Total pages in book: 77
Estimated words: 75062 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 375(@200wpm)___ 300(@250wpm)___ 250(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 75062 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 375(@200wpm)___ 300(@250wpm)___ 250(@300wpm)
“You have no right to look down on me,” he snapped. “After everything you have done.”
“I raised you!” I snapped, getting me other foot out of the trunk. “I raised you and Nicky when mom and dad were too shitfaced and selfish to do it. I was a kid myself, but I did that. You were practically grown when I left. It wasn’t wrong for me to want a little bit of a life of my own. I—“
“Oh, there she is. Saint Cameron. Shut the fuck up. I wasn’t talking about that.”
“What were you talking about then?”
“I was talking about what you’ve been doing lately.”
Lately?
My blood ran cold as I saw the truth all over his face.
He knew.
He knew it all.
I thought I’d been so careful.
I thought we’d been safe.
Clearly, we were all mistaken.
Horribly mistaken.
Where was Massimo? And Nino and August? Were they okay? Were they being rounded up as we spoke?
I felt bile rise up my throat at the thought.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I lied, schooling my face into indifferent lines. Lucas had never been great at reading expressions, at understanding the emotions connected to them.
It felt evil doing it, but playing to his weaknesses might be the only thing that could save me. Even if it made me hate myself a little.
Clearly, something in Lucas had, I don’t know, snapped.
I couldn’t look at him as my baby brother anymore. I had to try to look at him as the enemy if I was going to make it out of this.
“Bullshit. Going around behind Colin’s back. Trying to make deals with the Calgary Family. Hiding money. Talking to the fucking mafia.”
Shit.
Shit shit shit shit.
He knew it all.
And in that moment, I wasn’t even thinking about my own safety. I was worried about Massimo if the whole organization knew that he was in town and trying to take Colin out.
“Did you really think it was them trying to contact you?”
“What? Who?”
“The Calgary Family,” he clarified.
“It wasn’t?”
Oh, God.
No.
No, it wasn’t.
I hadn’t seen anyone suspicious because there hadn’t been anyone suspicious.
But Lucas had been there.
He’d just gotten a sandwich before he went back to work.
It had been him.
Which was why it felt so weird, so open-ended. With no meeting place, no way to provide the “Calgary Family” with what they wanted from me.
“Why were you pretending to be them?”
“To prove to Colin how disloyal you were. And figure out where the money is. It isn’t yours, you know.”
“No, it isn’t mine. It was Cody’s. And he told me where it was. Not Colin. Me.”
“It wasn’t just his. It belonged to the organization.”
“I’m pretty sure the money an organization kicks up belongs to the boss of whatever that organization is,” I said, shaking my head at him.
“Kicks up. Is that a fancy new word your mafia guy taught you?”
“Who are you talking about?” I asked, feigning ignorance.
“Oh, please. You used my phone, remember. All those searches in my history after. You really were dedicated to fucking over the guy who took you in and took care of you, I’ll give you that.”
“Took me in and took care of me. Lucas, he kidnapped me. He held me captive. For years.”
“You had your own apartment that you didn’t even have to pay for.”
“That I was never allowed to leave!”
“I told him you were an ungrateful bitch. He didn’t like that,” he said, shaking his head at whatever memory that brought up.
“Colin didn’t like that?” I asked.
“He didn’t like it when anyone called you names. Cut out Larry’s tongue for it before he killed ‘em. Stood right there and watched.”
Oh, God.
Okay.
Alright.
It was not the time for guilt.
I could work through that some other time. If I made it out of this. Which was seeming less and less likely with each passing moment.
Because, clearly, Lucas was fucking insane. And insane people were pretty noxiously impossible to reason with.
“Does… does Colin know that you took me?” I asked.
“Not yet. He’s going to. He needs to.”
“Why?”
“Because he needs to know how disloyal you have been. Keeping things from him. Plotting against him. He needs to know.”
“Why?”
“What do you mean why? Because he thinks you are perfect. He’s blind to what you’ve done.”
“Why are you so loyal to Colin, Lucas?” I asked.
“What do you mean, why? He took me in. When no one else gave a fuck about me—including you—he took me in and he gave me a job and money and a place to stay.”
“He didn’t take you in. He recruited you and Nicky as a way to control me.”
“Everything is always about you.”
“Not everything, no. But in this situation, yes, yes, this was absolutely about me. If he didn’t use you and Nicky against me, he knew I would find a chance and run. He didn’t want that. Because he’s a sick, twisted guy who kidnaps and holds women against their will.”