Lucien (The Marchesi Family 1)

Angelo glared at me. “Don’t fucking pin this on me. You’re the one that walked out without giving me any instructions except to do exactly what you would. Guess what? I’m not you.”

“Right. You’re the one who lets Devil get away with whatever the fuck he wants.”

Devil slammed his hand down on the desk. “No. This isn’t Angel’s fault. It’s not Lucien’s either. I had an opportunity, and I took it. I made a decision, and I maintain it was a fucking good one.”

“A good decision? To take Damian’s wife and kids? To bring them here to our fucking house?”

“Where else did you want me to take them? The office?”

“Fuck no.”

“Maybe I should have tied them up at the warehouse.”

I was going to kill him. “You could have left them the fuck alone. We have plenty of other tactics to use against Ricci.”

“None of them are this effective.”

“They’re also not as likely to escalate this war, alienate our allies, and bring the enemy to our turf,” my father said.

Thank fuck he didn’t agree with Devil. Not that I’d thought he would. I’d learned my methods from him, including the fact that the only way we involve women and children is questioning them.

“Does he not even know?” Devil asked, scowling at me.

“Know what?” my father asked.

“Why did you think Sabrina was at the safe house?”

“She told me you were worried she was a target.”

“Because she wanted to be back in the middle of things.” When was he going to learn how good our aunt was at manipulating him? “Do you honestly think she would’ve agreed to leave if there was nothing but a theoretical threat?”

“If you told her to, then…” My father paused and rolled his eyes. “Fuck no.”

“Exactly. A few days ago, thanks to Peter, we got word an attack was planned for the restaurant opening. What none of us expected was an attack on our house in town.”

My father’s face turned red. He started to rise from his seat, but Angelo stopped him with a hand on his shoulder. “It’s okay. We handled it.”

“Devil and Sabrina were there, and they took care of things.”

“So I can do something right after all?” Devil said.

“You can,” I said grudgingly. “Today, you fucking didn’t.”

He huffed. “We’ve got great leverage, and he doesn’t know we’re not going to hurt them.”

“Do they know that?”

Devil shrugged. “I didn’t try to make them piss themselves or anything. Jesus. What kind of asshole do you think I am? Those kids are little and shit.”

“Exactly, and you kidnapped them and brought them to our house. Now the Riccis, and all their allies, are going to come at us harder.”

Devil snorted. “They were already gunning for us, and now they’ve got a reason to pause and listen.”

“I had a plan, Devil. If we take out Damian, most of their allies will see the wisdom of begging my forgiveness.”

“So now he’ll be even easier to lure in because he’s going to want his wife and kids back.”

I shook my head.

“They’re here,” my father said. “You can’t change that. Go talk to them and see if we can get some information out of them.”

“I’m not talking to her in front of her fucking kids. They’re practically babies.”

“Talk to Elena. Have Sabrina watch the kids.”

I stared at him. He couldn’t be serious. “Sabrina? First, I told her to stay with Peter. Second, I know more about kids than Sabrina does.”

Angelo snickered. “That’s true. Don’t you remember her with cousin Nina’s kids?”

My father frowned, then burst out laughing. “She treated them like she thought they might explode at any moment.”

“Mother of God, she was a fucking mess,” Devil said. “Lola can stay with them, and I’ll talk to Elena.”

“No, I’ll do the talking, and afterwards, we’ll reconvene because we need a plan for what we’re going to do with them and how we’re going to head off more trouble and kill fucking Damian.”

Devil stood up. “I’m coming with you.”

“Fuck no, you’re not.”

He stood his ground. “You’re going to scare the fuck out of her.”

“Like you didn’t?”

Angelo grabbed our cousin’s arm. “Just let Luce handle it.”

He jerked out of Angelo’s hold. “Do you think I just grabbed her on the street and dragged her to the car?”

I glanced at Angelo. He shrugged, but I could tell that was exactly what he thought Devil had done.

Devil huffed. “I wouldn’t act like that to a lady. I mean, unless I knew she liked it.”

“So how did you kidnap her? Clearly you want to tell me.”

“I told her if she and her kids came with us, we’d make sure Damian never hit her again.”

That was unexpected. “Keep talking.”

“She did a really good job with her makeup, but she has a black eye that’s barely healing and a bruise on her cheek, and when one of the kids grabbed her wrist, she flinched.”