Lucien (The Marchesi Family 1)

I braced myself for more pain.

29

Peter

Angelo was headed my way as I ran toward the house.

“Did you see Lucien?”

I nodded, trying to catch my breath enough to speak. “Stefan took him.”

“Took him where?”

“No… Stefan must be working for the Riccis. He had a gun, he… Lucien was on the ground.”

“Wait, are you saying…?”

“I don’t know how hurt Lucien is, but Stefan has him. He carried him off.”

“That motherfucking sack of shit. He’s dead. He’s so fucking dead. And all along I thought it was Marco, and that weaselly son of a bitch was betraying us.”

“I’m so sorry I didn’t do more. I wanted to chase after them, but I didn’t have a gun, and I can’t—”

Angelo laid a hand on my shoulder. “It’s okay. If you’d done that, you’d be dead.”

“I just want Lucien to be all right.”

He nodded. “He will. They won’t kill him until they get what they want from us. Come on.”

He called Devil as we raced back to the house.

I was shocked they let me join them as we all congregated in the kitchen to make a plan to get Lucien back. “It’s my fault,” Devil said. “Stefan called me, asking when the next step of the plan would be implemented. I told him I was out of town for a few days. He must have guessed I meant here.”

“It’s not your fault,” Sabrina assured him.

“I’m also the one who pushed him to think Marco was the fucking snitch.”

“No, that was me too. I said my uncle overheard Jimmy use the name Marco but really my uncle wasn’t sure of the name, but he thought that was probably it.”

“Fuck. Could it have been Mario?” Angelo asked. “That’s Ricci’s son.”

“He and Stefan worked together running the Romano’s escort service for a while,” Devil said.

Lucien’s father nodded. “They sure did, the sons of bitches. Find them both.”

“We will, Pop,” Angelo assured him as his phone began to ring. He glanced at it. “It’s Marco.”

“Fucking answer it already,” his dad said.

“Angelo…No…Stefan has turned on us…Meet us in town in two hours…We’re making a move tonight…More details then but things have gotten serious.” He ended the call.

“We need to contact Vinnie unless there’s any reason to doubt his loyalty.”

No one spoke up.

“All right. We’ll trust him cautiously for now.” They continued to make plans to search for Lucien and pull their allies together to make a strike. Elena and her children were already on their way to a safehouse out of state.

Lucien’s father suggested Sabrina and I stay in Weston, but we both insisted on returning to town with everyone else. I spent the night alone in Lucien’s bed, burying my face in his pillow and breathing in his scent as I lay there, unable to sleep, thinking of all the horrible things that could be happening to him and praying he was still alive.

His family continued to insist Damian wouldn’t kill Lucien until either he had agreed to surrender the family’s position of power—which would never happen—or they used him to get Angelo or Devil to surrender. But how sure could they really be?

While I was thankful that no one suggested I’d set Lucien up—something I’d feared—Sabrina was the only one who would give me any information about what was happening, and the rest of them weren’t even telling her everything, something she’d ranted about at length. All I knew for sure was that Angelo had been given a place and time to meet Damian and surrender control of their empire in exchange for Lucien.

“Will Angelo and Devil go to the meet-up?”

Sabrina laughed. “If they do, it will be with a plan to kill Damian and all his allies.”

“But if they don’t—”

Sabrina frowned. “Damian will never let Lucien go. Our allies would never accept his authority if Lucien was still alive. The only way he’s going to survive is if we rescue him.”

My stomach flip-flopped. “D-do we know he’s alive now?”

Sabrina crossed herself as she shook her head. “All we can do is pray. Angelo has demanded proof, but so far he’s been ignored.”

I hugged her, and we clung to each other for several moments before she went in search of a drink.

The sun was beginning to go down as I paced on Lucien’s balcony. My phone rang, startling me. I didn’t recognize the number, but I couldn’t ignore it. If there was any chance it had to do with Lucien… “Hello?”

“Pete. It’s Jimmy.” His voice sounded strained and weak.

“What are you doing calling me?”

“I know I made a mistake.”

“A mistake? You’re working for people who want to kill me and—” I’d almost said “the man I love.”

“I know, but please, you’ve got to listen to me.” He coughed. The wheezing emanating from him didn’t sound good at all, but I couldn’t let myself feel sorry for him.

“I have no reason to listen to you. All you’ve done is lie to me.”