Chapter 56 - Lexi
FIFTY-SIX
LEXI
The drive is quiet, silent even, but I don’t mind it.
When I was locked in the cell with nothing but my own thoughts and insecurities, I didn’t think I’d ever be able to handle the lack of noise again, but I’m safe now.
Colten won’t let anything happen to me, and if the way Nico is looking at Laken is anything to go by, he’s not going to allow any harm to come to her either.
We’re ushered out of the car and into the elevator, two huge bodies bracketing us right up until the moment the doors slide open and a fluffy gray feline is clawing at my leg.
I huff out a laugh, bending over slightly to lift Pancake into my arms. “Did you miss Mama?” I murmur, burying my face into her soft fur. I’m rewarded with a headbutt and a purr, a sound I didn’t know if I’d ever hear again. “My sweet girl.”
Laken reaches for Pancake, giving her a scratch between the ears, which instantly puts her at best friend status.
Honestly, I wish being human was more like being an animal. Things seem so much simpler.
I don’t allow her out of my arms until we reach the couch, where Mom and Riley sandwich me between them, tears rolling down their cheeks, and I have no choice but to let Pancake down, or she would be crushed.
“Thank God you’re okay.” Mom sniffles, her hold on me tighter than any hug I can remember from her.
“I’m okay,” I say softly.
“You can’t do that to me again!” Riley reprimands. “I just got a sister I actually like, you can’t go and leave me.”
I scoff. “You love your sisters, you just don’t have anything in common with them.”
“Exactly!”
I shake my head but allow myself to melt into their embrace.
These are the moments I thought I’d lost forever. When I was lying on the concrete floor, sweating out whatever the hell they drugged me with, I was preparing myself to never be held by someone I love again, and I vowed to myself that I’ll never take it for granted again.
I’ve wasted too much time, and I have no intention of wasting another second.
I glance over Mom’s shoulder to where Laken stands awkwardly with Nico a few feet behind her, looking at the girl like a lost puppy.
Good lord, does he have it bad.
I’m happy for him. He deserves to find his perfect match.
“This is Laken,” I say. “Laken, this is my mother, Mary, and my sister-in-law-slash-best friend, Riley.”
Mom doesn’t hesitate to tug the perfect stranger into her arms, giving her the motherly hug Laken clearly needed if her rough sobs are anything to go by.
There’s nothing like the safety of a mother’s arms, regardless of whether they’re your mother’s.
“Lancaster?” Riley murmurs to me quietly, and I nod in confirmation.
There are more questions in her eyes, but she doesn’t voice them, instead pulling me against her.
“I really need you to never do that again,” she murmurs, emotion rife in her voice. “I don’t want to be stuck putting up with Cruz by myself.”
A watery laugh escapes me. “I’m surprised you didn’t kill him being stuck alone in another country for weeks.”
“It was rough.” She smirks, but she and I both know that Cruz is everything to her, and although they had a rocky start to their marriage, they’re now the happiest couple I’ve ever met.
Colten wraps an arm around my waist and tugs me against him, pressing a kiss to my temple. “It’s going to be a while before I can let you out of my sight.”
A smart-ass response plays on the tip of my tongue, but I swallow it. Because honestly, I doubt I’m going to be okay with being anywhere other than right here for the foreseeable future, especially when Grant and Jay are at large.
“What are you going to do with your stalking tendencies if I’m always with you?” I laugh softly.
“Oh, I’m sure I could get creative.”
The doctor comes and goes, declaring both Laken and me healthy other than some dehydration. He took some blood from each of us to identify what we were drugged with, but he didn’t seem concerned.
It’s not until he’s gone that Colten and Nico relax enough to sit down.
Cruz has Riley in his lap, not able to let her get more than a few feet from him.
Today was hard on all of us, and the evidence of that is going to stick around for a while.
“Are you up to talking about it?” my brother asks carefully, causing Colten’s body beneath mine to tense.
He dragged me into his lap when the doctor was here, knowing needles are not my jam, and he hasn’t let go since.
“It can wait,” Colten says quietly.
I meet Laken’s eyes on the couch across from us. She’s curled up with a pillow in her lap, freshly showered and wearing a pair of my sweatpants and the matching hoodie. Nico sits on the cushion beside her, careful not to let any of his body touch her.
If anyone tells me men can’t control their urges, I’m going to point toward the possessive Mafia boss in front of us, desperately trying to respect her personal space despite his need to be close to her.
She gives me a slight nod, answering the silent question.
She knows more than I do. I was only with them for twelve hours, she was with them for weeks.
“Grant Spellings was the one who kidnapped me.”
Cruz tenses, his body going rigid. “He approached me for your hand in marriage last year.”
“I know, he told me. He couldn’t understand why you weren’t happy to sell me off like cattle to a man associated with human trafficking.
” I roll my eyes. “Apparently, he’d had his eye on me for a while before he approached you, but it was when I registered for the matchmaker that it set his plan into motion.
He was rejected because his family’s dealings disqualified him from being matched, and he believes that Mafia families should go back to the good old days when they dealt with their own arranged marriages. ”
Mom flinches. She and Dad were an instance of one of those arrangements, and she dealt with over two decades of abuse and disrespect.
“He said he tried to hack into the system to make sure I didn’t match with anyone, but Colten had beaten him to it.” I glance at the man beneath me, who doesn’t even have the good sense to look guilty.
He shrugs. “I did what I had to do.”
I shake my head and turn back to everyone else.
“I’m not clear on what their plan was. Laken might have some more information, but from what I could tell, the families who are not eligible for matches are beginning to rebel against the idea of the matchmaker because they’re being shut out of relationship building, et cetera. ”
“Maybe they shouldn’t be such shitty humans then,” Riley mutters.
Laken swallows, her body bleeding tension. If I thought they would listen, I would have already asked everyone to leave, but they want to make sure I’m okay, and seeing as both our captors are missing, we need to be prepared for retaliation.
“Jay is from the Taylor family in Baltimore. We’ve known each other for a long time, but I never gave him the time of day, and Dad never thought we could benefit enough from pairing me with him. He’s been holding out for a bigger family to show interest in me.”
My heart aches for her, for the woman in front of me who clearly isn’t going to be given a choice in who she marries. No one deserves that.
Nico stares at her like he’s seeing her for the first time, and I can almost see the gears turning in his head. He’s trying to work out what he can offer for her hand.
“Dad signed me up for the matchmaker recently, but I haven’t been fed into the algorithm yet.
He’s been negotiating with them to ensure only men he deems worthy are presented to me as options.
” She shakes her head on a sigh. “I don’t think he quite grasps what their mission actually is, but I know better than to argue with him.
“Jay got word of it somehow, and he flipped. Called Dad a hundred times demanding my hand, called me almost hourly, and somehow every time I changed my number, he miraculously got my new one. He was always one step ahead.”
Colten’s phone vibrates across the arm of the chair, and he tenses when he sees the number. He looks up at Laken. “It’s your dad.”