“Ew,” I say with a wrinkle of my nose. “Please tell me you didn’t answer the phone while having sex.”
He chuckles, and I hear a door shut. “No, Shithead, I didn’t.” He pauses. “We just got done.”
“Micah!” I exclaim.
“What’s going on, Les?” He knows me well enough to know I don’t randomly call because I see him daily.
“We have a situation at the house. It’s under control now, but you need to know.” I pause to gather my courage. “The guy I’ve been seeing. Leo?”
“Yeah. What about him?” He’s fully alert now.
“His real name is Leonardo Perez. Half-brother to Evander and Mateo.”
“What the fuck?” Micah explodes, and I wince. “Shit, Les. How the hell?”
“It’s a long story, but he says he’s only been a part of the family for a year. Frankie paid off his mom to disappear. Evander and Mateo found him.”
“What does this have to do with you?” He asks in that voice that reminds me so much of my father. The one that sounds concerned and that he wants to murder someone at the same time.
“He says he didn’t know who I was the night we met. Mateo told him after Leo showed him a picture. Then they planned to unite the families.”
“Unite the fucking families? How the fuck do they plan on doing that after what his father…” He takes a deep breath. “Is he alive?”
“Yeah. He’s in the holding room and told them he’s staying with me for a couple of days. I need to call a meeting when we get the info we need from Holden.”
“And if he’s lying?” he asks with an edge to his voice.
“He’s a dead man,” I say without hesitation, even though I feel my heart breaking. But I can’t let this go and make the Poletti family look weak. My father raised me to run this family, being the only heir. I’ve seen many families fall because their sole heir was a girl, and it is almost unheard of to hand the reins to a daughter, but my dad never cared.
“Fuck,” Micah says harshly. “Okay. We can deal with this. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Okay. Love you,” I tell him.
“Love you too, Shithead,” he replies and hangs up. He’s called me shithead for as long as I can remember, and it’s not like we have a normal uncle/niece relationship with a seven-year age gap.
I sigh and look at Gage, who is scrolling through his phone. I look closer. “Are you on my social media?” I ask with a laugh.
“Yeah,” he shrugs. “I’m leaving dirty comments under your pics.”
I look at my notifications, and sure enough, he is. “Stop,” I laugh, trying to grab his phone. He rolls off the bed, landing smoothly on his feet.
“The tabloids already think we’re dating,” he points out.
“Exactly. You’re adding fuel to the fire.”
He gives me a look that says that’s precisely what he’s doing. “No shit. Night, Wifey.”
He walks out with a laugh, leaving my door wide open. “Shut my damn door!” I yell.
“Fuck off!” he yells back.
With a sigh, I roll out of bed, slamming the door. I can hear Gage’s manic laugh down the hallway.
And they call me fucking crazy.
The followingday when I woke up, I almost forgot about the predicament I found myself in. Every morning I would wake up and wait for Leo to message me good morning and he always did without fail. This morning would be the first time I wouldn’t get that text in four months.
I roll out of bed, twisting my hair into a bun. I make my way to the shower, making the water as hot as I could stand it. While I wash off, I let my mind wander to last night and the look in his eyes when he said he loved me. It seemed so real; his eyes were wide open and honest, with no hint of deception. Then I think about how he made a plan with his brothers to make me fall for him just for a fucking truce between the families. He lied to me for months,and I never picked up on it. Was I so blinded by him that I couldn’t see it?
