kill someone?"
The silence stretches out, and I hold my breath, waiting for her answer.
"I don't know," she says finally. "Maybe. But that doesn't mean he's going to hurt you. He's your father, Matteo. He wants to protect us."
"Uncle Gio said he would protect us too." Matteo sounds like he's crying now, his words thick and choked. "And he did. He kept us safe. Why did we have to leave?"
I can't listen to this anymore.
I turn and walk back to my office, closing the door behind me and leaning against it, my eyes closed, my hands clenched into fists. My son thinks Gio kept them safe. My son wants to go back to the man who forced Adriana to take those photos and who's been holding them prisoner for ten years.
And he's afraid of me.
I don't know how to fix this and make him understand that I'm not the enemy, that I'm trying to save them both—that everything I've done has been for them.
But maybe that's the problem. Maybe I've been so focused on what I want, on what I think they need, that I haven't stopped to consider what they actually want.
Maybe Adriana was right when she said I'm just another man who takes what he wants and calls it protection.
I pull out my phone and scroll through my contacts until I find the number for Declan Murphy. We grew up together, back when my father was still alive and working for the Santoros. Declan's the president now, and if anyone knows what happened to Adriana over the past ten years, it's him.
The phone rings three times before he picks up.
"Gallagher." His voice is rough and gravelly, like he's been smoking too much. "Heard you made quite the entrance in New York. Gio's losing his shit."
"Good." I don't have the energy for small talk. "I need information, Dec. About Adriana Santoro."
There's a pause, and I can hear him exhale slowly. "Fuck, man. I was wondering when you'd call about that."
"You knew?" My hand tightens around the phone. "You knew what was happening to her and you didn't—"
"What was I supposed to do?" His voice is defensive. "She's a Santoro. Gio's sister. You think I could just walk in there and tell him to stop? You think that would have ended well for anyone?"
He's right, and I hate that he's right. "Tell me what you know."
Another pause, longer this time, and when he speaks again, his voice is quieter.
"It started after Giovanni died. Gio took over, and he decided Adriana needed to be punished further for what happened with you.
Giovanni wasn't kind to her—he restricted her movements, kept her on the estate and from having any friends or going anywhere, basically imprisoned her.
But Gio seemed to want it to be worse. He couldn't kill her, not when everyone believed the story that she was a victim—I never believed that, by the way—but he could make her life hell. "
My stomach turns. "What did he do to her?"
"At first, it was just keeping her locked up.
No phone, no internet, no contact with the outside world.
Giovanni kept her from having friends, but Gio cut her off even more.
She had the kid, and Gio let her raise him, but that was it.
" He stops, and I can hear him lighting a cigarette, the flick of a lighter and the inhale of smoke. "Then it got worse."
"How much worse?"
"He'd make her serve food and drinks at dinner parties, like a servant instead of a Santoro daughter.
Then he started threatening to take her son away whenever he thought she'd done something wrong.
Send him to a boarding school, or just dump him into the system.
It broke her really fast. I didn't see much of it—I heard most of this secondhand from guys who worked in the mansion, but I started seeing a difference in her when I'd catch a glimpse. "
My jaw tightens. That rage I felt earlier burns hotter, searing through my veins.
"Then he started promising his guys that if they worked hard, maybe he'd find a way to use her as a reward.
He talked with some of his cronies about how he could use it as leverage, maybe videotape her fucking them and then keep them as proof of loyalty.
If you fucked Gio's sister and he had it on tape, you weren't going anywhere. You were his."
I'm going to be sick. I'm going to get on a plane, fly back to New York, and put a bullet in Gio's head. I'm going to make him suffer the way he made her suffer, make him beg for mercy the way she must have begged, and then I'm going to kill him slowly and painfully, until there's nothing left.
"As far as I know, that hadn't happened yet.
I heard there were some photos of her given to one of the guys as a reward.
But he hadn't…" Declan pauses. "I know this is hard to hear.
But it was a lot of threats, more than physical damage.
I think he did hit her sometimes. And he started threatening to make her son watch violence, or participate in it, once he started getting older. Break him into the family, as it were."
He lets out a long breath. "I'm glad you got her out. I'm glad she's with you now. If there's anything I can do to help, anything at all, you let me know. She didn't deserve what happened to her. None of it."
"I need you to keep an eye on Gio's movements," I say flatly. "I need to know if he's planning to come after her. If he makes a move toward Chicago, I need to know immediately."
"You got it." He pauses. "For what it's worth, man, she talked about you sometimes. I heard her a couple times, talking to the kid when he was a baby and too young to understand. She never stopped loving you."
The words should comfort me, make me feel like there's hope for us. But all I can think about is what she endured, what was done to her while I was building my empire and telling myself I'd come for her when I was strong enough.