Page 49 of Reluctant Surrender

She laughed. “Lukas is not a good man; he’s a good brother, he’ll be a good husband, but he’s not now or ever will be a good man. No one in my family is good. It’s not what we do.”

So much insight from a girl a few thousand miles away.

“Anyway, tell him I called and to please call me back. It’s important.”

“But nothing bad enough to tell me?” I double checked. If she was in trouble, I couldn’t let her wait until Lukas got around to dealing with his little sister.

“Nothing bad. I’m trying to make a decision and I want to bounce it off him. That’s all.”

I didn’t believe her entirely; she was giving half-truths. “Okay, I’ll see what I can do. But if you decide you don’t want to wait for him, you can always call me. I’m pretty good at having things bounced off of.” I winced at my words.

She laughed. “Yeah, you’ve definitely been around Lukas too much. I gotta go, bye!” The call disconnected before I could respond.

I turned off the handheld phone and put it down beside me on the couch. She seemed nice enough; I wondered why Christian would keep her locked away at some boarding school instead of having her around her family.

A commotion blew up outside the door, startling me. I pushed my book to the side and hurried to the door. I cracked it open and peeked out into the hallway.

Two of Lukas’ men were headed my way, a man half-conscious being dragged between them. He tried to keep up with their steps, but he would stumble and sag between them again.

“Let’s go, you fucker,” one of the men said.

They opened a door on their right and all three of them disappeared through it. The door slammed a moment later.

I swung the door completely open and stepped into the hallway. Lukas came around the corner just then.

“Maggie.” He frowned. “What are you doing over here?”

“I was studying then I heard your men. What’s through that door?” I asked, taking a step toward it. Every time I thought I knew the full layout of the house, another secret door or passageway opened up to me.

Lukas grabbed my elbow and pulled me back. “Don’t worry about that. Maybe you should take your studying upstairs.”

“I like that room, there’s a lot of light. And it’s quiet.”

“It will be quieter upstairs,” he insisted.

“What’s going on?”

“Nothing you need to worry about.” His dark eyes and wrinkled forehead gave me the impression it was something to worry about. I wanted to press him, but his jaw tightened, and a storm brewed in his blue eyes. This wasn’t Lukas, my husband. This was Lukas Kaczmarek, boss of the Chicago Kaczmarek family.

“I’ll head up. I should probably get to bed early anyway; I have an early start in the morning.” I turned back to the room to get my books. “Oh, before I forget. Hanna just called. She wants you to call her back. She said it’s important.”

“It’s always life or death with her. I’ll call her, thanks.” He opened the secret door and disappeared behind it.

Work. It was just work, I told myself as I collected my things.

He’d be back to normal in the morning.

But would that man they’d dragged downstairs?

Chapter 24

Lukas

The man bleeding on my basement floor had passed out already by the time I reached the back room of the cellar. My men stood outside the door, their own knuckles bruised and bleeding, but the look of satisfaction on their faces told me they got the information we were after.

Violence is a part of my world. There would be no changing that fact, and there were times where I had to do the dirty work myself. I couldn’t allow the fear in Maggie’s expression when she saw this piece of shit being dragged down here to change that fact. Getting soft on our enemies would only encourage them to go harder.

“I assume he talked.” I slid my hands into my pockets.

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