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Chapter 41
Leda
I couldn’t breathe. In a way, I was always expecting this day to come. But it was still surreal to actually experience it.
“Are you sure?” I asked immediately, my heart jammed into my throat. “What else was on the list?”
“Just coordinates.” Lucas’s jaw clenched. “I checked every single one. They were just left there at the shop, and something tells me that it might have been on purpose. This place was on the list.”
Adrian knew where we were. We knew the day was coming, but I hadn’t expected it to be like this.
“So he’s coming.” I said. “Tonight?”
“Tonight, tomorrow, I don’t know for sure,” Lucas responded, rubbing a hand over his face. “But we won’t stick around to find out.”
I knew he hadn’t been sleeping well, and right now, he looked so exhausted that I wanted to force him to put his head in my lap so he could catch a few minutes of rest. We both felt like crap these days.
“The way I see it, Nico’s is still the safest place in all of New York. Place is a fortress and crawling with NYPD.”
I turned my attention away from Lucas, sucking in a breath. Lucas wasn’t wrong. But this didn’t feel right. It felt too… convenient. There must be another angle at play here. There must be something that we weren’t seeing. But right now, I couldn’t think clearly.
“You aren’t leaving me there,” I told him, turning my attention back to Lucas. “Let’s go ahead and make that clear.”
Lucas wouldn’t meet my eyes, but it didn’t matter. I wasn’t going to just watch him walk out of my brother’s penthouse without me.
“Lucas,” I continued. “I want to hear it from you.”
“Fine,” he growled, clearly not happy with it. “I won’t leave you.”
I wasn’t so sure I believed him, but it was enough for now.
“Slow down,” Lucas said to the driver. “The last thing we need to do is draw attention to us.”
“Yes, Don,” the driver replied, immediately cutting the speed in half.
I reached over and grasped Lucas’s hand in mine, squeezing it. “It’s going to be okay, Lucas.”
He didn’t look at me but squeezed it back, a small measure of comfort in this crazy time. We held hands all the way to the penthouse, and I let out a slow breath as I saw my brother’s building, seemingly no different than the last time I had seen it.
“Pull onto the side street,” Lucas replied. “And keep the SUV running.”
“Yes, Don,” the driver repeated, doing exactly what he was told.
I felt my heart start hammering in my chest as he guided the SUV to the curb, and Emil hopped out. I half expected to hear gunfire, just knowing that my father and Adrian had every place scouted out, but when nothing happened, I swallowed hard.
Maybe we outsmarted them, thinking that we were going to go to one of Lucas’s other places and not my brother’s.
Don’t be ridiculous.
Lucas opened the door and climbed out before reaching in for me. “Come on,” he said urgently. “It’s safe right now.”
Right now.
That didn’t assure me too much, but it was the best we had going right now. I took his hand, and he helped me onto the sidewalk, the cold night air carrying a hint of what could only be described as a New York City smell. I had heard far too many tourists talk about how the city had a distinct smell when they visited, but to me, it was exactly what it was supposed to smell like.
Lucas didn’t let go of my hand as he guided me around the building, with Emil leading the charge in case we were going to be attacked suddenly. There was no one on the streets despite the still early hour, with most businesses shut down for the evening. In fact, it was almost eerily silent, and I shivered, glancing around to see if anything looked weird.
“Good evening,” a uniformed NYPD officer said as he held open the front door to the building.
