Page 73 of Caught in the Middle

Lucy looked over at him as he pulled out onto the main road. 'How long have you been working for Joey?'

'I don't work for Joey, I work for Oliver. Nearly ten years I've been stationed here,' he shook his head, 'and I've seen a lot of shit.'

Lucy couldn't wrap her head around it. Almost a decade of pretending to be someone else. She didn't want to imagine what would happen to him if Joey was to ever find out.

She stared at the road ahead as they headed towards the motorway leading out of London.

'I guess that's coming to an end now.'

'Huh?' Lucy snapped out of her thoughts.

'Me being stationed at the Italian Mafia HQ, there's no way I can go back now. Not with you missing. Well, World War III is probably about to start.'

Lucy hadn't even thought about the implications of dragging Elijah into this mess she'd got herself in. How could she have been so ignorant, only seeing things in light of her own selfishness?

But this was bigger than her, and that had never even crossed her mind. This decades long rivalry between them the two gangs are now going to blow up again, all because of her childish behaviour.

'Oh God,' she groaned, 'Oliver is probably going to have me killed himself.'

Elijah laughed, bitterly. 'I think Oliver would happily die for you.'

'What?'

He rolled his eyes. 'Listen, I've known that man probably longer than you have been alive. And never have I seen him so...damn crazy as I did when I took you to meet him in Hyde Park. He's insane about you. Hell, if Joey hadn't finally decided you were getting the chop, I would probably have kidnapped you and brought you back to Oliver myself.'

Lucy pondered what Elijah was saying. She'd tried so hard to forget about Oliver. How he made her laugh, feel alive. She knew him for such a short period of time, but it was so intense.

She shook her head, 'but he still killed Layla.'

Elijah peeled his eyes off of the road to frown at her. 'Huh? Layla Leonardo?'

'Yeah.'

He sighed. 'Joey really is a bastard.' He chewed his lip as Lucy waited for him to elaborate.

'Look, it's not really my place to say, but you'll probably never get it out of Oliver because he's almost as stubborn as you are.

'When Joey came to London, his younger sister, Layla, came with him. Oliver met her in some dive in the East End a couple months after they arrived. She was exotic, exciting and whatever. Of course, he had no idea who her brother was - hell, he hadn't even burst onto the scene properly yet.

'And then when the turf wars began to brew and Oliver found out that Layla was his new rivals sister, he tried to stay away, but he couldn't. He really loved her.'

Despite listening intently, Lucy couldn't help but feel a pang of jealousy.

'They kept seeing in each other in secret,' he continued, 'sneaking in and out of hotels in the dead of the night. They of course, Joey found out.

'Now, I don't know how much you know about the Italians, but loyalty is everything to them. I mean, the Irish Mafia, it's pretty big to them too, but Jesus, those Italians. Anyway, Joey offered her an ultimatum. You go back to Italy, never see Oliver again, or she'd be exiled from the family.'

'And what did she do?'

Elijah glanced over at her with raised eyebrows. 'Oliver told her he'd give up his life of crime for her, if that's what she wanted. And of course, when Joey heard her plans to stay with him, he flew off the handle.

‘Joey killed Layla. Not Oliver.'

Lucy's heart lurched. 'Joey killed his own sister?' she stammered.

'Yup. It isn't all about turf wars with them two. It runs so much deeper. So from then on, he's vowed to never let another woman die at the hands of Joey Leonardo. It's become almost a cat and mouse game, with Joey killing an English girl every year, to show England he's the boss.'

'Wow,' was all she could say. That is definitely not what she was expecting to hear. 'But the letter, Oliver sent to Joey?'

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