Chapter 12 Luca
“How the fuck can they still be going at it?” Luca asked, holding his cards tightly enough that he was sure Marco could see his knuckles turning white.
He could see the concern on his cousin’s face, and he hated it. Hated that they all saw him as vulnerable when he was just as strong as any of them. Hated that sometimes they were right.
“Young love and a new mating bond,” Marco said, turning up the music to cover the rhythmic thud coming from Luca’s spare room.
Fuck . He hated how even that small thing made the anger in him wild. Why did Marco always have to step in to try and make it better? He could turn his own fucking music up if he wanted to.
“They’re hardly young,” Luca growled.
He didn’t begrudge Angelo his happiness. If anyone deserved it, it was the strong, silently broken man who was basically family and had kept them all safe for so many years. He just wished he’d be happy somewhere other than Luca’s home. His sanctuary.
“It won’t be for long. Just until we find this traitor,” Marco said.
“And what if it doesn’t stop after that? You know the D-2S must be behind this. What if they keep coming for me?”
“Then I’ll deal with it. Not because you’re weak or because of who you are, but because of who I am. That’s my job as the head of this family. That’s why I’m Alpha,” Marco said.
“I can’t stand having them here, Em,” Luca whispered, hating himself for the words because they sounded like a plea for the kind of protection he most loathed from his family. Protection not from any physical threat or assassin, but from his own messed-up psyche.
“Is what they have with each other really so bad?” Marco asked quietly. “What happened to you was as far from that kind of bond as it is possible to be. They’re happy together.”
“And I’m happy for them. But I can imagine nothing worse,” Luca said.
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