“Yeah. Just think about it, okay? Lukas can be anasset.” She places her hand on top of Levian’s. “And Levy said he’ll support you if you want to become leader.”
I narrow my eyes at him. “Why would you do that?”
“Because you’re Alina’s brother, who she loves dearly and talks about all the time.”
“Guilty as charged.” She laughs.
I don’t mean to, but a smile rips out of me as I feel a weight lifting off my shoulders.
I wasthe one who wheeled Alya down the aisle amongst everyone’s whispers.
Their opinion didn’t matter anyway, because Alya demanded I do it, and what Alya wants, Alya gets.
My father slapped me for being useless and said he’d deal with me for everything—running away from home and ditching the marriage. However, his top priority was to save face and his alliance with Boston. My bride-to-be wasn’t keen on this marriage either, so Yaroslav and Markov hastily facilitated Alina and Levian’s marriage.
He didn’t care that I walked Alina down the aisle, mostly because I know that motherfucker is embarrassed by her disability. I’m glad I didn’t see him since he was called out for an emergency during the reception.
Good fucking riddance.
After I gave Levian a lecture on how to take care of Alya and made sure she left for her new home safely, I drove back to the mansion from the airport with Cyrus.
Now, he’s also disappeared, seeming preoccupied with a new “project,” as he called it. Honestly, I feel sorry for whoever is the subject of his project. I feel more sorry if thatsubject is that nerdy dude who looked like he was peaceful and completely disconnected from our world.
No, seriously, Cy has changed lately. At the reception, I caught him sitting in a corner, wearing a manic expression, staring at a photo that had been ripped in half, then glued back together.
In it, there was a younger version of him, maybe thirteen, with his arm thrown over the shoulder of a guy in frameless glasses. And lo and behold, it was the nerdy-looking guy Cy’s been stalking in the library. The guy looked almost the same, even though the picture is several years old.
Cy, however, seemed completely different. For one, he was smiling, so wide that his eyes were half closed. In all the years I’ve known him, I’ve never, and I meannever,seen Cy smile that wide.
He hid the picture as soon as he saw me snooping, then waved me off when I tried to ask questions about his past that he keeps under lock and key.
Anyway, Cy’s current location doesn’t matter, because all I want to do is go to Vaughn.
Sure enough, when I turned on my phone, I was bombarded with notifications. He called me fifty-seven times and sent me a string of texts. At first, they were angry, then pleading, then he threatened that I better not get married or he’d ruin it.
But before I could reply to him, or better yet, fly back to that peaceful nook in the mountains, Lukas asked me to come to the lower levels.
Now, I don’t usually listen to Lukas’s demands, but after that conversation with Alya, I do head to that godforsaken place. It’s to my and Alya’s benefit not to be targetedby Lukas. Dad is already a hassle as it is. Add a power-hungry brother to that, and it’s chaos.
Well, at least Alya has a husband who seems to care about her, so we’re safe in that regard, but I still wouldn’t trust Lukas not to go after her in his quest for power.
The men stationed in front of the door look…different. They’re not the usual goons my dad uses, though Vaughn did say he killed many of them.
For me.
That rule-stickler guy brought his parents and the elites in New York with him and broke into the Chicago mafia leader’s residence just to getmeout.
“I’d do it again in a heartbeat,” he said when I asked if he’d thought of the consequences.
And now, my chest hurts because it was such a shitty idea to tell him goodbye in a letter. Hopefully, he doesn’t hate me too much.
The new goons-in-chief bow upon seeing me and even open the door for me.
I raise a brow. “You guys get a personality transplant? Or maybe you don’t want me to chew your body parts off?”
They say nothing, and I step into the dungeon, my muscles tightening and my ribs protesting at the memories of the last time I was here.
I place a hand in my pocket. My wedding tux doesn’t feel so suffocating now, but I did throw the bow tie and jacket somewhere during the reception as I carried Alya in my arms and danced with her. She was giggling so hard, and I saw Mama’s softness in her eyes.
