Mafia love

“Bastard!” I screamed from the depths of my soul.

“Once again, you are right. I was a bastard child. You seem to know me quite well. The thing is, Amelia, you are my prize. No money on earth can make up for the delicious flesh of a beautiful woman. And I get two for the price of one.”

Oh God… God.

I had to will myself not to cry. What worked and stopped me from crying was watching Millicent come through the barred doors with a mop and a bottle of disinfectant.

My blood actually boiled.

She walked in, not looking at me, and started cleaning the area around me where I’d thrown up.

Victor laughed and laughed and laughed. Then he did the most disgusting thing by pushing her and shoving her to her knees. She cried out in pain, and it was then she looked at me.

“Cleean, cleean away like you’re trying to wash away your sins.” He made a show of spi

However, while he did that, Millicent gave me a pointed look, flicked over her hand to reveal a little key, and wedged it in the crack in the floor board.

She squeezed her eyes shut and moved back before Victor could see what she’d done.

My heart started racing, beating a thousand beats per minute.

She was helping me.

“Clea

Millicent cleaned, and I realized things weren’t exactly as they seemed.

CHAPTER 11

Luc

There were no words to describe the feeling that washed over me when I went back to Raphael and saw the cleanup crew outside his house.

Inside and outside.

We’d left eight guys here, and only one had lived to tell the tale. The guy who lived was in a coma, and there was a chance he wouldn’t make it.

I’d seen this before, several times, and I hated death. I hated it in every sense. Especially death like this. Mindless, useless killing to leave devastation.

While Claudius and the guys stayed with the crew, I went to find Raphael.

He was in his office sitting by the window.

In his leather chair, he faced the window, and I couldn’t see his expression. From the slump in his shoulders I knew the weight he must have carried.

Amelia was gone, more people had died, and surprise, surprise, the rat in the house had enabled this mess.

Who was the rat? Well, I had a wild hunch now.

It grieved me to think it. It grieved me deeply to think it because if I was right—and I strongly suspected I was—I’d handed my girl over to the traitor.

Millicent.

She was the only person who should have been here and wasn’t, and Victor didn’t mention taking her. He hadn’t said anything about taking her at all.

It still didn’t add up, but there were pieces of this nightmare that were starting to fit. Some of the things the other knew could only have been delivered to them by someone who was close with us. They knew specific things. Too specific to guess.

Claudius was right. The butler or the housekeeper.

Raphael turned when he sensed my presence. He looked at me with the desolation I felt.

I closed the door and walked over to him, leaning against the window ledge, so I could face him.

Tears streamed down his cheeks, and he held a picture of Amelia in his hands. It was of her dancing.

“They took my child, Luc. I…” He rubbed his hands over his face, smearing the tears.

“I know.” I hadn’t spoken since we left the Fontaines. My voice came out in a rasp, and my throat was dry. I didn’t know how I was even able to talk or give off this calm appearance I seemed to portray.

Truthfully, inside I was dying. I was dying, and I didn’t know what to do.

Amelia, my Amelia.

What would that fucking Victor do to her? What would he do to her to get back at me?

This was the very thing I’d vowed against just the other day.

I should have taken her and fled the country. It would have been better than this. Ru

They took Gigi, and I didn’t even know if she was alive. Chances were, she wasn’t.

So, my first duty should have ben to protect Amelia at all cost.

It was fu

Money and power, that was what this was about. Money and power.

Falling in love wasn’t part of the plan, neither was finding out I was just a pawn in Raphael’s game.

A person to be used. And I didn’t even want the damn business anymore. I didn’t want it, and it was almost laughable… I didn’t want this life either.

At first, I’d told Amelia I’d change for her, but she wanted me to change for me.

I wanted that too, now more than ever. Life was more than this. Life was more than greed and wanting more money, more everything.

My life used to be get laid and get paid, get paid lots and have the finest women at my beck and call.

I shed that man I used to be from the minute I set eyes on Amelia. Right there in that restaurant as she arrested Montgomery. Then, in the weeks that followed, I took the time to get to know her, and she trusted me.

I trusted her.

I had to trust myself now to get her back. To get her back in whatever form Victor would give her to me. And… I knew he wouldn’t just hand her over either.

He’d mentioned arena, and I knew the games were just starting.

It was like some damn battle to the death.

“Millicent,” Raphael breathed, dabbing his eyes with a tissue.

I nodded. “She’s the rat, Raphael, has to be. I can’t think of anyone else who it could be. It fits. She’s not here, and there’s no mention of her.”

“Yeah. I have to confess that I suspected her after those guys broke into the library. There were no tapped phone lines, no hidden crevices for anyone to hide and see Amelia put the key in the safe in the library. Amelia and I were talking about it in the garden, and it was then I gave her the key and told her the password. She said she’d put the key in the safe in the library. At that moment, we saw Millicent, but I thought she’d just come up to us. I didn’t realize she must have been there long enough to hear what we were saying.”

“Jesus, Raphael, why didn’t you tell me that before?” Once again, he’d proven to be an asshole. Had he voiced his concerns with me, his second most trusted advisor, we could have put more eyes on Millicent. We could have stopped her from coming here.

He winced and shook his head. “It’s a hard thing to accuse someone of something like that, especially when it’s a trusted friend. Luc, she’s been in this family since before Amelia was born. I took her on to help my wife when she was pregnant with Amelia. She’s looked after Amelia ever since.

It was her who came and alerted me to my wife’s affair with Tag. Why would I think she would betray me like this?” He shook his head again and wiped more tears away. “There’s no way that I could conceive that someone like her could betray me, not like this. So many have died because of her hand in this. Helping them.”

“Why do you think she did it?”

“I don’t know. I’ve sat here going over the whole thing in my mind. I knew it had to be her because of tonight. If you guys had been here, they wouldn’t have come. You, Claudius, The Four, Saul. God, even if Marcus had been here, they wouldn’t have set foot on the premises.”