Chapter 19 - Wyatt
After everything, I should feel victorious. It should be a crescendo of everything I’ve been working towards for years.
By every measurable standard, the meeting ends better than it had any right to. Even if I should’ve ended up another Lukov victim, I walk out alive and untouched. Not shot, dragged into a back room, or made to ‘disappear’.
Lily is safe. Not just alive, but also happy. She’s married, has a child, and exists in the life she chose for herself.
The very plan I built my survival on, as well as Lily’s, has dissolved in front of me without warning. Where I expect panic and dread to be, something much closer to relief fills that space.
Everything could’ve gone so much worse, and I know it, yet this chapter still doesn’t feel closed. As grateful as I am to still be alive, it feels like surrender. Surrendering what I thought I knew, leaving me with a new reality to try to swallow.
And with Roman’s demands fresh in my mind, it feels like I’m about to lose something I had no right to keep in the first place.
Keeping my posture neutral as we step outside, adrenaline still courses through me even while knowing the immediate threat has passed.
I scan the driveway despite it being gated, searching for anyone who might not belong, or for any kind of last-minute tricks from the Lukovs.
Elena walks beside me, quiet and thoughtful.
It only makes my chest ache more.
She shouldn’t be here. Not anymore.
Reaching the car, I stop and look at her. This is the part where we separate, and she gets to choose to stay as far away from me as possible, just like she has surely wanted all along.
Instead of moving, she gives me a silently questioning look, wondering why I’ve stopped.
I don’t have to look through one of the many windows to know that Roman or one of the others is probably watching the exchange. Instead, I focus on her.
“You don’t have to come back with me,” I tell her, making sure to keep my voice steady despite everything in me screaming to keep her within sight. I can’t let her see how the thought of her leaving grates on my nerves. “You’re free to go.”
As much as it hurts to say, I mean it. I hate that I mean it.
Elena faces me, searching for something beneath the surface that I don’t want her to see. She doesn’t say anything for a long moment, then, with a note of certainty, she says, “I’m coming with you.”
At that, my brain just stops. Completely malfunctions.
“What?”
“I’m going with you,” she repeats, seemingly surprised by my disbelief.
My pulse speeds up at that, and my mind tries just as quickly to catch up. I’m bracing myself, but instead of danger, it’s hope that blooms in my chest.
“You don’t have to,” I say too fast to sound natural or easy. “No one’s forcing you. You don’t—”
“I know.”
“It’s not a test. You don’t have to prove anything to me,” I add, struggling to understand why she’s even still near me when she’s been granted her complete freedom.
“I know I don’t,” Elena says again, absolutely sure.
So I wait for the catch. For the moment when she tells me her own conditions, just as she had before. But even then, none come.
Instead, she crosses her arms more casually and lifts a brow at me. Her tone leaves her much lighter than before. “I could use this deal against you. I could make my demands and get my revenge.”
I release a breath. “Yeah, you could. I mostly expect you to.”
After a beat, she shrugs. “But I’m not going to.”
For as collected as I try to be, something in me cracks at those simple words.
Even though she has every right to, she isn’t running away.
“Roman’s terms still stand, obviously, but I’ll go with you,” she says, giving me far more grace than I surely deserve. “Consider me your built-in corrections officer…and besides, I want to see that dumb cat again.”
Despite myself, I chuckle. “He’s actually very intelligent for a stray.”
“Right,” Elena muses, smiling as she continues toward the passenger side. “Then we'd better go see if he’s hungry.”
Not trusting myself to say more, I nod once. My throat tightens around everything else I want to say to her, and I get in.
As much as I can’t bring myself to admit it, having her back in the car with me means more than she could ever know.
Even if it’s hard to stomach the truth of my sister’s situation, Elena’s presence is enough to ground me through it, and now, it doesn’t feel quite so impossible.
***
The days pass in a strange kind of way. Despite the subtle tension, it feels more gentle than it had before. It’s quiet and thoughtful, like we’re both figuring out how to navigate this more equal ground.
I keep my word as best as I can, even when it’s the last thing I want to do.
Elena comes and goes as she wishes, not contending with any locked doors or anyone trailing her. She meets with her brothers, goes out to see her friends, grabs what she wants from her own place, and leaves without asking permission.
It takes every ounce of willpower I possess not to say anything when she does.
Not because I don’t want her to feel free, but because letting her out of my sight feels like inviting every possible disaster.
Like I’m tempting fate, and the universe is reminding me how little control I have after all.
Anyone could take advantage of this situation, and anybody could take her.
The thought stirs something ugly in my gut, but I force it down again and again.
I don’t interfere. I don’t touch, I don’t question, and I don’t tighten any sort of leash on her, even when my head fills with pure paranoia.
If I were to cross that line now, I’d really lose everything. The newfound peace is fragile, just as the truce is precarious. It requires my restraint, and if I’m half the man I claim to be, then I can respect it.
Going to the club with her feels foreign. I haven’t done this in a while, at least, not to do anything other than conduct business.
Still, the controlled chaos inside is familiar while music pulses through the place, and the lights stay low and intimate. It’s one of my quieter investments—one that doesn’t attract headlines or unnecessary attention. It’s easy money, and it does what I need it to.
I guide Elena through the place, making a beeline for the reserved lounge to avoid the crowd. Scanning her figure in the black dress she chose for the night, a wave of satisfaction passes through me. It doesn’t matter what she wears…she always manages to make every outfit an elegant statement.
As we sit in the plush sectional, she leans in closer to speak over the music, close enough for me to feel the warmth radiating off her. “You own this place?”
“Most of it,” I say, keeping it vague enough.
“I didn’t take you for a club-goer.”
“I’m usually not, but I have a reason to be now.”
At that, Elena smiles faintly, and it’s enough to encourage me further. The more I often I get to see that pleasant expression of hers, the better.
I order her drinks without asking, and surprisingly, she doesn’t chastise me for making the decision on my own.
Instead, she lets me, and it’s oddly cooperative for her.
When the bottle girl brings our booze over, Elena sits there with a content expression as she sips from her glass and people-watches.
Prepared to focus on her tonight, my attention is immediately splintered at the vibration in my pocket.
I have half the mind to ignore it, but with my truce with the Lukovs, I have to be ready to correspond with them at a moment’s notice. My phone vibrates again, so I sigh and pull it out, scanning the screen.
A link to a video pops up from an unknown number, and my brows furrow. That isn’t from Roman or his brothers.
Hesitant at first, my thumb hovers over it in a last-ditch effort to ignore it. But my need to know wins out.
Opening the video, everything in me goes cold as it loads instantly, and I see him there in frame.
Vito on his knees.
With his hands tied behind his back, his eyes are wide and frantic, just like they had been the night I was prepared to kill him. From the sight alone, I already know what’s coming.
Two men frame either side of the shot, one grinning into the lens while the other pokes at Vito with a sick kind of gleam in his gaze. They’re Orlando’s sons—the Grimaldi kingpin. The very man who has been testing my patience.
The one says something that’s too muffled thanks to the pounding bass around us, but a moment later, I catch one word that sets an uneasy feeling through me.
Wyatt.
Not Vic, and not the Vegas Ghost. But my name.
The gunshot comes quick and unannounced, landing right between Vito’s eyes. The moment shock glazes his features, and the crack of it punctuates the space around us, I close mine and quickly lock the screen.
“Fuck.”
Jaw clenching, I try to force back my immediate reaction for Elena’s sake. The whole point of taking her out was supposed to give us both a break from all of this, not to have it play out right beside her.
But even so, that video was a warning. I know one when I see one.
Elena doesn’t miss a beat as her brows furrow, already looking at me. “What was that?”
“Nothing.”
It’s a weak response, but all I can manage on the fly while my mind is trying to catch up with what I just witnessed.
Of course, she doesn’t buy it.
“The blood just drained from your face,” she murmurs, not afraid to be blunt about it. “I heard a gunshot.”
I should lie and deflect to keep her out of this, but for whatever reason, I don’t.
Instead, I sigh and scrub a hand down my face. “It was a video from the Grimaldis.”
Her curiosity and disbelief settle into the crease between her brows, and she leans a bit closer. “Of what?”
“Vito was executed, and they used my real name. They know.”
To my surprise, Elena’s hand brushes against my arm, pulling my gaze back to her. It’s almost instinctive, and more comforting than it should be.
“Another escalation?”
I nod.
Her eyes narrow. “And you weren’t going to tell me…why?”
As much as I want to shield her and take in the way she sits there so bravely, willing to be informed about it all, I can’t do it. She’s been brought into something she never asked to be pulled into, and yet, she isn’t unnerved. She’s used to the bad, perhaps more than I give her credit for.
“Because the more you know, the more dangerous this gets,” I tell her, well aware of the irritation burning inside my chest at the thought. I’ve only ever wanted to protect her. “You don’t need to bear the stress of it too.”
Elena scoffs, partly amused and annoyed. “That ship sailed a while ago, don’t you think?”
She’s absolutely right.
With another exhale, I nod and rub at my temple. “It certainly has. And if you must know, this means things are ramping up.”
For a fraction of a second, fear flickers in her eyes, but just as quickly, she controls it again. Despite it, her resolve snuffs it out.
“Then we’ll face what comes. You have my family backing you now, remember,” she says simply, as if it’s truly that straightforward. Then, her gaze turns a bit sharper and more expectant. “And you don’t need to keep these things from me.”
Unconsciously, I reach for her hand, savouring the heat in her palm. I give her a brief nod, both an acknowledgment and a silent promise, even if bringing someone else into the fold feels foreign to me.
As I stare at her a moment longer, able to feel the comfort that comes with her baffling allegiance to me, I know that trouble is coming. But for the first time, I don’t have to tackle it alone.