“Lake.” Amo gently shook her chin.
Lake blinked up at him before she quickly sat up, grabbing at her throat.
“You okay? Where are the girls?” Amo asked, helping her sit up straight.
“Yes, I’m fine. I’m fine! They’re in the bathroom.” She spoke hoarsely. All she wanted was for him to make sure they were okay.
When he moved away from her vision, she was finally able to take in her surroundings. Nero was already at the bathroom door, kicking it free. Amo was right behind him, going in. Her eyes moved over and terror filled her at watching Vincent violently punch the man to a pulp, a small pool of blood already forming around his head.
Her gaze dashed over to see Lucca running up the stairs.
“Don’t you dare kill that fucker.” Lucca pulled a fighting Vincent off.
His wild eyes finally met hers, sending a shiver down her spine. As he walked closer to her, Vincent’s appearance slowly softened.
He dropped to his knees in front of her. “Baby, please don’t be afraid of me.”
Tears flooded her eyes, the horror of what she had gone through finally taking its toll.
His warm embrace circled her, and she melted against his skin. Lake was finally safe.
Hearing footsteps again, a man dressed in a suit she hadn’t seen before came up the stairs holding a bat. “Fuck, man. He got Al. They should be cleaning him up no…” His voice trailed off when he saw the scene with all the girls.
Lucca took the bat out of his hands. “Thanks, Sal.” Then he crashed it down over the leg of the man lying on the floor.
The sound of bone obliterating into thousands of bits was the worst sound imaginable. She held her hands over her ears, trying to drown out the noise as she stuck her face harder into Vincent’s chest.
“Enough!” Vincent yelled.
Lucca smashed the bat over his other leg.
“Fuck! That’s enough!” Amo was the one to yell that time.
Lucca reared the bat back one more time but stopped midair, his attention going to the scene in the bathroom.
Lake peeked her head out to see Elle in the same position as her, though in Nero’s arms. Adalyn was standing, dried tears on her face and her jaw almost to the ground. Chloe was still in the bathtub with a blank stare on her face as she watched Lucca with the bat in his hands.
Lucca squeezed the neck of the bat.
She barely managed to turn her head back away before the sound of bone crushing greeted her ears one last time. Not until the sound of the bat hitting the ground did she look up again.
Lucca inhaled deeply, using both of his hands to slick back the loose strands of his long, black/brown hair, which had fallen around his face. “Now, that’s fucking enough.”
She swallowed the lump in her throat, wondering how many nightmares she was going to have of him. The Boogieman. Lake had heard Elle refer to him as the boogieman, taking the nickname as a joke at first, but right then she fully understood that, in fact, it wasn’t a fucking joke at all.
Adalyn was the first one to move. She took small and very slow steps until she was finally past Lucca then ran over to Lake as fast as she could. She plopped down beside them, taking Lake into one of her death grips of a hug.
Vincent hugged them together, placing a kiss on each of their heads.
Adalyn started to tear up again, breaking the hug to gently shake Lake. “I should kill you for what you did!”
Everyone went silent, looking at her.
“What did she do?” Vincent asked what was on everyone’s minds.
Don’t tell him! she pleaded with her eyes.
“She got us to get down in the bathroom but decided to go all badass and leave, locking us in.” Adalyn hugged her tightly again.
Dammit, Adalyn.
Lake hugged her friend back. She was glad the last memory of her crying, trying to escape the bathtub, wasn’t going to be her last.
Elle, who was trying to bring Chloe to life, stood and went into the bedroom yet stopped to stare at Lucca who was smoking a cigarette.
“Don’t think about telling me to put it out. You have no fucking clue how many flights of stairs I just ran up.” Lucca’s voice was cold.
“I wasn’t.” Elle quickly ran past him, exactly how Adalyn had, then repeated the same thing by plopping down to give Lake a hug. “Thank you,” she whispered.
Lake hugged her back, knowing she was thanking her more for saving Chloe’s life than her own. “You’re welcome.”
After Elle got up to head back to the bathroom. Lake looked at Vincent. It was written all over his face that he didn’t like how she had risked her life.
Finally, Amo and Elle managed to get Chloe out of the bathtub.
“Let’s get you home.” Amo took his jacket off, draping it over her shoulders, careful not to touch her.
Chloe clutched the jacket to her as she started walking with Amo.
She saw the silent ‘thank you’ Amo had given her. She saw the terrified look in Chloe’s eyes as she passed Lucca. She saw Lucca’s fury staring back.
Amo and Lucca were two different people battling for one broken girl. Amo changed around Chloe, becoming a better man. Lucca, however, wasn’t going to change, showing her exactly the man he was.
“Sal, will you take Adalyn home?” Vincent asked, trying to break the tension in the air.
“Sure,” he answered.
Adalyn gave Lake and Vincent one last hug before getting up. “Um, is he dead?” she asked, pointing at the elephant in the room.
Lucca threw his cigarette butt on top of him. “No, I need him alive.”
That’s not creepy at all…
Adalyn grimaced. “A ‘no’ would have been fine.” Then she quickly ran away.
Sal laughed, following behind her.
Vincent then got up off the floor, helping Lake up with him.
“Did he say anything?” Lucca asked, flicking out his Zippo to light the end of another cigarette between his teeth.
Lake took a moment, thinking back. “He just asked where she was.”
“Maria was going to come, but she got sick,” Nero revealed to Lucca, information he had learned from Elle just a little bit before.
That was exactly who Lake had thought the intruder was talking about. She and Elle were new girlfriends to soldiers. No one would dare to piss on the mafia’s front door steps for them.
Lucca took a long hit. “I’ll clean this fucker up.”
“Oh, there’s a gun in the closet,” she pointed out.
Vincent growled, taking her hand. “Let me know if that motherfucker talks.”
Smoke filled the air as Lucca exhaled. “He will.”
Lake tried not to think about whether the man deserved what was coming to him as they all walked down the steps. No one deserves Lucca’s brutality.
Going out the broken front door and to Vincent’s beside it, she started to go inside when Nero stopped her, pulling her into a tight embrace. “Thank you for keeping her safe.”
“You’re welcome, Nero.” She hugged him back once the shock wore off.
“See you tomorrow, Elle?” She smiled at her.
Elle smiled back. “Ye—”
“Don’t push it,” Nero told her, taking Elle’s hand and going back down the hallway in a hurry. “She’ll be busy.”
Chapter Fifty-Four
I Can Still See He Hasn’t Broken You Yet
What the…? Lake’s hand was snatched while she watched Nero and Elle go down the hallway and she was pulled into Vincent’s place, the door slamming shut right behind her. Her body was then pushed against the wall as shaky hands roughly ran up and down her body.
“Why the fuck would you do that?” Vincent’s lips crashed down on hers, kissing her hungrily, as if he was starved to death.
I just did.
“I-I…” Lake tried to speak through his kiss yet couldn’t, not knowing what to say, and he wasn’t making it easy on her, barely giving her enough time to
breathe.
He started to kiss her face then down to her neck, being careful not to hurt the light bruising, which had already started to form. “Why?”
She tried not to jump from how harsh his voice was in her ear. “I couldn’t let them get hurt.”
Vincent’s low growl sent chills up her spine as his hands moved down to her jeans, quickly unbuttoning them and pulling them down along with her panties.
Looking at his eyes, it was clear that he had been just as scared as she was. She was sure watching someone choke the one you love had to be hard, and she was glad not to have been on the receiving end of it. However, she was afraid of him, knowing he was so close to that dangerous side of himself.
“V-Vincent—”
He kissed her again, that time more tenderly. It was still rough, but he kissed her for her that time, not for him, giving Lake what she needed at the moment.
Most of her fears subsided when the kiss deepened, and his tongue began to do all the things that made her body turn up to a million degrees. She helped him by kicking off her shoes and pants, wanting him, too.
Unzipping his own pants, his hard dick was let free, and he didn’t wait a second longer to pick her up then slide her down onto his length.
Lake clutched at the back of his shoulders and wrapped her legs around him, screaming into his shoulder, shocked at the rate at which he had managed to pick her up and slide into her.
He only waited a moment before he leaned her back against the wall and began pumping in and out of her hot, wet pussy with short and quick motions, holding her up by her ass.
There was a slight pain at first, not used to the roughness, but her body reacted to his. Her nipples grew taut, and her pussy and ass tingled every time his open zipper slapped at her. She tightened her inner walls around his dick and pushed her heels into his ass deeper as he wildly bucked in and out of her.
Vincent’s rough voice returned to her ear, sounding somewhere between pleasure and pain. “Baby, don’t you ever fucking do that again.”
Lake moaned loudly, letting her head fall back when she felt the first signs of her orgasm. There was no holding out or lasting. She didn’t even know if she was going to survive this. Going from almost being killed to this only further intensified the already-intense fucking.
He drove his cock into her spasming pussy faster. “Do you understand me?” he ground out.
“Yes!” Her moans turned into whimpers, wanting him to slow. However, as he came inside her, he kept up his rough rhythm. He started to scare her again, being closer than ever to that very dark side of himself.
She felt like her body had betrayed her, enjoying the roughness of him holding her climax until his had finally reached its end. Her breathing was heavy, and she thought her heart was going to jump out of her chest while he held her there, trying to calm his. She was scared to move or even think, unsure if the good or the bad version of Vincent was holding her.
Vincent let the wall take most of her weight. That way, he could reach up and tug at her hair so she would look at him.
She swallowed down the lump in her throat, frightened to meet his gaze again.
Lake didn’t expect it when she saw watery baby-blue eyes staring down at her. She instantly softened into him again, unable to see him hurt.
“I know I’m sick and fucked-up, but I’m trying so hard to keep that part of me away from you,” he whispered to her hoarsely, holding her tighter to him. “Lake, I love you. You will never understand how much I fucking love you.”
The gentle kiss at her lips combined with his words made her heart ache to the point it brought pain.
I think I am beginning to understand.
* * *
Dante swirled the dark liquid in his glass as he stared at his son Lucca flicking his lighter open then closed. “Please explain to me why the fuck I just scraped one of my men off the floor and how this fucker could have managed to get close enough to possibly kill my daughter.”
The elevator was programmed with two secret codes: one to take you to the casino in the basement and another to take you to the top, which held his office and the rooms for his men. The actual floor buttons didn’t fucking exist, so no one could just press a fucking button and ‘poof’ you’re there.
Lucca continued to flick his lighter as he spoke. “I assume Al thought he could handle it himself since he didn’t alarm anyone else in the security room. By the time anyone else noticed what was going on with his part of the tapes, I had already made it to Nero’s.”
Dante took a drink. Stupid fuck. Al had always been a cocky dick, but he had been one of his best men in the security room, which was why he specifically had watched the elevator and the hallways on the top.
“How did the fucker make it on the elevator?”
“He had a room key, so Joe let him through.”
He had known Lucca’s answer before he had said it, but he had to ask, anyways.
Leaning back in his chair, he looked at his confidant Vinny who hadn’t spoken a word yet, knowing what was on his mind. It was on all of their minds.
“He’s a made man, isn’t he?”
Lucca began to roll the lighter through his fingers. “By the looks of him, yes.”
Fuck. The fucker wasn’t a Caruso, so that meant he belonged to a different family. “This would make it the second fucking time a Luciano has hit me here.”
Vinny finally broke his silence. “Be careful, Dante. We have more to lose this time if a war was to happen.”
Dante slammed his hands down on the table. “He went after my fucking daughter!”
He took a deep breath, calming himself to think about this logically. It had been a long time since his blood family had been attacked, and he was too close to this situation to see it clearly. Regardless, his consigliere was right. Once Dante had become the boss, the family had become richer, more successful. He needed a means to prove the allegations against the Luciano family. If he were to even mention them trying to take a hit on him, it could be grounds for war for tainting their name, a war which could kill his entire family if provoked.
They had been at peace for years, but it was obvious that the Lucianos were becoming angry from not having more. The last war between the families had been brutal before the Lucianos ultimately took a deal to live peacefully with a small portion of Kansas City as their own. When Dante had taken over his part of the city, they had prospered greatly, while the Lucianos had slowly destroyed theirs.
Dante took another drink. “How the fuck am I supposed to prove anything when they’re fucking dead?” He couldn’t prove shit when the Luciano fuckers who walked into his casino hotel turned up dead every time.
Lucca snapped his lighter closed. “He’s not dead.”
“You didn’t fucking kill him this time?”
“No, not yet.” Lucca stood, going to the door.
That certainly changed things. He was going to hold Lucca personally responsible for the night.
“Good, clean up this fucking mess.”
When Lucca nodded as he went out the door, Dante could see he had already planned to do just that. Whatever it was, this wasn’t business to Lucca. It was fucking personal. That shouldn’t have shocked him, considering Maria was his sister, but Lucca wasn’t one to care for anything after learning just how he had that loving could only get you hurt.
He had seen that look on his own face once before. Types of revenge looked different on different people, but there was always one which looked the same.
* * *
Oww…
Waking up the next day, her throat felt sore and Vincent wasn’t beside her, making the feeling worse. As the sleepiness wore off, she remembered him kissing her awake at some point to tell her he had to take care of a few things. Lake understood. She was sure he had to deal with what had happened the day before. The more she thought about it, the happier she was that she was alone.
The thought of Vincent fucking her like that, just a step in the doo
r, still had goose bumps going up her arms. While some were terrified bumps, the other ones were turned-the-fuck-on bumps.
She was right; each time they fucked, it became more intense and the less control Vincent had over his dark side.
What the fuck happened? It was like…
Lake honestly had no clue what it had been like, but it certainly hadn’t been how she had thought sex was going to be.
Getting out of bed, she took her time in the bathroom, lazily soaking in the tub to get the soreness out of her body. By the time she got out, she felt a hundred percent better. Well, almost.
Her thoughts about how he had fucked her still weighed on her mind. Lake was just scared, plain and simple. She was scared to love him. She was certainly scared of him. Most of all, she was scared to fuck him again.
She quickly put on a robe that hung on the back of the door, tying it around her waist. Opening the bathroom door, she didn’t see him at first but when she did, Lake clutched at her chest, frightened to death.
Looking at the man sitting on the bed, she pulled the robe closed tighter with shaky hands while he eyed her up and down.
“W-what are—”
“Sit down, darlin’,” Lucca commanded her.
Licking her very dry lips, she found her feet slowly moving, his voice making her do what he asked. After the previous day, she really didn’t want to push his buttons. Like ever, if he even lets me live.
She sat down gently on the bed, keeping her face straight forward. She had seen enough of his ragged appearance to know the night he’d had was a long one. Every word out of her mouth was going to have to be precise.
“As much as I enjoy you finally fucking get that you should be scared of me, you can relax. I’m not ever going to hurt you.”
His voice still sounded cold, so she had to look at him to see if he was telling the truth. He is…
She shook her head. “You won’t?”
Something told her Lucca Caruso didn’t cross off anyone on his ‘could kill if it pleases me’ list. She was pretty certain that even his brother Nero’s name wasn’t crossed off.
Vincent (Made Men Book 2) Page 26
