Chapter 48
LUCA
I sat in the armchair across from the Knights.
We gathered in my office instead of the temple to stay closer to Alex.
With Marcello out of commission, I wasn’t taking any chances with her safety.
She could hate me all she wanted. Alex could yell and push me away, but I wasn’t letting her pretty ass out of my sight.
I raised a snifter of scotch to my mouth, surveying the room’s mood. The Knights looked on edge. The attack at my estate had rattled each of us in different ways.
Sonny didn’t look as put together as usual.
From searching the Dark Web for the past three days, Drake had dark circles under his eyes.
Bastian, Damian, and Cole were out late last night looking for the Albanians with Alpha Command.
They leaned back in their chairs as if they were seconds from falling asleep.
Sonny steepled his hands on his lap and glanced over at me. “Is Marcello coming?”
I shook my head. “He’s dealing with Alex and her nightmares.”
“It should be you,” Sonny countered with hate dripping from his tone. “Marcello isn’t marrying her. You should be downstairs comforting our queen.”
“Thanks for the reminder, Dad , but I have more important shit to worry about than Alex’s bad dreams. Like saving her fucking life.”
“Do you give a shit about anyone other than yourself?” Sonny snapped.
“I care about the Knights… and my family… and Alex.”
“Could have fooled me,” Sonny challenged. “If Marcello had died, we would have lost Alex, too.”
“You don’t think I know that, motherfucker! Stop hassling me. I’m not in the mood for your melodrama.”
“Marcello reached her when you couldn’t,” Sonny insisted. “She needs him. The Knights need him, too.”
I rolled my eyes at the annoying asshole. “Is everyone team Marcello? Where is your loyalty to your Grand Master?”
Sonny howled with laughter. “With how you handled Marcello’s shooting, you lost a lot of my respect.”
“Sorry if I don’t handle shit to your liking. But I don’t answer to you.”
“Until Alex agrees to marry you, you’re not the next Grand Master.”
My jaw flexed in irritation. “Are you trying to work me up, Cormac?”
“I’m sick of you treating Alex like shit,” Sonny growled. “I’m not alone on this. She’s our queen, not some whore you picked up from a street corner.”
“Please, like I’d let a five-dollar whore suck my cock.”
“Not the point,” Sonny yelled with his hand balled into a fist on his lap. “You’re out of control. We need a leader who can do his job without his feelings getting involved.”
I snickered. “You’re fucking high if you think I even have feelings.”
Sonny’s nostrils flared as he glared at me. “Despite what you want everyone to believe, we know you have a heart. Even if it’s as black as fucking tar.”
He would defend Marcello to the death. They were best friends since they were old enough to walk, the two of them inseparable for most of their lives.
Golden Boy was there for Marcello when I couldn’t physically stand to be in the same room as him.
He was the one who helped Marcello deal with our mother’s death, which hit him even harder than it did me.
I couldn’t connect with either of them until after our Initiation into The Devil’s Knights. But I’d always protected Marcello from our father. I honored my mother’s dying wish.
“Alex is in danger,” Drake interjected. “We don’t have time to argue.
If we’re not united, we’ll lose Alex the next time.
Our enemies will sniff out our weaknesses and pick us off individually.
” His gaze drifted to me. “Set aside your differences with Marcello, and let’s focus on the task—keeping Alex alive. ”
“Which is why we’re here today,” I reminded them. “The point of this meeting is to discuss Alex, not me.”
“I don’t know why you’re so pissed about Marcello and Alex,” Sonny said to me. “You didn’t have a problem with the Knights touching her in the temple last year. It was your idea to have a mock version of Legare to see if Alex could handle the real ceremony. So what’s changed?”
Back then, there weren’t feelings between Alex and Marcello, but I wouldn’t admit that aloud. There was always an instant connection between Alex and the other Knights. They just clicked. While with me, it was a constant struggle.
“Because she’s going to be my wife,” I said. “Mine. Not Marcello’s. Not any of you assholes. Alex is mine.”
Drake leaned forward on his elbows, his big ass body taking up too much space. “Alex doesn’t belong to you. She’s ours. The Knights. Stop pushing her away because you’re jealous of Marcello.”
“I’m not fucking jealous,” I fired back.
Sonny snorted with laughter. “The fuck you’re not.”
“We’re not here to talk about Alex and me.
So shut your fucking mouths and listen.” I sipped from my glass, set it on the table, and grabbed a cigar from the box.
“Drake got a hit on the Albanians using his AI software. But they disappeared off the map before he could chase down the lead. I expect them to list Alex for sale at the next Il Circo auction.”
“Not gonna happen,” Drake said with an intense expression on his face. He scratched the dark stubble along the corner of his jaw. “I’m working around the clock to find them.”
It was nearly impossible to track Il Circo's owners, a private club for the world’s deviants.
In Italian, it meant The Circus, and it sure as fuck lived up to its name.
It was like a traveling circus where you could bid on anyone and anything.
Like cage fights to the death? How about underage girls who wanted to sell their virginity?
Anything went at Il Circo . But they had one rule you couldn’t break.
If you listed someone for auction, you had to produce them.
Men would come looking for Alex, and not just the Albanians.
Whatever their customers requested, they gave them.
The auctions weren’t held in the exact location and were a mystery until that day.
You had to place a bid to get an invitation to the main event.
Sometimes, it was on a private island in the middle of the ocean.
Other times, they held the events in the mansions of willing hosts who paid for the honor.
I nodded at Drake. “Shut down the website when it pops up. We can’t afford to have Alex listed.”
“I’ll do my best,” he grunted.
“Your best isn’t good enough when it concerns our queen.”
“Whoever runs their site is untraceable,” Drake shot back. “A fucking ghost. I can’t trace their IP address. Not even the FBI and CIA have had luck tracking them down. Every time I get close, they crash my fucking servers.”
“You’re the tech genius, Battle. Find a way. I don’t care who we must bribe or kill to make it happen. We’re not letting predators bid on her on the Dark Web.”
“I can help with tactical planning,” Cole Marshall offered.
Cole was our newest and youngest Knight. He was only twenty-one and in his final year at York Military Academy. His family owned the school that Cole and his younger brothers had attended since childhood. Like Marcello, he had a mind for war. He could see different angles and assess the threat.
“I want you to coordinate with Marcello,” I told Cole. “He may have other ideas about how to approach this situation.”
My brother was the muscle, and I was the brains. I relied on him to view my plans through a different lens and spot any flaws.
“The Founders Society Elders issued a kill order for every member of the Kurti crime family,” I informed the group. “They have everyone looking for the Albanians. It’s only a matter of time before they resurface.”
“What about The Serpents?” Drake asked. “Have they made any progress?”
I nodded. “They found someone connected to Cal Kurti and are working their angle.”
“Such as?” Drake inquired.
“A close American friend of Cal Kurti has a taste for young girls,” I said as I blew out a puff of cigar smoke.
“He also has a raging drug addiction. The Serpents are working with our Sicilian friends to exploit that weakness. So far, it seems promising. They got a lead on a safe house that the Kurtis use in Brooklyn. We’ll see how that pans out. ”
“What are we going to do?” Finn Cormac asked. “I’m not sitting on my ass, twiddling my thumbs until they bring the fight to us again.”
“I have notifications set up,” Drake said authoritatively. “If anyone lists Alex on the Dark Web, I will know immediately.”
“And if that happens,” Bastian said, “we’re going to have a bloodbath on our hands.”
“Maybe we should temporarily move to a safe house,” Damian suggested. “We don’t need them bringing another war to Devil’s Creek.”
“Let them,” I shot back. “We’re prepared.”
“This is our home,” Drake cut in. “I don’t want that shit brought to my doorstep again. My mom has been a wreck for the past two weeks because of it.”
“It was my front door,” I pointed out. “My house they destroyed.”
“Alex isn’t safe, even at your estate,” Sonny said. “I don’t care how many men you hire.”
I shook my head and sighed. “Since when did all of you turn into a bunch of fucking pussies?”
“It’s the smart play,” Callum Cormac said as he puffed his cigar, blowing rings in front of his face. “We don’t want blood all over the streets of Devil’s Creek. Drake is right. This is where we live. Gunfire will draw a lot of attention from the surrounding towns.”
“Who fucking cares?” I rested my wingtip on my knee and leaned back in the chair, my eyes on Callum. “We own the police, the mayor, the goddamn governor. And we have Senator Marx in our pocket.”
“Kali’s dad has no real power,” Bastian challenged.
“He has enough.”
“We should talk about Kali,” Damian added. “She can help us out with Alex. She wants to come by the house for an assessment.”
I had implanted Kali Marx into Alex’s life for a reason. Kali was a trained psychologist who helped Marcello’s men with their post-traumatic stress disorder. She had a gift with soldiers, so I figured she could help Alex.
“We have a meeting with Carl tomorrow,” I told Damian. “Tell Kali to come over afterward. She can have lunch with Alex at the house.”
He nodded, then removed his phone from his pocket.
“Kali thinks we’re close to unlocking her memories,” Bastian said.
“She’s getting there,” I admitted. “It’s only a matter of time. But she needs to remember what happened to Aiden. He’s the key to everything.”
“Maybe we should do more exposure therapy,” Drake suggested. “Chasing her through the streets of Beacon Bay helped her remember stabbing you.”
“We could take her to the temple,” Sonny said with way too much enthusiasm for my liking. “That might spark something.”
I nodded in agreement. “Let’s get through this meeting with Carl. I have a feeling he’s up to something.”
“Wellington is shady as fuck,” Bastian said. “I don’t trust him.”
“Me neither,” Damian added with a sneer.
The other Knights echoed their sentiments about Carl Wellington. I’d never liked him or trusted him, not even with Alex. She wanted to believe he was her savior, her perfect Pops.
But I knew the real Wellington.
His interest was the only one he served, and if that meant sacrificing Alex to win the long game, he would do it.
He handed Aiden to me on a silver platter because he refused to accept this legacy.
There was nothing Carl wouldn’t do to preserve the future of his family. Aiden was another obstacle in his way.
“Alex isn’t speaking to you,” Sonny said to me. “Do you plan on fixing that before we lose our status with The Founders Society?”
I stamped out my cigar in the tray, blowing a cloud of smoke in his face. “You don’t know what you’re talking about, Cormac.”
“Marcello tells me everything, which means the Knights know Alex asked you for space.”
I waved my hand dismissively. “She’s mad. Alex will get over it.”
My words said one thing, but they lacked certainty. She hadn’t asked me for space even when I was at my worst. We should have been growing closer, not apart. I was royally fucking up with her, and I had no one but myself to blame.
“Without a queen, we can’t admit new Knights,” Drake said, annoyed. “This bullshit affects us too.”
“I have it under control,” I lied.
“Do you know what Carl wants to talk to us about?” Callum Cormac asked me.
I shook my head. “About the future of the Knights.”
“That can’t be good,” Bastian groaned.
“Nope. And he wants Alex at the meeting.”
“The wedding,” Drake guessed. “That’s what he wants to talk about.”
“I assume so,” I confirmed. “But something tells me Wellington is plotting against me.”
Sonny laughed. “That’s your paranoia.”
I was turning thirty at the end of the month.
My father had to transfer the Grand Master of The Devil’s Knights' power to me by midnight on my birthday. If I hadn’t fucked up with Alex and Aiden last year, I would have already become their leader.
The Charter dictated that the next Grand Master couldn’t assume the role without the new queen by his side.
I rose from the armchair and straightened my lapels, eyes sweeping the group. “Wellington refuses to give his approval to marry Alex. He’s got something up his sleeve.”
Drake’s phone dinged. He shot up from the couch and held out his cell phone. “Kurti is on the move again.”
The Knights jumped to their feet, looking to me for instructions.
“Marcello will stay with Alex,” I told them. “She’s safe here.”
“Add a few more guards outside her balcony and on her floor,” Bastian suggested. “Just in case this is a trap.”
“Text Marcello,” I told him. “But tell him to be discreet. He’s too forthcoming with Alex.”
He shoved a hand through his dark hair, sweeping it off his forehead, and removed his cell phone from his pocket to text Marcello.
With a smirk, I grabbed my guns from the table and shoved them into the holster strapped to my chest. “Let’s go hunt monsters.”
The Knights grinned in satisfaction.