Page 89 of Savage Bratva King

“Mel, I know Leo kidnapped me because of this stupid war, but there are two sides to every battle. I’m not condoning what he did. But he isn’t the ruthless monster you think he is. I got a fever, and he nursed me better. He got me a rescue puppy—her name is Lucky, and I can’t wait for you to meet her. He’s going to open a women’s refuge in Chicago, and he wants me to run it. And when I’m in his arms…”

“You know that there’s nowhere else you’d rather be.” Mel finishes the sentence for me. “You know that if you can’t be in his arms, the sun might as well never shine again.”

I’m smiling despite the groggy pounding inside my head. “Looking at Leo makes me feel alive and like I want to throw up all at the same time.”

Mel tips her head back and stares at the ceiling. When she looks at me again, her eyes are large with unshed tears. “I knew you were different the moment I walked into the room. You’ve got it bad.”

“Uh-huh.”

She throws her arms around me again, but the hug is fleeting as the implications jolt her back to reality. “Did you…?” She gives me the side-eye. Before I can respond, her shoulders slump. “You did, didn’t you? You fucked him already.”

I can’t lie to my sister. I didn’t tell her about the arranged marriage to Seamus, but that was withholding information, it wasn’t a barefaced lie.

“I wanted to call you and tell you everything, but Leo?—”

“Kept your phone so that we wouldn’t trace you.” She nods.

She is no longer judging my poor taste in falling for the enemy—I’m only following in her footsteps—she’s simply telling it like it is. This is the life we were born into. We both know how it works.

“They’re enemies,” she’s talking out loud. “Xander will want to kill him when he finds out. He already wants to kill him.”

“Daniel wanted to kill Xander when he found out about the two of you.” I shrug. “Mel, just because this is the way it’s always been, it doesn’t mean that things can’t change. We can make a difference. A new generation that doesn’t want to rip each other’s throats out.”

“If only it was that simple.”

“It is, Mel. But I can’t do it alone.”

“My beautiful little sister.” Her fingers are still subconsciously rubbing the diamond ring. “You always were the one who wanted to change the world.”

“Leo will come for me, Mel. You know he will.”

Mel nods. “Xander would do the same for me.”

“I don’t want to be the cause of more bloodshed. I need Xander to let me go to Leo. I can stop him, I know I can. But I can’t do it without your help.”

“Xander will never agree to it.”

“Please, Mel.”

My sister is almost there. She believes that I’m in love with Leo, but there’s a part of her, the part that still sees the images of our mother lying in a pool of her own blood when she closes her eyes at night, that’s afraid to interfere in the way Xander runs Amory Corp. I need to give her one final push.

“If Xander kills Leo, I’ll never forgive him. I promise you that I’ll disappear, and you’ll never see me again.”

“Gi, please, don’t make me choose between my sister and my husband.”

“It isn’t a choice, Mel. You can have both. All you have to do is convince Xander to let me go before one of us loses someone we love.”

She stares at the window, my hand still in hers, pensive.

Have I done enough to convince her? If I haven’t, my only option is to try to escape before Leo arrives. I know Xander won’t shoot me, even if I did punch him in the face earlier, but he won’t sit back and watch me walk out of his heavily guarded property either, not when he went to such efforts to get me here.

“Okay,” she says finally. “Let’s go.”

“Go where?”

“To speak to Xander.” She gives me a small smile. “I know my little sister, and when you say you’ll disappear, and we’ll never see you again if anything happens to Leo… I believe you.”

I throw my arms around her neck and squeeze her until she complains that she can’t breathe. “Thanks, Mel. You’re the best sister a girl could ask for.”

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