Chapter 15
PAIN & MORE PAIN
LUCIAN
Idon’t remember much after she left.
Just the look on her face.
Not fear. Not anger.
Disgust.
She didn’t scream. She didn’t cry. She just looked at me like I was exactly the kind of man she left Italy to escape.
I am.
The front door opens, and I stand as I have been since she went away, watching the city wake up in front of me.
“I dropped her off.”
I don’t turn around to look at Logan. I don’t want to. I don’t know what I want…except her. I know I want her.
“I think she’s in love with you.”
He’s trying to get a reaction out of me. I don’t give him anything. But the thought that she may love me is like a hit of cocaine. It immediately suffuses me with warmth.
I imagine what it would feel like to be loved by Calista.
Heaven.
Monsters don’t go to Heaven, Lucian.
“I think you’re in love with her.”
I hear the coffee machine start. A few moments later, he hands me a cup, and drinks from his own. He stands next to me—all my brothers do.
I drink coffee. It does nothing to calm the acid in my stomach. Nothing can.
“I lost her,” I say bleakly.
“What the hell did you expect to happen?”
“I didn’t think that far ahead.”
“No shit.”
“I caught feelings.”
Logan nods, takes a long draw of coffee.
“For a while there…she made me feel like a hero.”
Logan pats my shoulder. “You think a few brooding stares and bodyguard vibes make you a hero?”
“I feel like I lied to her.”
“You did,” Logan agrees.
“I didn’t want her to know.”
Now Logan scoffs. I look at him. He’s rolling his eyes. “She’s a smart cookie.”
“Yeah.”
“You should’ve told her before you fucked her.”
I arch an eyebrow. “We didn’t…fuck.” Yet.
Logan shrugs. “You got emotionally intimate.”
We did. So I say nothing.
“She was going to find out, Lucian.”
I turn away from the city, and sit on the couch.
Frustrated, I throw the coffee cup against the window. It crashes onto the floor, spilling ceramic and coffee on the polished walnut. The window remains intact. It’s bulletproof.
Logan steps over the coffee and broken cup and goes to the kitchen.
He makes me another cup of coffee, and another for himself. He sits next to me on the couch.
“You want forever, then you gotta be upfront,” Logan declares.
I don’t know how he knows but he does. He can feel how I feel. It’s scary—but it’s also comforting.
“You think Gideon and Adrian did that before they got married?”
“You’re not them, and Calista isn’t Kendra or Cora,” Logan reminds me.
The elevator doors open again, and I look questioningly at Logan.
He grins. “I called in the cavalry.”
The cavalry smells like bacon, coffee, and no judgment.
Adrian drops a bag of food on the kitchen counter. Gideon pulls out his phone as he sits at the kitchen island.
“Glad to see you’re not dead,” Adrian says dryly, glancing at the shattered mug on the floor. He doesn’t blink at the mess.
Adrian spreads out the breakfast like it’s a battle plan—egg sandwiches, and greasy hash browns.
Logan brews coffee. By the end of this breakfast, we will all consume enough caffeine to keep a corpse upright.
The Maddox brothers like their caffeine hits.
Adrian works fast, unwrapping, stacking, and then tossing napkins onto the counter without a word. It’s efficient, thoughtless: clean up the mess, feed the machine, move on.
I stand by the kitchen island, hollowed out, staring at the food like I don’t remember how everyday things are supposed to work.
Logan sits my ass on a barstool and takes the one next to me. He nudges a sandwich toward me with a grunt that sounds suspiciously like “eat.”
Gideon gets up, gets his coffee, and leans against the wall. He continues to tap something out on his phone.
Adrian picks up an egg sandwich and demolishes it standing up.
No one talks about feelings. No one talks about Calista. Food first.
After the food is gone, Gideon speaks.
“We don’t have time for you to sulk. We have a problem,” he states. “Remo’s still out there. Now you are a target.”
“So is she,” I mutter.
Gideon’s mouth tightens into a grim slash. “She’s not my family.”
I glare at him.
Logan groans. “She’s his, Gideon. Stop testing him.”
Gideon ignores him—and me, for that matter. “I can hire someone. Shut it down. End the contract and clean up the mess before it spirals.”
Just delegate the blood, the guilt, and the responsibility.
But before I can open my mouth, Logan cuts in, “No.”
Both Gideon and Adrian look at him. So do I.
Logan pushes back in the barstool, looking unusually serious. “This isn’t something we can outsource.” He meets my eyes. “It has to be Lucian.”
He knows.
Gideon’s brows knit together, and he shakes his head. “Too risky.”
“It’s got to be him,” Logan persists.
Adrian leans in, resting his forearms on the counter. “We want the problem taken care of. It’s illogical to want to be the one to do it.”
“It’s about honor,” I reveal.
Both Gideon and Adrian make sneering sounds.
“I started it. I have to finish it.”
“Killing the head of the Cosa Nostra is not going to be easy,” Gideon warns.
“It’s dangerous. It’s a poor strategy,” Adrian remarks.
“Got no choice.” Can’t they see that?
This isn’t about Remo. It’s about Calista. It’s about me. And it’s about finding out if I’m strong enough to be the man she deserves—or if I’m just another monster she has to survive.
Gideon looks like he wants to argue—God knows he hates loose ends—but after a beat, he nods curtly.
“If you fuck this up,” Adrian says casually, shrugging into his coat, getting ready to leave, “we’re still bailing your ass out—but I’m gonna kick it hard after we do.”