Page 46 of Cruel Knots

“What do you mean?”

“We can’t let him have Lucia.”

“I’ll get you a pretty whore if that’s what you need,” I say harshly. “We don’t need Lucia anymore. We’ve already used her. I’m sure no man’s ever rutted her the way we did. Let it be her precious brother who puts the pieces back together.”

Leon shakes his head. “You don’t understand.” A disturbed look comes over him. “I haven’t told you everything. When I was down there, Callum said something about Lucia belonging to him, that the wedding was supposed to bring him and Lucia together. He talked like...like...”

“Like what?” Mikhail urges.

“It’s disgusting.”

A scathing scoff escapes me. “You happily disemboweled the guy we picked up for questioning last week. No one told you to do that. A simple bullet to the head would’ve been fine but, no. You had to make a mess of him.”

“That’s right,” Mikhail says with a chuckle. “What could disgust you?”

Anger flickers in those amber orbs. Leon is mad now.

He’s on his feet and staring wildly between me and Mikhail. “Callum said he wants to fuck Lucia,” he shouts.

“That’s what the wedding was about,” he continues shouting. “Everyone knows Freddy Stone is gay. He would never touch Lucia. Freddy’s inheritance was part of the deal but think about it. The Baldwins aren’t poor. They’ve got enough money and power. A guy who’s as obsessed with his sister as Callum would never give her up so easily.”

“So, Callum’s not just crazy. He’s also in love with his sister...like love love,” says Mikhail. His delicate features contort into a disgusted sneer. “What about Lucia, though? How do we know she isn’t the same? They could’ve been fucking all these years without anyone knowing about them.”

“Callum hasn’t touched her that way yet,” I say quietly.

Both Leon and Mikhail look my way.

“How do you know?” Leon asks.

“That night...” A soft sigh escapes me. “Lucia was a virgin until the night I took her. It wasn’t visible in the dark basement but there were flecks of blood on my dick when I came up here to clean myself.” Despite my hatred, guilt flickers through me.

I hadn’t expected Lucia to be a virgin at twenty-two. Unlike me, she’s gorgeous omega. I assumed she had a boyfriend or two at least these past seven years. There had to be men that Callum approved of.

“She’s been untouched all these years, then,” Leon says in a sober tone and sinks into his chair.

“This is so fucked up,” Mikhail says, rubbing his forehead. “Do we assume Callum kept all men away from her? That this mock wedding was his way of concealing his relationship with her. If she got pregnant, they’d pass the baby off as Freddy’s.”

“We still don’t know how Lucia feels about all this,” I remind him.

“Oh, come on!” Leon growls. “Let’s gather up the facts. Lucia rarely steps out of the house. The parties Callum throws in their mansion are heavily monitored and watched, so there’s no way anyone could get close to her there. Each time Lucia steps out, she’s with her dad and heavily guarded. Isn’t it obvious? She’s been his prisoner all this time.”

“Are you saying you want to protect her?” I ask him in a dead tone.

“Don’t you?” Leon retorts.

I stay quiet. Nothing matters more to me than my family’s safety.

I’ve been prepared for the consequences resulting from kidnapping Callum Baldwin’s sister. A war is about to erupt between us but I’m confident about winning it.

But we never planned on keeping Lucia.

The whole game plan will change if we keep Lucia with us. It’ll make everything ten times more dangerous. We’re good with killing and destroying, not protecting and keeping.

“I want to keep her with us longer,” Leon says in a grim tone. “There’s a lot we don’t know about. Aren’t you curious about the way she spent all these years on her own? What if she’s innocent, Damien? What if she’s been just as hurt as we have been?”

“She looks fine to me,” I say, despite feeling a bite of guilt.

If Lucia is truly innocent, none of us would be able to forgive ourselves for hurting her that night. We took advantage of her heat and forced ourselves on her.

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