Chapter 69
LUCA
The vein in my neck clawed its way out of my skin. My heart had only raced this fast when I’d taken a life. That was a high unlike any other. And when I fucked Alex, she’d always made me feel. She made my black heart beat and balanced out the darkness inside me.
She left with Marcello.
And I let her.
Because I was a fucking asshole who gambled her pussy. The Knights had given me shit for letting Marcello touch her before Legare . So I came up with Capture the Queen, a fucking joke to appease them. It wasn’t a tradition like I’d told Alex.
Then the lights came on. I saw Alex on top of my brother, his cum dripping from her pussy.
She let him do it.
Him .
Inside her.
I pounded my fist against the cushion and downed the rest of my scotch. My head buzzed from all the alcohol. I was drunker than usual, but fuck, it was my thirtieth birthday. I figured I should celebrate with a bang.
I wanted to kill someone.
Choke them to death.
Paint the town with blood.
Maybe it would help—just one kill. I needed a release to quell the anger surging through my veins. Alex and Marcello . I wanted to hurt both of them, make them bleed. Watch them suffer.
I shot up from the chair and threw an empty tumbler across the room. It hit the wall above the fireplace. The glass shattered, pieces falling like snow.
“What the fuck?” Sonny groaned. He shook a sliver of glass off his shoulder. “Watch it, bro. You don’t need to take out your anger on us. Marcello won the game. Just let it go already.”
“Fuck off, Cormac.”
“She better not leave because of this,” Sonny shot back. “You keep fucking shit up with Alex.”
I leveled him with a glare. “Do you want to die tonight, motherfucker? Because I’m in the killing mood.”
“He’s right,” Bastian added. “If Alex runs again, we can’t induct any new members. We need her.”
The Knights had already bled for Alex and would give their lives for their queen. Even her brother had committed heinous acts for her.
“You waited seven years to fuck her?” Cole Marshall asked me with laughter in his tone.
I gritted my teeth. “Does it fucking matter, dickhead?”
Cole smirked, shoving a hand through his dark hair. “I would have locked that shit down in minutes.”
“The fuck you would have,” I shouted. “Listen to you, young buck. Do you even have hair on your balls yet? You wouldn’t know what to do with a woman like Alex.”
Everyone laughed at Cole.
Fuck him .
“Just sayin’,” Cole muttered. “Seven years. Damn.”
“Not like it’s any of your business,” I snapped, “but we had a deal. Rules. You can’t pay for pussy that good. She was worth the wait.”
“And Cello’s getting it for free,” someone mumbled.
Sonny . He had a nickname for everyone.
Another person snickered. “Lucky bastard.”
“I want to see the trick she does with her tongue,” another Knight said.
Rage bubbled up inside me, spinning out of control. Any minute, I would lose my fucking mind. Kill someone—all of them.
“The next person to mention Alex’s pussy gets a bullet in the skull.” I reached for the gun on the table beside me. “Don’t fucking test me. Not tonight.”
I glanced around the room. Dozens of eyes were on me, observing me like a monkey in a cage. I felt like a fucking animal.
“If anyone else wants to say something, fucking say it.”
Drake drank from a bottle of Heineken, his eyes on me. “We should talk about putting a tracking device on Alex. She’s going to run after this.”
“I’ll fix it,” I assured him. “Her pretty ass isn’t going anywhere. Trust me.”
“As a precaution,” Drake countered. “We can’t afford to take any chances.”
I nodded.
“She’s too important to us… and The Founders Society.”
“We’re not having this conversation in mixed company, Battle.”
He knew better than to bring up sensitive information in front of whores. They’d all signed non-disclosure agreements, but I didn’t trust anyone.
“Think about it,” Drake insisted.
“Enough.” I waved him off. “We can talk tomorrow.”
I had to fix this mess.
Some Knights went back to fucking the Alex lookalikes.
Most of them had different hair colors, but all the girls had the same curvy bodies, plump lips, and curly hair.
I did that purposefully to make it harder to tell the girls apart.
I thought I would find Alex in time, but I fucked up.
None of the Knights were supposed to fuck her if they captured her.
Fucking Marcello.
That asshole.
Pain ripped through my chest, squeezing my heart so fucking hard I struggled to catch my breath. It nearly killed me seeing her on top of Marcello. She wore his red tie around her neck, her big tits bouncing in his face, his hands on her ass.
Mine .
She was fucking mine.
And I chased her away.
Again.
Because you’re a piece of shit .
You never deserved her.
Kali shook her head as our eyes met from across the room. Naked, with her pale skin covered in bruises, she glared at me. She was thin, too bony for me. I liked girls with an ass to grab, tits to fuck.
When we first met, Alex was skinny like Kali. But after she escaped her psychopathic mother, she put some meat on her bones. I loved Alex’s body and worshiped her whenever we were together.
And she left me.
For my brother.
It’s your fault, asshole.
Deal with it.
I wondered if she would show him the trick I liked, the one she did with her tongue. Did he like it? Was she letting him fuck all of her pretty holes? Did she come as hard for him as she did for me?
Not knowing wrecked me.
I swiped an open bottle of Macallan from an end table and gulped it down. It burned as the scotch slid down my throat. I needed to hurt, to feel something, anything.
Kali gave me another disappointed look that heated my skin.
“Don’t look at me like that,” I growled.
Her nose wrinkled with disgust. “Why did you let her leave?”
She leaned forward, making no effort to cover her small tits.
Her nipples were hard and had black and blue marks around the areola.
Like me, Bastian and Damian enjoyed inflicting pain.
My brothers fucked her up daily, like two animals fighting over their favorite chew toy.
And Kali was the perfect conduit for their madness.
“You could have stopped her,” Kali challenged. “She only left because she doesn’t think you care.”
“You don’t know shit,” I snapped.
“She wanted you to go after her. Why did you let her go?”
“Because Marcello won.”
I wrapped my hand around the bottle of Macallan so hard I thought it would shatter. And I hoped it would, so I could feel the pain.
Pain is weakness leaving the body.
Let it go.
I narrowed my eyes at Kali. “If anyone else had captured our queen, they would be with her now.”
Was that true, though?
Fuck, no .
I would have killed another man. So why was I sharing her with Marcello? Because he would take care of her and treat her the way I never could. My girl was safe in his arms, but knowing that did not lessen my anger.
Why was I doing this?
To hurt her.
Sadist.
Hurt me.
Masochist .
I was so fucked up that no medical diagnosis could cover all of my issues. My father had taught me to welcome pain and learn how to control it before it consumed me.
I didn’t build things.
I broke them.
I broke us.
All because I was losing my fucking mind.
Marcello saved her.
Not me.
He deserved her.
You owe him .
I pushed them together, letting this happen because I wanted to protect her from the Albanians. They were coming for her soon.
“Luca,” Kali muttered. “You need to stop doing this to yourself. Stop with the games and tell her how you feel.”
Nothing.
I feel nothing.
Dead on the inside.
A black hole in place of my heart.
“Shut the fuck up.” I set the bottle on the table. “Stay out of my business, Kali.”
I’d known Kali since our senior year of high school. Most of the time, she was easygoing and never gave me shit. She usually had good advice about Alex. But I hadn’t forgotten the three years we spent looking for her after she ran from my brothers. Otherwise, she was like family.
“You made it our business by inviting us to this party.”
Stop challenging me, woman.
“It’s one night. She’ll come crawling back to me tomorrow.”
Alex always came back to me. Even when I was an unbearable asshole, she still wanted me. Took my abuse. She knew who owned her body, heart, and soul.
“I don’t know about that,” Kali hissed. “This was low, even for you. She’s going to be your wife.”
My gaze shifted to Damian, then Bastian, my top lip quivering. “Get her out of here before I strangle her.”
They left without another word, knowing better than to challenge me when I was losing fucking control. My hand twitched from a tremor that made my left hand unsteady. This wasn't good. Something I’d gotten rid of years ago. In this state, I was a danger to everyone in this room—even myself.
You’re insane, motherfucker .
I gripped the edge of the chair to steady my hand and took another sip of scotch. My eyes darted to Drake. “Turn up the music.” Then I glanced at Sonny, my hand raised. “Get over here with the blow.”
Drake reached for a remote on the table beside him. Seconds later, rap music cranked through the speakers. The lights dimmed. Drinks and drugs flowed throughout the room.
I wanted to be numb.
Dead to the fucking world.
“Venom” by Eminem rocked through the room. I loved this fucking song. Dropping into an armchair, I put my foot on the coffee table. Sonny and Drake moved to the couch beside me with another bottle of scotch and a glass plate of coke.
“ I said knock knock, let the devil in ,” I mouthed Eminem’s words, bobbing my head to the beat.
The Devil had possessed my ass a long time ago. I needed an exorcism to rid myself of my demons. Nothing could cleanse my soul after all the sins I had committed.
Drake slid the bottle in front of me, and I took a long sip of my favorite scotch. The burn. I loved it.
Sonny handed me a rolled-up hundred-dollar bill with a smirk. “Happy birthday, asshole.”
With a wink, I took the money from him. I leaned forward to snort a line and went back to not giving a fuck.
Dead.
Numb.
A blonde with big tits danced at the center of the room. From this angle, she looked like Alex when she swayed her hips.
But she wasn’t Alex.
No one could replace her.
No amount of drugs, alcohol, or pussy could fill the hole in my chest. Alex was my end game, plain and simple. Neither of us could escape fate.
Tuning out the world, I lay my head back against the chair, sipped from the bottle of scotch, and stared up at the ceiling, heart racing.
She would forgive me.
My girl always did.
But would I forgive myself?
She’s upstairs.
Go get her, dumb ass.
Tell her how you feel.