Page 99 of The Villain's Beast

Fletcher didn’t fight him off.

He went still in the entry of the house, exhaling slowly as Daren checked him over for other wounds.

“Luca,” he muttered, blinking slowly.

“What?”

“So it…so it looked more like self-defense,” he said, gently shaking Daren off and heading for the couch. I hadn’t moved, so I opened my arms and let him sink down into my embrace.

“What happened?” I asked.

Daren settled in beside him, getting closer than I’d ever seen Fletcher allow. I didn’t know if things had well and truly changed, or if he was just tired and didn’t have it in him to fight us off.

“He…he would have thrown me over the ledge if I…”

“It’s okay.” I kissed the top of Fletcher’s head, stroking his hair flat so I could see Daren, whose stare flickered between mine and the door. “What about Gideon? Where’s Luca?”

“No one is answering my messages,” Daren said.

“Luca is at the police station with Gideon,” Fletcher murmured. “He’s being questioned about his father’s drowning.”

Daren sighed heavily, closing his eyes.

“What about you?”

Fletcher moved halfway out of my arms, stretching out his legs and thumping his boots down on top of the table. Instead of being held by us, he pulled Daren and me against him, eyes unfocused on the wall ahead of him.

“My father attacked me,” he whispered, sounding rehearsed. “There’s proof. He just…we were on the balcony, and…”

“Okay.” I pressed my hand against the middle of his chest.

“I didn’t mean for…”

“Fletcher, it’s okay.”

“I asked him about you,” Fletcher said to me directly.

“What did he say?”

“I wish I had more answers for you, Bellamy.”

I grimaced, shaking my head for him to stop. I’d sat for weeks with the possibility my father had offered me up as something disposable, and I’d made my peace with it. Being with Daren and Luca had shown me what real love could do, and it wasn’t an emotion my father had ever held for me. It wasn’t something I could worry about or linger on because I’d never get resolution from it. I was the youngest son. The accident or the afterthought.I was the bartering tool for him to get more for himself. Thankfully, the men I’d fallen in love with would never treat me the way my own blood had.

“It’s okay,” I assured him, meaning it all the way down to the marrow in my bones.

All three of our cellphones vibrated at the same time, breaking the tentative peace of the moment. Fletcher moved so quickly I almost fell onto the floor.

“It’s just Vince,” Daren said before Fletcher could even get his hand into his pocket. “He says Gideon and Luca will be on the way over soon.”

“Was he charged?” I asked.

Daren shook his head and tossed his phone onto the table beside Fletcher’s feet.

“Vince said it was laughable for us to even worry about such a thing.”

“The Angelinis have more power than we realized, don’t they?” Luca asked.

Fletcher barked out a laugh that quickly tapered off into a sigh. “They’re the puppeteers, that’s for sure.”