between us. That wild emotional scene when I woke up before was the result of painkillers and shock. The sense I had of the world shifting into balance must have been an illusion. The relief I felt—
It was a feeling for another man. Not me. I don’t love people like that.
I can’t. It’s too dangerous.
Scenes like that can’t continue. They won’t. For Haley’s sake. She wants her freedom. Of course she does. Birds always want to fly away. I can’t keep her safe if she’s roaming the skies.
I’m still thinking of Haley when Lucian arrives.
His voice carries down the hall, but the words aren’t clear. I don’t need a transcript to know he’ll be greeting the security with mild barbs at the number of guards in the hall. Someone points him in our direction. Gerard maintains a carefully neutral expression.
My oldest brother appears in the doorway a few moments later. He’s dressed for the office, and he’s alone. “I have to say, Leo, I am fucking offended.”
“Glad to hear it.”
Lucian strides across the room, unbuttoning his jacket, and takes the chair across from me. “You’re in the hospital for days and you don’t so much as call?”
“I wasn’t feeling up for visitors.”
Lucian purses his lips. He is the last person on the face of the earth who can give me shit about being allowed to visit. “What did you do to Caroline Constantine?”
The words crowd to the tip of my tongue. Let’s start with what Caroline Constantine did to me. But the secret has scarred over. I won’t tell Lucian unless I have to. “I took a meeting with her.”
“Don’t bullshit me, Leo.” A flash of true irritation in his eyes. “She didn’t send someone to murder you in cold blood because of contract negotiations.”
“She obviously didn’t like the outcome.”
He looks tense. There are bags under his eyes as if he hasn’t been sleeping. “If you don’t tell me what the outcome was, then I’ll have to expend valuable resources in order to—”
“Caroline wanted me to dissolve the contract with Phillip. I wasn’t about to do it for nothing.”
Lucian scents blood in the water. A gleam comes to his eyes. “A buyout?”
“A payout. I whipped her bloody and sent her away.”
Gerard makes a sound that could be disapproval, but remains stone-faced.
Lucian rubs a hand over his mouth. My brother looks me up and down in the familiar way I’ve always hated. Like he’s trying to see into my brain, to see what made me do what I did. I watch him discard the first few things he’s planning to say. “Which painkillers do they have you on?”
“None.”
Lucian narrows his eyes. “Whose choice was that?”
“Mine.”
“How much does it hurt?”
He wishes he knew. “It hurts less than having to listen to your questions.”
He laughs, sounding slightly awed. “Such a temper.”
I resist the urge to cover my face and shut him out. Shut everything out. That’s why they call me the Beast of Bishop’s Landing. It’s easier to rage at everyone. They stop probing for my secrets that way. “Is there a reason you’re here?”
Lucian shakes his head. “I’m here to help you with whatever foolish plan you have before you get yourself killed.”
“Sorry, big brother. I managed to stay alive without you.”
“And what about the rest of the family? What about Eva? Or Eden? Or Lisbetta?”
“Lizzy’s at a boarding school in fucking Austria. She’s fine. She’s safe.”
“We need to talk strategy,” Lucian says. “I’ve sent my people to your place already.”
“I have enough people.”
“Obviously not, if Caroline’s bulldog walked into your house and shot you.”
Gerard stiffens next to me. It would be a terrible reflection on his work if he hadn’t stopped Ronan. “I let him come.”
For the first time, there’s a flare of anger in Lucian’s eyes—and something else. Regret? Grief? The Morelli family knows coldness, not emotions. “You did what?”
“I’d had enough, so I sent Gerard and the rest of the staff away and let Ronan come.”
His jaw tightens. “You don’t have enough people covering the grounds as it stands. And now you’re sending them away? If you still want to die—”
“I don’t.”
“Regardless, you need people to—”
“Unnecessary.”
“Leo.” His hand balls up into a fist on the table and unclenches. “Don’t make this difficult.”
The way he says this is so strange it takes me a moment to sift through the meaning. His words are an old threat. The kind he used to make when we were children, if he was around to make them at all. But his tone is all