34. Luca
LUCA
Dear Diary,
If this were a normal family, punishment wouldn’t require locks.
“How the fuck does anyone see the damn puck when it moves so fucking fast?” I muttered to myself, staring at the TV screen on my bedroom wall. I could barely keep up with it when there was a yellow highlight around it.
Despite my complaints about how much my team sucked, they were still a million times better than I ever would have been. Fuck, maybe I needed glasses, because I could not keep up with this game.
I’d been trying to watch and learn. Lynx liked the stupid sport, so hell, maybe I could too. But watching the replay of the game we’d lost so painfully to the Wardens was not exactly the most thrilling way to spend my life.
I scrolled my phone aimlessly while pretending to study the team we were somehow supposed to turn into champions, and thought for the hundredth time about googling Lynx’s name.
A knock on the door stopped me from thinking about it any further. “Yeah. Come in.”
Lynx poked his head in, his gaze straying to the TV for a second. “Reliving us getting our asses kicked, huh?”
I shook my head. “Just trying to work out why you love this game so much.”
He shrugged. “I played it all my life. And then it was taken away from me when I went to prison. I imagine it’s much like how you’d feel if someone took away…I dunno. Your sports car.”
I stared at him. “Seriously? You think I give a shit about the fucking car I drive?”
He shrugged. “Or your suits then.” He eyed my closet, where there definitely were an obnoxious number of expensive clothes.
“I was driving a barely running, beat-up truck that I paid five hundred bucks for when you met me. And I was wearing jeans and a hoodie and dirty work boots.”
“And how many of those things were actually you?”
He had a point. “Fine. Guilty. I like expensive shit. So sue me.”
Lynx rolled his eyes. “What sports do rich people like you normally enjoy? Fucking lacrosse or polo or something where you’re served a nice cup of tea and watch the whole thing happen through a pair of binoculars?”
“Fighting,” I said instantly. Then added in more of a smart-ass manner, “And mind games.”
Lynx leaned on the doorjamb, his gaze straying back to the hockey game on the screen. “Yeah, I’d believe that.” He winced as our goalie missed another shot and the puck hit the back of the net. “Listen, I actually came in here for a reason. Have you seen Nyah?”
“Isn’t she in her room?”
“No. I took over from the other guy when I got here, but that was hours ago, and she didn’t come out for dinner, so I stuck my head in her room and she isn’t there.”
“So you’ve been guarding an empty room all evening?” I laughed at him.
“Blame the idiot who does day shift. I took over his position. It didn’t occur to me I should ask him if Nyah was actually in the room. Seemed like a given.”
He looked like a sulky teenager who’d gotten a D on their group assignment because he’d been the only one working on it.
“Is she down in the kitchen with Virginia? I skipped dinner, so I didn’t see her down there.”
Lynx shook his head. “When I realized she wasn’t in her room, I went searching for her. Virginia’s already gone home for the night. There’s nobody down in the kitchen.”
I picked up on the worry in his voice. “You think she’s done a runner? Or jumped out the window or something?”
Lynx blanched. “Don’t say shit like that. If she jumped out that window, she’d probably be dead at the bottom of it.”
Both of us stared at each other, then in unison moved to my window that faced over the same garden as Nyah’s did. I opened it and stuck my head out, peering down at the dark ground below. Lynx even went so far as to pull out his phone and attempt to light the ground with the flashlight function.
He let out a shuddering breath when there was nothing down there but grass and shrubs.
I stared at him. “You really thought she’d jumped for a second then, didn’t you?”
He’d turned vaguely green. “Can you blame me? She’s being forced to marry a man twice her age. A man she grew up knowing only as her father’s enemy. You think she actually wants any of this?”
I stared at him. “You think she doesn’t? She gets a wealthy husband, a mansion to live in, never has to worry about a thing for the rest of her life other than getting her nails and hair done and playing tennis.”
“You don’t know her at all if you think she cares about any of that shit.”
He was right. Maybe I didn’t know her. But I hadn’t actually considered that she might not want to be here. I was sure she was reporting shit back to her family, even without a phone, but I had assumed that she enjoyed the life her mother had. The same one she’d get as my father’s bride.
Lynx’s agitation filled the room. “I’m going to go look for her again.”
I bit my lip. “We should tell my father she’s missing.”
He stared at me; eyebrows furrowed in the middle. “Why? So he can send his pack of wolves after her?”
He had a point. “We should at least see if she’s in his office. I assume you didn’t check there?”
“His door was closed. I was told never to interrupt when his office door is closed.”
I scoffed at that and strode past him. “I was told that every day of my life when I was a kid. Didn’t stop me then. Won’t stop me now either. That’s the most likely place she’d be. I really don’t think she’d be dumb enough to run.”
Lynx seemed doubtful.
“Let’s just find out so you can get your knickers out of the twist they’re in.”
“They’re lacy,” he said as he fell into step with me and we walked down the hallway side by side.
I glanced at him. “What are?”
“My knickers that are in a knot.”
I laughed. “You’re an idiot.”
But fuck, he was cute. And sort of funny. And kind. I could see how worried he was for Nyah.
My assessment of him as a nice guy earlier in the day had been right on the money, I was sure of it.
He’d be easy to fall in love with.
If I could ever let myself have that.
We got downstairs to my father’s suite of rooms, and I knocked hard on his office door. Not bothering to wait for an offer of entry I knew might not come, I twisted the doorknob and let myself and Lynx in.
The memory of my father’s lips wrapped around Nyah’s nipples when I’d last been in this room flashed through my head, a hot, slick heat coming with it.
I half expected to find her there, tits spilling out of lacy lingerie, grinding over his lap, practicing for the big night where he’d get to fuck her for real, once they were officially married.
It had always made me laugh that he wanted his brides to be virgins but had no problem with them “entertaining” him in every other way before they said their vows. By the time his last wife had walked the aisle, I was sure she’d done everything with him except take his cock in her pussy.
I was sure Nyah was no different.
But maybe the way she felt about it was.
I’d never been jealous of my old man when he’d taken wives in the past, even though they’d always been closer to my age than his.
But Nyah was different.
It had been my bed she’d been naked in. And something deep in the back of my brain demanded more of that.
My father glanced up from his desk. He was alone, nothing but paperwork to keep him company.
He put his pen down slowly and then raised his gaze to meet mine, clearly as thrilled to see me as I was to see him.
“What is it, Luca? Some sort of emergency, I assume, since you just barged in here without so much as waiting a breath for me to allow you entry.”
“No emergency. I just…ah, wanted to borrow a pen.”
Lynx made a quiet grunt behind me that assured me of what he thought of that lie.
Not my best, I’d admit.
But I was committed to it now. I walked over to his desk and plucked a pen from the cup of them. “This one okay to take?”
My father nodded. “By all means. Please. Help yourself to a pen. I’ll ensure Virginia refills the stash of them that sit on your own desk, because I guess you somehow managed to run all of those out at the same time.”
I could have tried making further excuses and explanations. Instead, I just nodded. “Thank you. I’d appreciate that. I guess we’ll go now.”
“How are you two enjoying the gift I gave you?”
I stopped. “If you mean the gift of a new player, then if I’m being honest, no. I’m not enjoying it. You gave me that team. And I made Lynx the coach. We both should have been consulted before you offered contracts to any new players.”
My father’s eyes narrowed. “Or perhaps you should just say thank you, Daddy.”
Oh, fuck him. I hadn’t called him Daddy a single day in my entire life, not even when I was a kid. He just wanted me to feel small. I knew when I was being put on the spot. Put back in my place. “Thank you,” I forced out.
My father flicked his hand toward the door, dismissing us. But as I was about to close the door, he called out, “Oh, Luca? If you’re searching for Nyah, don’t bother.”
I paused. “Where is she?”
“Being punished.”
A soft, low growl started up from Lynx’s chest.
I shot him a warning look but spoke to my father. “Punished how? And for what?”
He flicked his fingers at me dismissively. “How I discipline my wife is not your concern. But Lynx? There is no need for you to be here tonight. Or for the next few nights. You can return next week when Nyah will be back.”
I could tell even without turning in Lynx’s direction that he was going to lose his shit. His entire body was one tense ball of stress and concern, set to explode at any second. I could already see it playing out, Lynx’s last thread snapping and him launching himself at my father.
My father pulling his gun.
A bullet spearing through Lynx’s temple and his body slumping dead on the tabletop.
The vision was so vivid I was almost certain I’d seen it happen before. Maybe as a child, and I’d blocked most of it out. Or maybe I’d just forgotten it amongst all the other violent memories my brain stored.
I slapped Lynx on the back and pushed him toward the door before he could do anything stupid. “Lucky you! You get some time off! Enjoy!”
I kicked my father’s door shut behind us and shoved Lynx away from it, pushing him back down the hallway toward the door.
His eyes blazed. “What the fuck, Luca? He’s punishing her? For what? How? Where the hell is she?”
I shook my head, trying to calm him down. “Don’t worry about it. She’ll be fine. My father’s idea of a punishment is cutting her manicure budget or taking away her TV subscription so she can’t watch Real Housewives anymore. She’ll be fine.”
“But where is she?”
I waved a hand at him. “Probably at one of our other properties. Don’t worry about it. Come back in a few days, and I’m sure it will have all blown over.”
He didn’t believe me. I could see it all over his face.
He was ready to storm my father’s office and demand to know where she was.
I wasn’t having another person I cared about shot and killed by my father. It wasn’t fucking happening. “Go, Lynx.” I turned to Bruno and Viktor on the door. “He’s not to come back in here until I say. See him out to the street, please.”
“Luca,” he growled at me, a warning in his tone.
One I ignored, even though it sent goosebumps across my skin. I held firm, because if I didn’t, I knew what the outcome would be. And I wasn’t willing to live with it.
I walked away from the door, leaving Lynx on the outside of it.
But when I got back to my room, I was breathing hard.
Because I might have saved the life of one person I cared about tonight, by getting him out of this fucking hellhole of a house before he could challenge my father.
But the other one was still in here. I was sure of it.
And I’d put my money on it that she was locked in a cage in the basement.