Page 255 of Rosetti Family New York
Lucas doesn't look up. He doesn't look at me.
"Maddy said she was going to tell you everything," he says, his voice small. "You would have told your dad, got yourself involved to protect her and probably gotten yourself killed. So I panicked. I panicked and I let her die."
It feels like I'm the one falling, plummeting through the city. The ground is rushing up at me, ready to break every bone. Every heart.
"All because you owe someone money, huh?" I say, my voice thick and angry.
Lucas nods. He can't look at me.
"How much?" I say.
"Too much," he says. "More than I could ever pay off."
I thought my heart broke. I was wrong. It's breaking now.
Rafe steps up on Lucas, towering over him, his jaw like iron.
"You were laundering money for the Callahans?"
Lucas's body is rigid, like he's waiting for a blow. But he doesn't back down. He barely nods, and his voice is brittle, paper-thin.
"Y—yes."
"From the fight ring?"
"Yes."
Rafe leans in, crowding Lucas against the edge of the building, as he demands the next words, and I wonder if Lucas will even have the strength to say them. "Who? Which Callahan?" Rafe's voice is quiet now, so low and cold it could slice through skin.
Lucas breathes out the answer.
"The son. Dale."
Rafe lets out an explosive curse.
"Fuck!"
He slams his fist into the brick wall, and a crack splits right down the mortar. If it weren't for the gloves, I'm sure his knuckles would be shreds of flesh and bone, dripping blood on the pavement.
But I can't focus on him. Can't drag my eyes away from Lucas. My friend. Maddy's brother. The guy who got her killed.
All this time, and he never said a word.
Each beat of my heart is like a bomb, and I need to match it with the sound of a scream.
I want to run. I want to leave him here, to watch him crumble. I want to grab his shoulders and shake him until he cracks. I want to scream and scream and scream until the only sound is my voice against the skyline, the echo of my heart pounding.
"I was drowning," Lucas says. "And I dragged you down with me."
He finally looks up, and the look in his eyes is the saddest thing I've ever seen.
"Say something, Sloane," he says, and it's a plea.
"What can I say?" I reply.
"Anything," he says. "Say you hate me."
"Right now?" I say, and my voice cracks. "Right now, I do."
