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I was doing it to counter Lucian Morelli’s.
Tristan was churning things over just like I was; I could see the cogs whirring in his brain.
“Blue knows,” he said after a quiet few minutes. “Blue who Lucian Morelli knocked unconscious after charging in like a maniac to find out where you were.”
“So if we shut Blue up . . . that would help, right?”
Tristan shook his head, jabbing a finger at me. “Nah, Elaine. Don’t you dare. Don’t you fucking dare. If anything happens to Blue, I swear to God, I’ll tell your family myself.”
I forced a smile, black humor in the despair.
“Seems you’re falling for him then. Who’d have thought it? Both of us losing our hearts to our lovers in the same crazy whirlwind around us.” I managed to laugh. A bitter laugh. “I wasn’t thinking about wiping him out, I was thinking of you talking to him.”
He didn’t force a smile right back, and he sure as fuck didn’t laugh.
“This isn’t the same crazy whirlwind, and Lucian fucking Morelli isn’t your fucking lover. He’s the man who wants to destroy you and your whole damn bloodline.”
I didn’t argue with him, because what would be the point? There was no reason that could possibly counter the fact that the Morellis despised the Constantines, and destroying us all meant more to them than a mountain of joy ever could.
Even so, with my ass still hurting, and my pulse still racing, I couldn’t believe Lucian Morelli wanted nothing more than to kill me.
It wasn’t my head that wouldn’t believe it . . . it was my heart.
It was my heart that believed Lucian wanted more from me than destroying every sliver of life in my body and my soul to match.
It was my heart that believed Lucian had saved me for a reason . . . more of a reason than saving my pain all for himself, which he did – he wanted my pain all for himself – but it was more than that.
It was my heart that believed that maybe, just maybe, Lucian Morelli could love me back. One day, in a whole other world, in a whole other time, maybe, just maybe, Lucian Morelli could love me back.23LucianMy parents were eating when I sat myself down at the dining table. My mother gave me a smile, but my father barely looked at me, placing his cutlery down neatly at the sides of his plate as he cleared his throat.
“Leave us,” he said to the butler, and old man Michael scurried away with a bow.
It was then that he met my eyes, and they were as savage as I’d ever seen, even sheened with the chill of calm I’d come to know so well.
I returned his calm with a chill of my own as I pulled a foot up onto my knee and leaned back in my seat.
“I’m back in the office tomorrow,” I told him. “I had some unexpected events to attend to. Nothing more.”
My father wiped his fingers on his napkin, then dabbed his lips. The pause in him spoke volumes, and I looked at him afresh after years of barely registering the appearance of the man before me. Bryant Morelli was still a handsome beast, and I was the eldest in his footsteps. His dark features were deep enough to swallow everything around him, and his demands on those in his life were hard enough to cripple. They always had been. He’d taught me to be every part the monster I’d grown to be. And there was more. He knew the full extent of my icy coldness, in a way that nobody else had ever seen.
He knew me. All of me. Even the deepest secrets. The deepest strengths and weaknesses, both entwined.
Secrets snake through the depths of every family bond, and ours was the very depths of the hiss and snare.
My mother looked unsteady as she picked at the food on her plate, caught up in our unspoken tension while struggling with her love for both sides. I was her son, but my father was her husband, the man she’d loved above all others for the biggest part of her life.
The battle in her was lost for me. Father’s side held more power in her heart. Sarah Morelli hated the Constantines almost as much as he did. Almost.
“You had some unexpected events to attend to, did you?” he repeated with a scowl. “Unexpected events such as druggie bitch Elaine Constantine by any chance?”
I didn’t lower my stare. “I know you’ve been speaking with Trenton.”
“Just as well. Trenton is concerned about family business and reputation. It appears that you haven’t been quite so loyal, or smart.”
I scowled back at him across the table, the original rage and purpose restored in my heart. “Our family reputation will never reach its peak unless we take a final stand against theirs. Someday, somehow, we’re going to have to strike at the heart of them and destroy them a piece at a time. I want that day to come soon.”
