Pick us back

chapter 15

Marcus leans in even closer, the intensity in his eyes enough to make me feel small. "When we finally found the paper trail—the one your mum worked so hard to bury—leading to that small town in Maryland, we knew exactly what we had to do."

He lets out a harsh, dry laugh, but there's no humor in it. "For the first time in ten years, we left the underground. We stopped hiding in the shadows of the city and stepped into the light. We put everything on the line—our safety, our operations, our very lives—just to find you."

On my left, I see Ezra's jaw tighten, and on my right, Julian's hand finds mine under the table, his grip grounding and fierce.

"We went rogue for you, Nova," Marcus continues, his voice vibrating with a decade's worth of built-up tension. "Ten years of searching, ten years of wondering if you were even alive. We risked a war with the families just to step foot in that town. We didn't care about the consequences then, and we don't care now."

He reaches out, his hand hovering near my neck, just above the collar of his shirt. "But now that we have you back, the underground isn't going to just let us walk away. You're the most valuable piece on the board, and we're the only ones standing between you and the people who want to finish what they started ten years ago."

The silence that follows my laugh is cold and suffocating. It's a jagged, hysterical sound that tears through the tension in the kitchen.

"No," I shake my head, pulling back from Marcus's touch as if his skin burned mine. "No, Marcus, you're lying. You have to be lying."

I look at them—Julian with his heavy secrets, Ezra with his calculated smirks, and Marcus, the self-appointed leader. My vision blurs with a mix of rage and pure, agonizing confusion.

"Because if that's the case," I hiss, my voice cracking as I scream the words at them, "then why is my mother a drug addict? Why does she spend every day in a haze while she abuses me? Why does she stand by and let other people abuse me?"

I grab the collar of Marcus's clean shirt, bunching the fabric in my fists. "If I was so precious, if I was some 'Mafia Princess' you all risked your lives for, then where the hell have you been for the last ten years while I was being broken?"

The room goes deathly still. Julian's grip on my hand flinches, and Ezra actually looks away, unable to meet my eyes. Marcus doesn't flinch, though. He stays right there, his face pale, watching the raw agony spill out of me.

"Maryland wasn't a hiding spot," I whisper-shout, tears finally stinging my eyes. "It was a cage. She didn't hide me to save me. She hid me so she could sell me off piece by piece to keep her habit going.

Marcus's expression shatters, the hard mask of the Mafia leader crumbling into something raw and devastated. He doesn't pull away from my outburst; instead, he leans into it, his voice dropping to a pained, gravelly whisper.

"I don't know, honey," he breathes, the words sounding like they're being torn out of his throat. "I swear to God, I didn't know it was like that."

Before I can pull back, his large hands reach out and find my waist, his grip firm and possessive. He pulls me forward until I'm standing right between his knees, forcing me to look down at him.

He's looking up at me now, his eyes swimming with a terrifying mixture of guilt and lethal intent.

"But I do know this," he growls, his fingers digging slightly into my hips as if he's anchoring me to him. "She will never lay a finger on you again. No one will."

Behind him, I hear the heavy click of a safety being flicked off. I don't even have to look to know it's Julian. Julian sits there cleaning his gun leaning in his chair , he grunts in agreement

"The moment we saw you in that house," Marcus continues, his voice vibrating with a dark promise, "the old rules died. I don't care who she is or what she was to your father. If she so much as breathes in your direction again, I'll bury her myself."

He leans his forehead against my stomach for a brief, heavy second, exhaling a shaky breath into the fabric of his own shirt. When he looks back up, the sorrow is gone, replaced by a cold, predatory focus.

"You're home now, Nova. And in this house, we don't just protect our own. We burn down anyone who tries to hurt them."