Chapter 93
ALEX
I awoke the following day to sunlight on my face.
Blinking the sleep from my eyes, I sat up, my chest ready to cave from the wave of anxiety rocking through me.
For a second, I thought I was still in that horrible room until I turned to the side, where Luca was sleeping soundly. We were in his—our—bedroom.
Luca made it official by having Marcello move my belongings into his room. He’d never shared more than his body with me, and after all these years, his walls were crumbling down. My kidnapping changed him and made him realize what he could have lost.
Luca lay on top of the black silk sheets. I stared down at my sleeping devil, dressed in his usual black Dolce & Gabbana boxer briefs, shirtless and handsome.
I brushed his cheek with my fingers and kissed his forehead. “I’m sorry for running away.” Tears stung my eyes as I whispered, “I love you.”
I’d never said the words aloud.
He looked dead to the world a moment before. His eyes popped open, the same blue irises I had stared into hundreds of times. This wasn’t how I was planning to tell him I loved him.
“You better love me,” he said, his voice deep and rough.
“Luca,” I breathed.
“How did you sleep?” Luca looked at me with one eye open. “Are you feeling okay?”
“I’m fine,” I assured him. “The medicine helped me sleep. I only woke up a few times in pain.”
He sat up and hooked his arm around me.
I put my head on his muscular chest. “I meant what I just said. I’m sorry about running away. I wanted to know if my brother was still alive. I never meant for this to happen. I thought I could leave the house and return before you finished your meeting.”
“Why didn’t you just ask me? I would have told you if I knew you would do something stupid.”
“I asked you over dinner. You said you didn’t kill Aiden but refused to give me more. I had to know if he was still alive.”
“You drugged my brother, used insider knowledge to sneak out of the house, and put yourself in danger because you’re impatient.” Luca gripped my chin. “I should punish you for your insubordination.”
I moaned in response.
“You would like that too much, wouldn’t you?”
I nodded.
Luca smirked. “My cock is too much of a reward.”
I brushed my lips against his. “Maybe you should spank me for being a bad girl.”
He shook his head. “You need to take it easy for a few days.” Luca lifted my shirt to inspect my bruises and shook his head. “I told you how much danger you were in before you ran, and you did it anyway.”
“I knew about the possibility of the auction. But I thought you meant your family.”
“You are my family, Drea.” He stroked his fingers through my hair. “What am I going to do with you, woman? I need to know I can trust you with my secrets without using them against me.”
“You can. This is your fault, too. I wouldn’t have looked for answers if you told me the truth about my brother.”
“Some things you can’t know until you swear the oath.” He pressed a kiss to the top of my head. “Not yet, anyway. There are rules and rituals in my world.”
I chuckled. “You break the law every day. But the criminal underworld has a code?”
“That’s right.”
“We’re in this together now.” I sucked his bottom lip into my mouth, and he fisted my curls in his hand. “One day, you will be my husband. I will be your wife. You need to trust me with your secrets.”
Luca kissed me once more and rolled his thumb across my bottom lip. “What do you want to know?”
“What happened to Aiden? I remember him jumping off the cliff behind your house. He used a parachute, which must have been your idea because you once told me that was how you tried to run from your father.”
He chuckled at the memory. “Yeah, except your brother fucked up. He didn’t test the parachute.”
“He fell,” I said with certainty. “How did he survive the drop?”
“I saw the fall from my bedroom window. You were on the ground, screaming his name. Your mind reset to before we’d ever met.”
“How is Aiden alive?”
“I had him rushed to the nearest hospital. He was in a coma for two weeks before I visited him. Your brother screwed up with The Serpents. I smoothed things over for him, and because of that, he owed me.”
“Why did you keep him from me?”
“Your brother is one of us now.”
My eyes widened at his confession. “He’s a Knight?”
He nodded. “Becoming a Knight is a nine-month initiation process that requires no contact with the outside world. He didn’t want to be a Knight.
Aiden fought me every step of the way. His insistence on working with The Serpents led him to me.
Do you remember the night you found me at The River Styx, and I introduced your brother to Hades and Morpheus? ”
“Yes.”
“He wanted to work with The Serpents, even though your grandfather forced him to become a Knight. I had convinced Hades to give your brother a shot. I figured he would end up getting you killed if I didn’t make the introductions.
I wanted him to fail on his own, forcing him to crawl back to me for help. And he did.”
“He jumped from the cliff because The Serpents told him to do it?”
Luca nodded in confirmation. “Aiden had to show The Serpents he could go the distance. Your brother knew them for street art, but they consider their work more than art.”
“They’re killers. That’s why I tried to stop my brother from making a horrible mistake.”
“No, baby. You don’t even know half of it. There’s so much more to The Serpents your brother didn’t tell you.”
“What am I missing?”
“The Serpents make statements. Their pieces are for impact, not for show or admiration. They only spray-paint a mural when there’s a message behind it. Your brother understood that.”
“I still don’t understand.”
Luca sat up. “Do you remember when the stock market nearly collapsed a few years ago? People panicked and started selling stocks like crazy because of the Inviro scandal.”
“Yeah, I remember the scandal. A group of hackers stole the data from a tech company and used it for profit.”
“The Serpents orchestrated the data breach.”
My jaw dropped, shocked by his admission. “What does this have to do with Aiden and his art?”
“Their art symbolizes the fall of governments, companies, and the corruptness of the world. If you look closely at their pieces, they reflect the real world but with a Greek mythology influence. You, of all people, should see the true meaning. They’re engaged in economic and industrial espionage.
People hire them to take down companies, create scandals, influence the price of stocks, and the list goes on. ”
I lifted a curious eyebrow. “Have you?”
He bobbed his head. “I do what’s necessary to survive in this world.”
“Why would Aiden want to be a part of their group?”
“For such a smart woman, you miss so many things.” He kissed my cheek and smirked. “When did your brother get into street art?”
“Our last year of high school.”
“Do you remember the first piece he created to gain the attention of The Serpents?”
“Yeah. Pops had to use every connection to get him out of trouble.”
“He’s always been an activist. That’s why your brother chose street art over contemporary. It’s the reason he paints walls in public places instead of canvases. He wants people to see what they are doing to the world.”
A chill rolled down my arms. “How did I miss this? He was always outspoken and a rule-breaker, and he never thought twice about getting into trouble to get a message across. But I never thought he would want to be a part of something like…”
“Like my world?”
“Yes, exactly. He was so insistent that I did not get involved with you. And yet, he had no problem following me to Devil’s Creek. Aiden wouldn’t stop pursuing The Serpents.”
“The night he jumped from the cliff,” Luca said as he shoved a curl behind my ear, “Aiden was meeting The Serpents on the other side of the bay. He was running late for a job. They wanted him to use the parachute so there wouldn’t be any tire tracks.
It was the middle of the night. Only people with our view of the bay could see him.
But the parachute was faulty. He was lucky I saw him hit the beach, or he would have died. ”
“I had the right to know my brother was alive and in a coma.”
“Baby, you were out of your mind.” He brushed my cheek with his fingers. “You didn’t even recognize me the night you stabbed me. And the night Aiden fell, you were so far gone that not even Sonny or Marcello could reach you. It was like your brain had reset to your childhood.”
“I didn’t forget you,” I shot back. “I spent nine straight months hating you, wishing you were dead.”
He nodded. “I know, baby. But that was because your brain hadn’t healed from the trauma. That’s why I brought you back to Devil’s Creek. You needed to get better.”
“You could have told me Aiden was alive after I moved back here.”
“No, that’s not how this works. Aiden agreed to become a Knight.”
“So,” I shot back.
“We didn’t want to keep this from you. I thought it was better this way.”
I placed my hand over his heart, feeling the steady beat.
Luca's hand covered mine, and a smirk tugged at his mouth. “You said you loved me when you thought I was sleeping.”
I pressed my lips together. “It’s true. I love you, Luca.”
Luca slipped his fingers through my curls as his eyes met mine.
“I loved my mom more than anything. And when I lost her… I never thought I would feel that way again. Ten years later, you wandered into my bedroom and changed my life. I thought I would spend the rest of my miserable life without caring about anything until I met you.” He kissed me.
“I love you, Drea. I’ve loved you from the moment I saw you.
I was so afraid of my feelings that I pushed you away.
I hated my feelings for you. I thought they made me weak and reckless. ”
“Love is unpredictable. You can’t control it or contain it.”
“Show me how much you love me.” Luca moved me on top of him, careful not to touch the worst of my bruises. “Ride my cock, baby girl.”
Straddling his thighs, I fisted his cock through the slit in his briefs and shoved my panties to the side.
I gave him a few strokes, and Luca groaned, his eyes meeting mine as I lifted my hips.
His hand fell to my waist, fingers digging into my skin.
I took all of him in one swift thrust, and my eyes slammed shut from how quickly he filled me.
“Damn, baby,” he grunted. “You feel so fucking good.”
I gave him a cheeky grin. “You saying you missed me?”
He tugged on my hair in response.
I leaned forward and pressed my palm to his chest, rocking my hips to meet his. Because I was in control, I wanted to make love to him. I took advantage of this moment and lost myself in him.
I kissed his lips, sucking his bottom lip into my mouth, and he parted my lips with his tongue.
My body felt as if it were on fire. I was so close to my orgasm, chills rolling down my arms as a wave of heat swept over me.
Luca pumped his cock into me, taking control of our orgasms as they spilled out of us, one after another.
I came hard and fast, Luca right after me. We kissed long after our bodies stopped trembling. He bit my bottom lip, tugging on my skin with his teeth. I rolled off him and lay on my side, staring at my handsome Devil.
With a wicked smile, he reached into the drawer beside his bed and pulled out a small box. Cracking open the black box, which held a massive yellow diamond, he knelt on the mattress.
“Drea, you’re the only person who makes my black heart beat. I can’t live without you. Marry me.”
I moved in front of him, my heart slamming into my chest. “Say the words.”
He raised an eyebrow.
“You know which ones.”
“What binds us will destroy us.” Luca lifted the diamond from the box. “Be my wife, my queen. Take your rightful place beside me.”
I glanced at the round-cut diamond that was at least thirty carats. It was his mother’s ring. I grew up dreaming of becoming like Evangeline Franco, and now… I was following in her footsteps.
“Yes,” I whispered. “I’ll marry you.”
He slipped the ring onto my finger.
Then he threaded his fingers through my curls, crushing my mouth with a passionate kiss.
I pushed him onto the mattress and straddled his thighs.
We deepened the kiss, our tongues fighting for power over the other.
Everything was a game with us. Neither of us would ever relinquish complete control, forcing the other to assert their dominance.
His hands slid down my back and over my ass. He gripped me with the same hunger I craved. The animal came out to play. Rocking my hips into his growing erection, I sank my nails into his neck and ripped a groan from his lips.
“I can’t wait to make you my wife, Mrs. Salvatore,” he whispered.