Throwing the bat on her shoulder, she walked over to stand right in front of the big bastard.
“You done?” Drago asked her, becoming irate.
“Yep.” She threw the bat down, flipping it over her shoulder as she started to walk out. “Lemme know if you would like to babysit me again, asshole.”
Everyone behind her blinked for several moments as they looked around at the destruction she created in just minutes.
Maria, however, turned to Drago. “I’ll marry her if you don’t.”
Ten
Lucifer’s World
Before the elevator door could close, a hand on the other side stopped it, making the doors slide open to reveal Lucca.
Kat swallowed hard.
Stepping onto the elevator, he gave her his back. “I’ll be taking you home now.”
Well, shit.
* * *
“You two would be fucking perfect for each other,” Drago spat, picking up the pots and pans, and if they could have procreated to mix their blood, he’d fucking let her have the witch.
An unbothered Maria smiled at him.
“Kat really did all this?” Chloe asked, holding the broom.
“Yeah, it was awesome.” Leo laughed, helping him pick up.
Drago was on the verge of sending the Caruso children flying out the window.
“Why would she do it?” Chloe asked, not understanding what could have changed her into The Hulk.
Maria, who had brushed off all the glass from the couch, lazily sat down and started talking as if she’d been here the whole time. “He made her do it.”
“I did not,” Drago hissed at the prissy blonde. “Now, how about you actually help and stop fucking bugging me?”
“I’m wearing my good heels,” she told him before revealing the red bottom. The shift in her voice should have warned him what was about to come. “I just wanna know one thing....”
Rolling his eyes, he angrily looked at her. “What?”
“Did you piss her off to make her hate you—” His stomach began to sink with the words that left her mouth next. “Or did you piss her off to make you hate her?”
* * *
Sitting next to the boogieman in the Cadillac sent chills up her spine. When she told them earlier that Lucca wasn’t her type, she’d really meant that he scared the fuck out of her. There was no way you could be raised by her father and not see it. To see when a man was truly mad and needed to be buried behind bars or six feet in the dirt. She could see every drop of blood he had washed away, every emotion he would never feel, and everything he was made of.
The second his blue-green eyes landed on her for the first time, it was like the air in the room had suddenly become thicker, and she knew she was in the presence of a man who could do terrible, horrendous things to any living being in the blink of an eye.
Lucca had been the one to finally take down her father because only men like that were gifted to take out men of their own kind. It was sick, really. You needed one monster to bring down another, but who was going to take down that monster when he finally became the man they had to destroy?
“What you did isn’t going to change his mind,” he told her, breaking the deafening silence.
“I know,” Kat whispered.
“Then why do it?”
She didn’t hold back the truth. “Because he’s an asshole.”
“There’re worse men out there, Katarina.” He said it as if it was a warning.
“I’m sure there are, but that doesn’t make me want to marry him.”
Lucca was silent for several moments while he gripped the leather steering wheel of the Cadillac. “Do you know why out of all my men I picked him to fulfil the marriage agreement?”
All she could manage was to shake her head. Unsure if she wanted to hear what he had to say next.
“I know no one else more dedicated, resilient, and loyal than Drago. He has never disappointed me, and I wouldn’t trade him for a hundred men.” He looked as though he was picking his words carefully, wanting her to fully understand. “He has the making of being a great husband, and I fully believe that one day he will. You just have to give him a chance.”
It was her this time who went silent. Knowing who and what Lucca was, she was sure he wasn’t wrong. She could live with marrying Drago to save her family and had practically accepted it the moment he’d chosen her, but one thought scared her. Finally, she decided to reveal the truth on a whisper. “I can’t leave Cassius.”
Lucca’s eyes drifted over to her before they had to return to the road. His tone changed, becoming even more serious than he already was. “Why?”
Looking down at her feet on the floorboard, she told him all she could, “He just needs me.”
Nodding in understanding, he acknowledged her but didn’t give her any false promises.