Page 28 of Lucian

Lucian didn’t even know what to say to that.

Dante nodded, smirking. “That could work.”

“All right, I’m done,” Lucian said with a sigh. “You two bond over mutual exploits, I have better business needing attention.”

“Good luck,” Gio chimed from the backseat.

Dante met his brother’s stare and spoke nothing, but what lay behind his eyes said everything.

• • •

Lucian knew instantly something was wrong when he arrived at Jordyn’s second floor apartment. The building was definitely crap, locks were practically nonexistent, and some of the tenants were probably suspect, to say the least, but that wasn’t what gave him the hint.

Jordyn’s door had been kicked in, and recently, by the looks of it.

There was a large crack in the framing preventing the door from closing properly. Lucian simply pushed on the wood and the door tried to open, albeit a metal chain that wasn’t worth shit kept it from swinging open completely.

Lucian called her name once through the small crack opening the door created, but received no response. He couldn’t see very much inside the apartment, and what he could see, he didn’t feel all too great about. There was a mess, but he couldn’t make much of it out.

This was wrong. He just knew it.

A quiet little voice from behind Lucian jerked him back into the present.

“Hi. My name’s Nevaeh.”

Lucian looked at the little girl poking her head out of her own doorway that was directly across from Jordyn’s apartment. She was maybe five, possibly six-years-old. Cute, for a kid. Truthfully, kids kind of freaked him out. It wasn’t like he knew what to do with them.

“Hello, sweetheart. I’m Lucian. Do you know Jordyn?”

The little girl with her dark eyes and hair nodded, smiling wide. “Sometimes she watches me when Mommy doesn’t get home until late. And she takes me to the school so I don’t have to walk alone. She’s my friend.”

Oh, Jordyn.

Jesus.

Something about the little girl’s words cracked him straight in the chest. Lucian had taken the time over the last day to carefully read over the file his father provided. Sure, it felt like an invasion of Jordyn’s privacy, but Lucian needed to know about her.

Desperately, he wanted to know this woman.

It was very likely she found a kindred spirit in this little girl. Something similar between them.

“Shouldn’t you be in school?” he asked the girl.

Nevaeh shrugged. “It’s Saturday.”

“Oh.” Lucian shoved his hands in his pockets, feeling uncomfortable. “Did you have school yesterday?”

“Yep, but I didn’t go.”

“School is important. Why didn’t you go?”

“Mommy slept in, so she couldn’t take me. Jordyn was sick, I think. The big men came. I heard them yell at her. They broke her door. See?” She pointed at Jordyn’s door with a frown. “When Mommy woke up, and I told her, she said I couldn’t visit Jordyn anymore. I don’t know why. I like her.”

Lucian’s heart stopped beating. He was sure it did.

If what this child said was true, what lay behind Jordyn’s door might not be a pretty sight. Especially not for a little girl who thought of the older woman as her friend. It didn’t matter, though. Lucian was going in anyway once he got the girl back inside her own apartment.

He did take into account the chain had been locked, so at some point, Jordyn managed that.