“That Enzo Fontana took a DNA test but died before he got the results. No one ever contacted the lab, so they’ve held on to them all this time.” She turned her head, and I saw her eyes were bright with tears. “I think…I think they’re coming for me.”
“What? Who?” I cupped her face. “You’re not making any sense, baby.”
“She kept asking where I was. And then she mentioned Lyric’s cousins and that they were looking into you. That’s how they found out about the DNA tests. She said they were trying to find me.” Twin tears spilled like diamonds from her eyes. “They’re going to come for me and take me away.”
“No, I won’t let them.” I kissed her brow, trying to reassure her—and myself. “You’re mine, Monroe. I won’t let anyone take you from me.”
“Lexa made me choose,” she said with a whimper. “She made me choose because you’re Enzo Fontana’s son. But you’re not. He’s not your father. She won’t make me choose now. She’ll let me have you and her too… Right?”
“Precious, I would love to give you that, but I can’t.” I kissed her lips softly before pulling back. “I wish I could, but I can’t change reality.”
“I love you,” she whispered. “I love you so much. I don’t want to leave you. I know I said I did, but I lied. Because I was mad at you and hurt. But…” Her tears were flowing faster now, streaming like rivers from each eye, making her nose run. “But I want to stay with you, G. Please, don’t let them take me away from you.”
“Never,” I vowed in a raspy voice.
“But don’t hurt them,” she pleaded. “I couldn’t handle it if someone got hurt because of me. Please don’t shoot them.”
“Baby, if anyone tries to take you from me, I’ll kill them all.” Her tears only fell faster, and I groaned in pain at the sight. “But if it means so much to you, I’ll tell my men to stand down.”
“P-promise?”
I climbed into bed beside her and pulled her head to my chest, careful not to so much as graze the tender spot on her forehead. “Don’t I always give you what you want, my love?”
She nodded, sniffling against me.
“I love you, Monroe,” I murmured, kissing her lips. “And I promise no harm will come to those you care about.”
I held her until she fell asleep in my arms, but once she was resting peacefully, I knew I had to get up. I didn’t know if she was talking crazy due to the head injury or if what she said was true, but either way, I wasn’t taking any chances.
If they were coming for her, I would make sure my men knew not to shoot. But I wouldn’t let them take her from me. She was the only good thing in the world, my peace, my fucking sanity.
And I would die before I let anyone take that away from me.
Chapter 20
Mila
I found I could wrap Lyric around my finger about as well as I could Dad. That didn’t mean it was easy talking my way on to the private plane with him, Barrick, Braxton, Maverick, Max, Reid, and Ben. It wasn’t. Not by a long shot.
But it had been a hell of a lot easier than talking my way into the back of the waiting van when we got to Tuscany.
“No fucking way!” Lyric roared when he realized I was planning on going farther than the airport with him and the others. “You said you only wanted to be here to reassure your sister once we got her back. To keep her calm and convince her she has to go home with us. You said you were the only one who could do that, and everyone else agreed it was the most likely recourse. But I’ll be damned if you’re going to be waiting in the van while we go in and get her out. No fucking way, Mila.”
“I won’t leave the van,” I promised, keeping my fingers crossed behind my back. I didn’t like lying to him and I felt so damn guilty doing it, but I had to get to Monroe one way or another.
Max and Reid snorted in disbelief, and I kicked them both. Reid clamped his mouth shut, and Max held up his hands in surrender. Lyric didn’t even pay them any attention, though, because his mesmerizing brown eyes were glued to me. “I said no, and that’s final.”
It was the middle of the night when the van stopped a half mile from the property line of the home belonging to Gian Fontana. Lyric was glowering at me from across the van, and I had to press my lips together to keep from grinning at him.
He was pissed, but I’d gotten my way, so I wasn’t going to rub it in. I made a promise to myself that once this was all over, I would make it up to him. He’d been so understanding through all of it, taking care of me when I was too emotional to take care of myself. Getting his cousins by marriage to find out where Monroe was, and even promising me he would go with the others to bring my sister back to me.
Maverick was just as pissed as Lyric was, though, because he was on babysitting detail. As in, he would have to sit in the van and make sure I didn’t leave, while the others went in and got Monroe. I couldn’t look at my brother, though, because if I did, I knew Lyric would know I’d lied to him. I was just thankful it was Mav and not Max or Reid. It wouldn’t take anything to get my way with my brother once everyone else was gone because he’d be chomping at the bit to get to Monroe as much as I was. Max and Reid would have probably tied me up and kept a gun pressed to my head until the others returned—with or without my sister.
I had this sinking feeling in my stomach it would be without her.
There was no way in hell I was going to sit in that damn van while they went in to get my twin. Lyric could be mad all he wanted, but I would be following him in and making sure with my own two eyes that Monroe was okay. My heart hadn’t beat right since I’d heard her fall.
But I needed to see her myself, because I was sure she didn’t want to come home with us.
Barrick reminded the group of the plan for the third time, and everyone but Maverick and I took off into the night. I gave them five minutes before I finally looked at my brother. “How many guns do you have?”
“Two,” he said, losing the frost because now he could see what I hadn’t wanted to show Lyric, which was why I’d avoided looking at my brother for so long. “You think that’s enough?”
“I haven’t heard any gunfire so far, so I’m hoping.”
He got out, then reached back in to assist me out, making sure I didn’t stand up too fast before handing me one of the guns.
“Let’s go get our baby sister back,” I told him.
Mom was a runner and had gotten all three of us kids into it, so running the three miles up to the house was nothing. It was kind of eerie how quiet everything was, though. I couldn’t see much of anything or anyone, could only smell the sweet, fruity blooms of the grapevines in the distance, but I would have expected Fontana to have the entire property protected like Fort Knox.
Even getting into the huge house was easy.
Too easy.
There were no guards, no dogs, not even a locked door.
But then I realized why when I skidded to a stop right behind Lyric and the others. They were being held at gunpoint by at least twenty men armed with semiautomatic rifles pointed right at their hearts, standing guard in front of what must have been the room Monroe was staying in.
“For fuck’s sake,” Lyric exploded when he saw Maverick and me. “I’m so spanking your ass when we get home. And you—” He pointed his gun at my brother. “I’m kicking your ass as soon as this is over.”
I was pretty sure I was going to enjoy that spanking a hell of a lot more than he intended for me to, but now wasn’t exactly the time to get into that. “Monroe!” I yelled at the top of my lungs. “Monroe, come out here!”
The guards with guns all tensed, but they didn’t move as I continued to shout for my sister.
Almost a full minute later, the door behind them opened, and Monroe stood there in a nightgown with a pretty kimono-style robe over it. Her hair was up in a messy knot on top of her head. But what had me pushing past all the men with scary guns was the sight of the black eye that had her right eye nearly swollen shut.
“The fuck happ
ened to you?” I touched her cheek under the swollen eye, causing her to flinch.
She grimaced. “I fell. Blood pressure dropped when I got up too fast.”
“Are you okay? Did you hurt anything else? The babies?” She shook her head, and I wrapped my arms around her in a tight hug. “Fuck, I missed you, Mon.”
She wrapped her arms around me too. “Missed you,” she mumbled.
“Hey,” Maverick called out. “Could you maybe call off the goons so I can get a hug too?”
Sighing, she glanced over her shoulder. “Gian?”
A man dressed in only sweat pants walked out of the shadows just inside the doorway and gave a terse order in Italian that had all the guns lowering. It was the first time I’d ever seen Gian Fontana in the flesh, but after all the pictures Barrick and Braxton had shown us the last few days, I knew it was him. He was a good-looking guy, but he wasn’t as tall as Lyric, nor as bulky. He had some killer abs, though, and when he looked at my sister, I saw what Lyric told me he’d seen in Gian’s eyes the night he took Monroe, and I began to relax.
As soon as the guns were out of the way, Maverick pushed his way forward and threw his arms around both of us.
When I had both my brother and sister to hold on to, I was finally able to breathe again. My heart skipped a beat and then began to work the way it was supposed to, and I had to blink back tears for a few seconds before I could get control of my emotions.
I had her back.
But then I looked at her face and wondered if I was going to get to keep her.
Chapter 21
Monroe
Seeing my sister and brother, having them wrap their arms around me with Gian only inches away, made the world feel right again. All that was missing were Mom and Daddy, and it would have been perfect.
But our parents weren’t there, and with twenty of Gian’s men still standing around holding guns—even though they weren’t pointed at anyone—it made me realize just how far from perfect this moment was. I glanced at the others, the “rescue party” that had come to take me home, and I grimaced.
Two of the men, I didn’t know, but I had to assume these were Lyric’s cousins that Mila mentioned. One had long, brownish-red hair pulled back into a bun, his thick beard giving me a bizarre Belle’s Beast kind of vibe. Beside him stood a guy with the same brown eyes the Beast had, but his hair was short and dark. It took me a while, but eventually my gaze landed on his legs, and I realized he had on a prosthetic blade, like I’d seen amputee runners wear.
Max and Reid were with them, but I wasn’t surprised. Uncle Bash was always sending Max when he couldn’t go himself, and we all knew he was being groomed to take over the MC one day. Reid, who was only a little older than Max, looked more like his brother than his cousin. Their dark hair, metallic-blue eyes that seemed to be a Reid trademark, and overwhelming height were so similar, they could have passed for twins in dim lighting.
Ben and Lyric were in the back of the group, but it was Ben who pushed his way through the guards to reach us.
He pulled me out of my siblings’ embrace into his own crushing hug. “It’s so good to see you, little one,” he said with a harsh sigh. “Lexa was so worried.”
I felt my chin begin to quiver at the mention of my cousin, and he quickly shook his head at me. “She sent me to tell you she’s sorry, Monroe. When she found out about the DNA test, she lost it. She feels so bad for giving you an ultimatum and wants me to beg you to forgive her.”
“I forgive her,” I rushed to assure him, relieved Lexa wasn’t going to make me choose any longer. “Of course I do.”
“Someone needs to tell me about this DNA test,” Gian said, pulling me away from Ben and behind him protectively.
I wrapped my arms around him from behind. When I touched him, I could feel some of the tension actually drain out of him. His hands covered mine, his thumbs caressing over my knuckles, but he kept his eyes trained on Ben.
My cousin-by-marriage faced Gian with a clenched jaw, but then he surprised me when he stuck out his hand. “You saved Lexa when you shot Adas Petrov three years ago. Thank you.”
After a small hesitation, Gian shook his hand. “I didn’t do it to save your wife. I was protecting Monroe.”
“But you still saved her,” Ben said. “And I’m still thankful.”
“The DNA test?” Gian reminded him.
“Right.” Ben glanced over his shoulder at the others. “Barrick, perhaps you could explain it better.”
The Beast replica stepped forward, his gun still in hand, but at least he wasn’t pointing it at anyone. “We searched to see if your DNA was in any databases just in case we needed to compare it at a later date. I wasn’t surprised that it was, but the reasons for it did have me curious, so I made a few phone calls. Specifically, to the lab that handled the DNA analysis. It seems Enzo Fontana had a paternity test done, but he disappeared soon after. I was informed by Mila that Enzo had died.”
“Tragic,” Gian muttered.
“Yeah, my heart is broken for the poor bastard,” Barrick said with a smirk. “But he didn’t get to find out the results of the test. From what I understand, he was the only one who knew or cared about the results because, according to the lab, no one ever contacted them regarding said results.”
“And these results conclude I am not Enzo Fontana’s son?” Gian’s voice sounded like it had been scraped raw with sandpaper.
“So the director of the lab told me,” Barrick confirmed. “I have their information if you want to contact them yourself.”
Gian muttered a curse, then told the guards to return to their posts outside. They made a quick exit. “Let’s take this down to the library,” he suggested. Turning to face me, he cupped my face. “Precious, we seem to have guests. Get dressed and come join us.” He glanced at Mila. “Your sister can assist you.”
“And Maverick?” I asked hopefully, and Gian’s lips tilted up as he nodded. I pushed up onto my tiptoes and kissed his lips. “Thank you,” I whispered when I pulled back. “For everything.”
Jaw clenching, he gave another firm nod and stepped back. “Mila, Maverick, please watch over her. She’s been getting very dizzy. I don’t want her to fall again.”
“Damn, Mon,” Maverick said as he started to touch my eye. “That’s a pretty shiner you got, sis.”
I flinched away from his touch, knowing how badly it would hurt if he so much as grazed it, and Gian growled ferally at him.
“Right,” Maverick said with a grimace. “No touching the wounded.”
Shaking my head at my brother, I grabbed his hand and tugged him into the bedroom. “We won’t be long,” I promised Gian before shutting the door.
As soon as we were alone, Maverick glanced around. “This place is sick. I should have brought River.”
“Mon.” Mila caught my hands when I would have walked into the closet and turned me to face her. “I came here to take you home. But…”
“But I am home,” I finished for her, and tears filled her gray eyes. “I’m sorry, Mil.”
“What am I going to tell Mom and Dad?” she whispered.
“That I’m happy and in love with a man who would find a way to give me the moon if I asked for it.” I hugged her. “You have Lyric, so I know you understand how I would feel if I had to leave Gian, Mila. He’s everything to me. More than everything. I was so miserable without him, and I don’t think I could ever survive that again. Please… Please don’t make me choose.”
“I’m not,” she rushed to assure me. “I would never do that to you. I don’t care who you love or want to spend your life with. All that matters to me is that you’re happy and he treats you like a princess.”
“She’s not a princess.” Our heads snapped up at the sound of Gian’s voice in the doorway. “She’s my queen, and I’ll bow at her feet for the rest of my life.”
“Okay, then,” Mila said with a quiver in her voice. “But…But I need to see my sister often. She’s my other half. I’ll lose my m
ind if I don’t get a regular dose of her sweetness.”
“You are welcome to visit us as often as you please,” Gian told her, making me fall in love with him all over again. “And I will bring her to visit you whenever she asks.”
“Mila!” Lyric called out and pushed in behind Gian. Gian glared at him, but Lyric glared back, not in the least bit intimidated by my crime lord, and then looked at Mila. “This guy downstairs called Monroe Mrs. Fontana.”
Mila gasped and pinched my side. “Did you get married and not tell me?” she demanded, sounding hurt.
“Damn it, Monroe!” Maverick scolded. “Mom is going to be so pissed you got married without us.”
“I didn’t get married,” I told them with a roll of my eyes. “Gian just makes the poor doctor call me Mrs. Fontana.”
“Soon, you will be,” Gian said with a shrug. “Why confuse the man when you will only be a Masterson for a short time longer?”
“You still haven’t asked me to marry you,” I reminded him in a voice full of all the sass my sister’s voice tended to possess more often than not.
“Asking gives you the chance to say no.”
“I won’t say no,” I told him with a coy little smile as I looked up at him through my lashes.
His dark eyes brightened. “You mean that?”
“Ask and find out,” I challenged.
He dropped to his knees right there in the middle of our bedroom, in front of Mila and Maverick and Lyric. My breath caught in my throat, and tears blurred my vision as I looked down at him. “Monroe Masterson, you are my heart, my soul, the very air I breathe. I can’t survive this cold and dark world without your sunshine to give me a taste of the light. I know I don’t deserve you, but I’m a selfish bastard. I need you. Please, my love, will you marry me?”
“Holy fuck,” the other three muttered at the same time, but I ignored them.
Tears streaming down my face, all I could do was nod. “Yes,” I choked out eventually. “Yes. Please, Gian. I’ll marry you today, tomorrow. Whenever you want. I want to be yours. I always have.”
Surviving His Scars (Angels Halo MC Next Gen Book 4) Page 12