Page 23 of Scarlet Embrace

“Yeah,” Elena managed to reply.

She looks delicate.

It was a strange thought, but I couldn’t find a better word to describe how she looked. I knew for a certain that Elena Rodriguez was a strong woman, but the woman in front of me seemed scared out of her wits.

“I’m sorry you had to go through this,” I said in a whisper. I ignored the look on Linda’s face, my attention on Elena, who only nodded to my statement. She was most likely still scared and wanted this nightmare over. “Please take them both home, Thomas.”

“What about you?” Thomas asked.

“Come pick me up after you drop them home. By then, Diana and I would be done discussing whatever we might have to discuss,” I said, turning to him.

He nodded, and soon, the three of them were driving out of LaRosa’s compound. I then turned to Diana and asked if we could get to the reason why she had called me out there.

“If I may ask, what’s your relationship with her?”

“A good friend to my sister and I. You can say we have kind of a close relationship,” I answered Diana as she led me into her home.

“Oh really? Then you won’t mind if my son takes an interest in her?”

Where is she going with all this?

Cunning, cruel, and calculative were a few of the adjectives I’d use to describe Diana, and her asking that question was not a mistake. No, she was up to something, but I wasn’t going to play her games.

“I don’t think Elena would be interested in Marcus. He’s not her kind of man, to be honest.”

Almost immediately, Diana shot me a menacing look, which made me delighted. She wasn’t the only one who could play mind games, and if she hoped to keep poking me for the entire duration of this meeting, she would realize that she had met her match. I needed to figure out exactly what was going on because the moment I returned home, my father would be asking a whole ton of questions.

CHAPTER 11: ELENA

RUMOR HAS IT

“Are you okay, Elena?” Bianca asked me for what had to be the tenth time.

“Yeah. Just a bit distracted,” I said with a nervous laugh.

Admitting to my sister that I was just captured by the matriarch of the LaRosa gang was not something I was going to admit to. Luckily for me, Bianca had branched a friend’s place, and I had gotten home before she did, which I was more than grateful for. With Linda asking me questions and Thomas keeping an eye on me, I was unable to cry. The second I got home, I broke down into tears. I had thought I was going to die.

Diana and Marcus had spoken a lot about their criminal activities, an act that both bothered and worried me. If they were conveniently talking about their criminal activities right in front of me, knowing that I was a lawyer, it was a guarantee that I was going to be killed.

“Tell me about med school. How’re your friends?” I asked Bianca, wanting to take my mind off the events of that evening.

“You really don’t look okay, Elena,” Bianca told me.

My little sister was very concerned for my safety, and that made me happy. Bianca and I could be mistaken for twins, though while I was on the thick side, Bianca was quite slim and a little bit taller. Once again, I assured her that I was okay and just a bit tired from the day’s case. The doorbell interrupted our discussion, and for a moment, I was scared that Diana’s men had found my home.

“Let me answer that,” I said to Bianca.

Walking toward the door, I noticed that my hands were shaking slightly. The experience was still fresh, still raw. I doubt I’ll be able to get the memories of being inside that trunk, thinking about what my fate would be, out of my mind that easily.

Checking the doorbell, I realized that Lucas Cruz was the one standing outside my door. I looked again, wondering if I had imagined it, but there was no denying that Lucas Cruz was the one outside my door.

“Hey,” he said gently as I opened the door slightly.

“What are you doing here?” I asked a bit coldly.

“Just want to check up on you,” he said slowly. “Can I come in? I don’t want your neighbors or anyone seeing me out here.”

There was already enough problem with him being in my life. I wasn’t going to risk that again. I felt a bit reluctant to let him into my apartment, especially with Bianca inside, but we couldn’t hold a discussion in the hallway. Reluctantly, I opened the door wide for him to come inside.