Chapter 22
LUCY
Soren’s cries pick back up the moment the door shuts, and I bounce him, trying to quiet him. He is not having it. The loud noises, and my own fear, making it worse. “Shhhhh, Soren,” I try to soothe.
“Let’s get further into the passages,” Sofia says loudly over the crying. “Rori will probably be coming soon.”
“I’m already here,” she says, coming up behind us, her face tight, Hades right at her side. Hades whines, staring at Soren. “Go ahead,” Rori tells him, and Hades rushes over to me, nudging at Soren’s foot with his big nose to try and comfort him. Soren ignores him and continues to cry.
“I want to know what the hell is going on,” Amara says worriedly. “Is this Leonardo or Giovanni? Or could it be Marco?”
“It could be any of them at this point,” Sienna sighs tiredly. “And I hate that they’re sticking us in here.”
“I’m not,” Amara scoffs. “I don’t want to be shot at, thank you very much.
And I probably can’t run fast after last night anyway.
” We all look at her, and I momentarily tune out Soren’s cries as she blushes.
“Shut up,” she groans. “Lazaro and I haven’t done anything in a couple of days to give me time to recover and—”
“Recover?” Kida interrupts incredulously.
“You’ve seen her man, right?” Sienna snickers. “And her?”
Kida blinks, realization dawning. “I’m surprised you can walk, let alone try to run,” Kida agrees. “Girl, are your insides okay?”
“Trust me, she thought the same thing after their first encounter,” Sienna snickers. She tells us quickly about how they found Amara after her first night with Lazaro, and I laugh, even as I bounce Soren more; his cries are slowly starting to come down now that there are no terrifying sounds.
I look at Amara. “You’re living a romance lover’s dream, you know that, right? There is a whole trope around size difference. You should write a book. You’d make bank.”
Amara waves that off. “I prefer hairdressing, and no fictional couple can compare to Lazaro, I’m certain.
” She gets a dreamy look on her face. The same one I remember having when Joey and I were first together.
A small sense of melancholy hits me. I miss that.
That love and joy from the early days of us getting to know each other.
I look down at Soren, his cries lowering to whimpers. Some of the dark thoughts ease staring at him. I’ll always have love and joy with him, and that’s alright.
Well, as long as we survive whatever the hell is going on out there.
We’re walking down the long passageway, the others at the front, with me, Kida, and Hades trailing behind. Everyone else is talking, but Kida whispers, “He has freaking passageways. Passageways, Luce. Fucking secret doors and shit everywhere.”
Yeah, that’s not lost on me. Again, another fantasy come to life, but I would much rather find out about this under better circumstances.
When we finally reach the end of this passageway, it’s to a fork that leads in two different directions. “Ah, which way do we go?” I ask, looking around.
“We don’t go anywhere just yet,” Rori says firmly. “Until we know what’s going on, we stay right here. If someone gets in here again, then we need to be able to run.”
“What do you mean again?” Kida demands, pouncing on that phrase. “They made it sound like we’re safe in here.”
“We are, but nothing is impenetrable,” Rori replies calmly.
“At one point, one of Nico’s men turned traitor and gave the bad guys access to this.
However, since then, everything’s been changed to the system, so the only ones who can get in here are the men, and us, other than you, Amara, and Lucy.
And that’s only because they haven’t had time to add any of you to it.
So we’re safe in here, but I never take anything for granted when shit is going down. ”
Kida looks like she wants to argue, but I give her a hard look. Now is not the time. Rori, Sienna, and Sofia all have guns, so at least we have some protection. Well, and Hades. Something tells me that if anyone gets past them, he’s going to be the final barrier.
“Want me to take him?” Kida asks, thankfully letting the conversation go.
I hand her Soren, and she puts him up to her shoulder, patting his back as he nuzzles into her neck. Hades whines, but he quiets when I pat his head.
“So what do we do now?” I ask, looking at them all. “If we have to wait, do we just sit and twiddle our thumbs?”
“Pretty much,” Gia sighs. “I don’t know how long we’re going to be in here so we might as well get comfortable and do something.”
“I didn’t have time to grab all those sheets on the desk,” Amara groans. “At least then we could have worked on that.”
“We still can. I remember most of it. I just wish we had the journals or something to look at,” Sienna grumbles.
Gia winces. “Sorry about that.”
“That wasn’t a dig at you, babes,” Sienna assures her. “I’m just making a statement.”
I vaguely hear another loud boom, and I flinch, while we all look toward the sound. The tension rises. We hear nothing else, the only sound Soren’s little whimpers as Kida continues to soothe him.
I hope Massimo is okay. Seeing him shut that door and knowing he’s running toward danger makes my stomach hurt. What if he gets hurt? Or worse? What will we do then? I don’t feel safe with anyone else but him around here. I need him to be okay.
“Lucy, you okay?” Sofia asks gently.
I look at her and give a small shrug. “Just worried.” I give her a feeble smile. “First mafia war and all that, not sure what to expect.”
“There is one good thing about being in here,” Gia says with a soft smile. She looks at Soren. “We can finally meet the baby without everyone and everything else getting in the way.”
“Baby therapy is a good thing,” Kida agrees.
She looks at me questioningly, and I nod.
I like all the women in here, and I think that being around them, even as much as I have since I got here, has helped me trust them a bit more.
Kida steps forward and eases Soren from her shoulder.
“Here you go.” She hands him over to a shocked Gia, who holds Soren like she’s sure he’s going to break.
Kida grins as Soren looks up at Gia in confusion.
“Yeah, me too, bub,” Kida laughs. “She looks an awful lot like your Mama, doesn’t she? ”
“I really can’t get over how all of you look so much alike,” Sofia remarks. “Even you, Amara, you look like them.”
“I wonder what my mother looked like,” Amara admits. “And I wonder what my sister will look like. Is she going to look like us too? Or will she take after one parent or the other more?”
“Something tells me that she’s going to look a lot like the rest of you.” Sofia snickers. “Once all five of you are here, then we need to start fucking with the men. Switching you all out and convincing them that you’re one of the others. Like those twins did in that movie.”
“Nico could probably still tell,” Gia predicts, though she’s rocking Soren in her arms and cooing at him softly.
“Yeah, Alessio too, but it would be fun,” Sienna agrees, grinning.
“Do you guys like to mess with the guys a lot?” I ask.
“We haven’t had much time to mess with them, but I definitely would love to. But I mess with Alessio on purpose to get what I want in bed.” She wiggles her brow suggestively. “He’s very creative.”
“You trying to run away from him again?” Rori teases.
“Oh, I tried the other night, but I didn’t fight too hard to get away.
I decided that him being bossy was pissing me off and messed with some of his stuff.
He got mad, and decided to take it out on my ass.
Not that I was complaining.” Her grin is wide, gaze almost dreamy.
“I really do love that man. Don’t ever tell him I said this, but I swear his dick is magic. ”
“Is that how you feel about Lazaro’s big dick, Armara?” Rori snickers.
“Oh, he knows how to use it, but I don’t know about magic. Well, then again, when we’re, ah, in the middle of things, I don’t care about the pain and size difference. Afterwards is when it hits me,” Amara shrugs.
“What about Dante, Sofia?” Gia asks, grinning over at Massimo’s sister. “You two are still looking pretty cozy.” Soren is starting to doze, and Gia leans down to nuzzle at the top of his head.
Sofia smirks. “Darling, when you have premium dick at the ready, you don’t let it go until you’re sure you’ve had your fill. And Dante never leaves me wanting. The man loves orgasms, and he is oh so generous at giving them.”
“He looks like the type,” Kida grins. “You don’t see it, but when he looks at you, I swear it’s like he’s planning on what he’s going to do to you the second you’re both alone again.
Reminds me of a guy I was seeing back home.
He was obsessed with women’s orgasms. He spent every chance we got to learn how to get me off multiple times a session.
” She gets a wistful look. “I miss him. If he’s not snapped up when I go home, he’ll be one of my first calls. ”
“Girl, I would have dragged him up here with me if I were you,” Rori gasps.
“Hell, I’d have stashed him in my suitcase if I could manage it.
Do you know how many men don’t care about your pleasure?
I’ve had so many men that I ended up taking care of myself afterwards that I just gave up after a bit. ”
“Says the one who went out with that guy and the monkey,” Sienna scoffs.
Rori glares at her, but we all wait as Sienna recounts Rori’s terrible date experience, and I find myself enraptured.
Enough that I forget about what’s happening outside.
I don’t even react when Amara suddenly asks Gia to hand over Soren.
They transfer the baby easily, and Soren barely stirs.
The entire discussion moves into old dating stories, and I find myself relaxing. We all eventually sit on the floor, tired of standing, but Rori has Hades on alert in case anyone tries to sneak in or up on us.
“What about you, Lucy? Do you have any terrible dating stories?” Gia asks me.
I shrug. “Not really. I only had two steady boyfriends, and one of them was my husband eventually. The first one was in high school, so it was that young kind of love that you think is going to last forever and then falls apart at the first hard thing. The only weird thing he ever did was that he insisted that I only called him by his first and middle name at all times. Samuel Jedadiah.”
“Imagine saying that in bed,” Rori laughs. “Damn. What was that for?”
“His mother drilled it into him that the name they gave him was to be revered and should be celebrated by being said anytime someone addresses him. She was one of those old-time southern women. She really didn’t like me much. She only tolerated me because she knew it wouldn’t last.”
“Probably for the best if that’s the kind of mother-in-law she turned out to be. So what about your husband? What was he like?”
How to tell them about Joey?
“Only if you want to,” Gia rushes to add. “Massimo told Nico that you lost him early in your pregnancy. I’m sure that was very difficult.”
“It was.” I take a deep breath. “I still get sad some days, but for the most part, I’ve kind of worked through my grief.
Joey was one of those men that always wanted more.
Better. Bigger. I liked that about him, honestly.
He had ambitions, and I wanted to be along for the ride.
He got a job here in New York and I followed him here.
For the most part, he was normal, but he did have his quirks.
” I smile. “He always had to be first in a door. He was like that when we were first dating too, and it took me a bit to get used to, but he told me that it was so he could protect me if something terrible were happening on the other side of it.”
“Or he just wanted to look like the most important person in the room and didn’t want to chance you outshinning him,” Sofia says drily.
“Probably,” I sigh. “Honestly, I stopped caring after a while. There are worst things to fight over. He had other quirks, but nothing crazy really.”
“How long were you married?” Amara asks, gently rocking Soren again.
“Hand him over,” Sienna orders, reaching her hands out. Amara pouts, but she hands Soren over, who only stirs long enough to look at Sienna, before closing his eyes and going back to sleep. Sienna grins at me. “He likes me I guess.”
I smile. “He’s a really good baby.” I look back at Amara.
“And we were married a total of two years, but we were together for almost eight years before that. Honestly, the only reason we got married was to please our parents. Otherwise, we probably wouldn’t have bothered.
Neither of us really cared for a big wedding or any of that. ”
“I can only imagine how excited he was when he found out you were pregnant,” Gia says quietly.
I barely manage to control my flinch. Instead, I just give her a calm smile and lie, “He was definitely full of emotions. I don’t think he knew how to handle it.
Unfortunately, we never got to do all the stuff that couples normally do together.
Thankfully, Kida bullied her way up here to stay with me.
Without her, I’m not sure what we would do. ”
Kida scoffs. “You’d be lost without me.” Sensing that I want the topic to change quickly, she adds, “Oh, I just remembered about this time I dated a zookeeper. He took me there late at night to try and impress me. Only he forgot to tell me that the monkeys like to throw literal shit at people, and I ended up with a bunch on the side of the face and in my hair. It was awful.”
“What the fuck is with people and monkeys?” Rori demands.
The conversation moves along, and I reach over to give Kida’s hand a grateful squeeze. As much as I like these girls, I don’t know that I’m ready to talk about my past just yet, at least not in depth. I still need to sort some of it out in my head.
Instead, I try to think of anything else but. My thoughts drift to Massimo. I hope he’s alright.