Chapter 3
Alessa
What a clusterfuck.
I showered as soon as I got into my room to get Leo’s scent off me. His cologne and something just him was clogging my nose and hurting my heart. After I shower, I lay in bed, staring at the ceiling.
How could I have been so fucking stupid?
Someone knocks softly on the door. “Come in,” I call out, and Gage sticks his head through the door with a smile. He walks in and lies on the bed beside me, one arm behind his head, staring at the ceiling like I am.
“This isn’t your fault,” he tells me. “We’re running checks on him now that we know his real last name and everything by the last name he gave you before checks out. He was with his mom.” He looks at me. “You like him, don’t you?”
“Yeah,” I answer honestly. “But it doesn’t matter now, Gage,” I reply.
“Les, look at me,” he says gently, and I look over into his blue eyes. “He’s a fucking idiot,” he declares, causing me to laugh. “No, seriously. He got to see you naked, and he fucked it up.”
“Shut up,” I tell him teasingly. Gage is always saying stuff like that, trying to get a reaction out of me. We’ve known each other since his dad came to work for my dad when Gage was ten. He became instant friends with Ryder and me, and we’ve been inseparable ever since.
He sobers. “I get it, but what if we can make peace with the Perez’s? Can you do that?”
Gage knows what I went through with them. “No one from that time is alive anymore,” I muse. “It’s what needs to be done, and ending a feud like that will shake the foundation of the families.”
Gage nods. “In a good way,” he points out. “Your office dweller is working through everything now. We’ll have answers by morning.”
My ‘office dweller’ means Holden, my hacker.
“Stop calling him that,” I tell Gage.
“Why? He never comes out unless it’s to eat or work out with one of us. Then he drags his ass back in there like a zombie.”
“That’s where he’s comfortable.”
Gage leaps up from the bed and starts shuffling around like a zombie, arms stretched in front of him. “Must have food. Must hack shit. Must please Master.”
I throw a pillow at him. “Stop,” I say, starting to laugh.
Gage turns his grin on me, dimples on full display, leaping on the bed on his knees, making me bounce. “So, what are we doing with your prisoner downstairs?” he leans in. “Maybe we can play with him. Did you see his abs? Damn.
Yes, I saw them. Up close. Also, everything else about him.
“There will be no playing with the prisoner,” Ryder announces, entering my room. Gage and I both turn to him with a pout, causing us to crack up.
“But why?” I whine. “He’s fun to play with,” I say, waggling my eyebrows, knowing it will get a rise out of Ryder.
He points at me. “No, Queen Stabby. But I want to know the answer to your equally psychotic sidekick’s first question. What are we doing with him?”
Ryder lays down on my other side, propping his head on his hand.“I told him to tell his brothers that he’s staying with me for a few days. By that time, Holden should have some information on this situation.”
“They bought it?” he asks with a little frown line between his eyebrows.
I reach up and smooth it out. “They sounded like they did. He called Evander.”
“You know what it means if he’s lying, right?” Ryder asks.
I sigh. “Yep. All out fucking war between the Poletti’s and Perez’s. Fucking wonderful. I need to call Micah.”
Gage pops back onto his knees. “Look at it this way. His story could be completely true. Micah isn’t your real uncle; he’s your half-uncle,” he points out.
He is. Granddad Poletti stepped out on my grandma late in life, which is how Micah came to be, and only seven years older than me. But unlike Leo’s dad, if his story is true, my granddad owned up to his mistake and raised Micah as his own. My grandma was a freaking saint to deal with that.
“Even if this never happened,” I start and stare back at the ceiling. “It would have been over the minute he found out what I do.”
Ryder shrugs. “You take out the bad fuckers that the courts can’t.
If he can’t stomach that, he doesn’t deserve you anyway.
” He reaches over a gently nudges my chin to look at him.
“Let’s find out what the hell is going on and go from there.
” He kisses my forehead before standing up.
“My vote is still to kill him, though.” He gives me that grin that is all Ryder and strolls out of the room.
“I just want to touch his ass once,” Gage declares, watching Ryder walk out of the room, making us both laugh.
Gage is good at breaking the tension in a room, so I ensure he’s by my side. I knew who I wanted there from the very beginning, and we just worked together too well not to.
I reach over for my phone to look at the time, and then dial Micah’s number. It’s after midnight, but I know that he’s still awake.
“What’s wrong?” he says when he picks up.
“What makes you think something is wrong?”
“Because it’s after midnight,” he replies, and I hear a female voice murmur something in the background and the sheets rustling as Micah gets up.
“Ew,” I say with a wrinkle of my nose. “Please tell me you didn’t answer the phone while having sex.”
He chuckles, and I hear a door shut. “No, Shithead, I didn’t.” He pauses. “We just got done.”
“Micah!” I exclaim.
“What’s going on, Les?” He knows me well enough to know I don’t randomly call because I see him daily.
“We have a situation at the house. It’s under control now, but you need to know.” I pause to gather my courage. “The guy I’ve been seeing. Leo?”
“Yeah. What about him?” He’s fully alert now.
“His real name is Leonardo Perez. Half-brother to Evander and Mateo.”
“What the fuck?” Micah explodes, and I wince. “Shit, Les. How the hell?”
“It’s a long story, but he says he’s only been a part of the family for a year. Frankie paid off his mom to disappear. Evander and Mateo found him.”
“What does this have to do with you?” He asks in that voice that reminds me so much of my father. The one that sounds concerned and that he wants to murder someone at the same time.
“He says he didn’t know who I was the night we met. Mateo told him after Leo showed him a picture. Then they planned to unite the families.”
“Unite the fucking families? How the fuck do they plan on doing that after what his father…” He takes a deep breath. “Is he alive?”
“Yeah. He’s in the holding room and told them he’s staying with me for a couple of days. I need to call a meeting when we get the info we need from Holden.”
“And if he’s lying?” he asks with an edge to his voice.
“He’s a dead man,” I say without hesitation, even though I feel my heart breaking.
But I can’t let this go and make the Poletti family look weak.
My father raised me to run this family, being the only heir.
I’ve seen many families fall because their sole heir was a girl, and it is almost unheard of to hand the reins to a daughter, but my dad never cared.
“Fuck,” Micah says harshly. “Okay. We can deal with this. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Okay. Love you,” I tell him.
“Love you too, Shithead,” he replies and hangs up. He’s called me shithead for as long as I can remember, and it’s not like we have a normal uncle/niece relationship with a seven-year age gap.
I sigh and look at Gage, who is scrolling through his phone. I look closer. “Are you on my social media?” I ask with a laugh.
“Yeah,” he shrugs. “I’m leaving dirty comments under your pics.”
I look at my notifications, and sure enough, he is. “Stop,” I laugh, trying to grab his phone. He rolls off the bed, landing smoothly on his feet.
“The tabloids already think we’re dating,” he points out.
“Exactly. You’re adding fuel to the fire.”
He gives me a look that says that’s precisely what he’s doing. “No shit. Night, Wifey.”
He walks out with a laugh, leaving my door wide open. “Shut my damn door!” I yell.
“Fuck off!” he yells back.
With a sigh, I roll out of bed, slamming the door. I can hear Gage’s manic laugh down the hallway.
And they call me fucking crazy.
The following day when I woke up, I almost forgot about the predicament I found myself in. Every morning I would wake up and wait for Leo to message me good morning and he always did without fail. This morning would be the first time I wouldn’t get that text in four months.
I roll out of bed, twisting my hair into a bun.
I make my way to the shower, making the water as hot as I could stand it.
While I wash off, I let my mind wander to last night and the look in his eyes when he said he loved me.
It seemed so real; his eyes were wide open and honest, with no hint of deception.
Then I think about how he made a plan with his brothers to make me fall for him just for a fucking truce between the families.
He lied to me for months, and I never picked up on it.
Was I so blinded by him that I couldn’t see it?
I didn’t like that at all. I was usually a good read on people and their intentions, but I never caught a whiff of anything wrong coming from Leo.
He was almost squeaky clean compared to what I usually went after.
The first night I met him, we talked for hours, and he never seemed to get bored.
At the end of the night, I usually propositioned the guy for a night of sex with no strings because I didn’t do relationships.
At the end of the night with Leo, though, I found myself handing him my number and leaving it in his hands to message me the next day; he did.
It was the first morning I got that good morning baby text, and I was hooked.