Page 114 of Caught in the Crossfire

I rolled my eyes. “And you think that will stop me. Now, privacy, please.”

“So fucking stubborn, aren’t you?”

I caught a ghost of a smile on Cas’s face before he seemed to remember Max was our arch-enemy. I couldn’t blame him for the slip. Even I felt my chest warming at the familiar banter.

“Don’t kill each other while I’m gone.”

“No promises,” Ryu grumbled. The table was in shambles, but he looked relieved to step away from it.

“Do you want me to go with you? Make sure nothing is wrong with the device?” Ciel asked.

I pulled him in for a quick kiss. His blush was so fucking cute. “I’ll be fine.”

“Five minutes,” Obi warned gently. “We have work to do.”

I hustled up the stairs, looking for Max’s father’s office. I’d always enjoyed spending time in my Uncle’s favorite room of the house. Max and I would play on the ground in the corner while our fathers worked together. Only a few months before his death, Massimo had sat at the desk and explained that as my Uncle, he had a special responsibility to keep me safe, and he’d sternly warned me to stay away from boys. Not that there ever were gentlemen callers. But it was typical protective Uncle stuff that always made me feel like we could have been anormalfamily if we weren’t part of the mafia.

I loved Uncle Massimo. We had been happy. Our mothers were gone by that time, but I had thought we’d climbed our way out of that grief. Then, Max’s father had died, and things were never the same again after.

It didn’t matter now. We were all different people.

I closed the door to the office and tapped Chiara’s contact card. The phone line rang twice. My hand shook as I held it to my face.

“What?” she answered, her voice dripping with vitriol.

I swallowed, my throat choked with emotion. “It’s me.”

It took a second to sink in before she shrieked. “Leona! What are you doing? Why do you have Max’s phone? What the fuck is going on? Are you okay?”

Hearing her voice brought forth an immediate wave of relief. I collapsed onto the leather ottoman at the foot of Uncle’s old Eames chair. A tear leaked down my face while I laughed at her thousand questions. “I’m fine. Everything’s fine.”

“Answer me!” she demanded. I could hear things rustling in the background.

“Where do I even start?”

“Give me the quick and dirty! Just tell me what’s going on!”

“Okay, fine! I’m at Max’s house. We made a temporary truce. We need to work together on something.” I wasn’t sure what she knew, or where she was, or what was safe to tell her, so I kept it vague. “But part of my agreement to help him was that I got to speak to you. So really, I want to hear all aboutyou, and how you are, and what’s going on.”

“Oh, my God! That bastard!”

I held my forehand in my free hand, dreading this next question, but knowing I had to ask it. “Has he hurt you?”

She sighed heavily. “No. I was fucking pissed at him and my father. I can’t believe how they lied to me, but Max hasn’t hurt me. He’s barely even spoken to me.”

Thank God. I would have stomped downstairs and dragged my knife across his throat with zero hesitation, alliance be damned, if her answer had been different. “What happened?”

“My father told me you and your dad had been killed during the attack on your birthday party. He said they thought Caspian had done it before disappearing, and that Max was taking over your Family.”

I swore. Cas wouldnever. “So you thought I was dead the whole time?”

“At first, yeah. I was devastated.” She sniffled, and I once again regretted that I had never reached out to her back then. “I’m serious, Leona. Never leave me like that again.”

“I’ll try not to.” I folded my feet under me. “Then what happened?”

“Well, my dad kept me on house arrest, telling me that all the Families were on lockdown and we needed to be safe. On the night Cas infiltrated my father’s house, Max visited. He’d been injured, and at first I’d been concerned and offered to help. But he said no, and that he and my father needed to speak. They barricaded themselves in my father’s study. I overheard them talking about you, Cas, and some guys named the Shadows. At first, I didn’t believe it. You were alive all that time? And you didn’t text me or call me? I ran back to my room and texted you.”

“I’m sorry,” I whispered, but she plowed on.