Total pages in book: 53
Estimated words: 49562 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 248(@200wpm)___ 198(@250wpm)___ 165(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 49562 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 248(@200wpm)___ 198(@250wpm)___ 165(@300wpm)
Now let the war begin …
SIX
THE DEATH OF A FRIENDSHIP
Lucca sat on the swing set, waiting.
He looked at his watch. These days, Lucca could only meet once a month, and it was thirty minutes past. He would give it a few more minutes, even though he knew Cassius wasn’t going to show even before he had driven down to Blue Park.
It would be their first time meeting since …
* * *
The second Lucca crossed the Lucianos’ home’s threshold, his cold blue-green eyes landed on Cassius.
He could see the shock in his now teenage eyes before realization dawned in them, now knowing his friend, Luke, had actually been Lucca Caruso this whole time. It was as if you could see everything Cass had ever told him that could be used against his family swim in his eyes.
The reason why Lucca was here in the first place was the last to shine through their depths, and it was as if Lucca could read the young mind.
Kat.
Anger was the last thing that flashed across Cassius’s face before Lucca turned to look at the Luciano women lining up. It took him all of five seconds to glance down the line and know she wasn’t among them. Every unmarried Luciano woman over the age of eighteen was supposed to be lined up, but there was one missing, and it was the only one who mattered. The only one who would set his plan into motion.
He might have never seen Lucifer’s daughter, but his son had sure told him enough about her. Enough for him to pass right by the line of women and the new head of the Luciano family, Dominic, to go snooping around the shabby house. Supposedly, she had baby pink hair that she dyed, and if that wasn’t a dead enough giveaway, the dead black eyes were when he found her hiding in the basement.
Offering her to Drago to marry meant any friendship and trust he had built with Cassius over the years would die in an instant, and yet …
Lucca did it, anyway.
* * *
The chains of the rusty old swing set rattled when he stood. He headed for the park exit, but his steps ceased at the silhouette that appeared in the distance.
His gaze met the eyes of the young boy he had betrayed. He knew Cass had looked up to him as if he was another brother, and yet Lucca had stabbed him in the back without a moment’s hesitation.
Over the years, he’d trained the youngest Luciano to follow his monstrous footsteps instead of his father’s, and like Lucca, who had a soft spot for his mother at that age, he had a soft spot for his sister. So, to say he had betrayed him in the worst way possible was an understatement.
Lucca went to open his mouth, but before he could form the words, Cass shook his head.
“Don’t,” he mouthed. Then, before he knew it, Lucca was watching the silhouette’s back as he walked away.
Cassius had come there for one reason and one reason only—to tell Lucca what he himself already suspected.
The death of a friendship.
Closing his eyes, he rubbed his temples, missing that his office door had quietly opened.
A soft hand brushed his hair back. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.” His eyes finally opened to see his black-haired beauty had snuck in on him. As he grabbed her, Chloe trustfully allowed herself to be drawn down onto his lap so he could hold her. He remembered how hard it had been to get to the point where he could touch her, reminding him of just how far they had come for her to be the one to initiate touch. “Just tired.”
Once she was comfortable, she lifted a fingertip to trace under his eyes. “You sure?”
Lucca was finding it harder to keep Chloe in the light and away from his darkness. He always made sure to tell her just enough to know he wasn’t a good person, but he left the details out of just how twisted he was. She knew he had been made at seventeen because of something he had done, but he had yet to tell her what exactly that was.
“You can tell me anything, you know that, right?” she said, almost reading his mind. It was her way of politely letting him know she knew exactly who she was engaged to, but Lucca knew she wasn’t quite so sure she did. To actually hear the things he had done would change the way Chloe looked at him, whether she thought so or not, because not in her wildest dreams could she think them up. Never mind if she were to witness them.
“I know,” he told her. Picking up a strand of her silky hair, he began twirling it around his finger. “Someone put their trust in me a long time ago, and I broke it.”