CHAPTER FOUR

LUCAS

It is five in the morning, and Lucas is lying in his bed tossing and turning as he tries and miserably fails to sleep. His mind keeps creating horrid scenarios of what might become of Crystal if she is to be caught by her parents. She could end up being Ivan's slave, or worse; his whore. His disturbing train of thoughts is abandoned when he hears shouts and screams causing him to jump out of bed, and look out of his balcony into the gardens surrounding the mansion.

Lucas cannot see anything due to the night sky; therefore, he focuses on the voices instead. It only takes him a few seconds to identify the voices, they belong to no other than Dante and Angelica Moreno; the former rulers of the Brazilian mafia.

"Fuck"

The mafia man does not think twice before sprinting out of his bedroom and head towards Nicholas's only to pump into his friend in the middle of the hallway.

"Your parents…"

"I know… the guards are containing them, but they will not be able to do so for long. They brought back up, which means we have to get Crystal out of here in the next couple of minutes."

Lucas's head starts to throb from the speed of the events that are coming to pass. Still, he assembles whatever energy he has into protecting his friends. Nothing is going to stand in the way of Crystal's safety.

"What do you need me to do?"

"Go to Crystal's room and sneak her out of the house using the secret passage way in the library. On the other side will be a helicopter that will take you to the airport. You are travelling to Italy tonight. Meanwhile I will distract my parents dearest." The mafia leader does not wait for his friend's response as he whooshes out of his sight.

Everything moves around Lucas in a blur as he runs to the third floor hoping to reach the only occupied guest room as fast as possible. He does not bother to knock, or to think of the possibility of Crystal being naked. The latter; however, crosses his mind once he sees his best friend's sleeping figure in the king-sized bed. She has nothing on but a red thong and an oversized white –and much revealing- t-shirt. Even though she is like a sister to him, it takes everything in Lucas to ignore her state as he takes a step forward to wake her up. The second his hand is about to touch her shoulder; however, Angelica's voice echoes in his ears; indicating that the evil woman has somehow managed to enter the mansion.

"Crystal Moreno, you better come down here this instant, or so help me God I will chop off your hair!"

"I told you she is not here mother! And why do you need her anyway?"

"Do not play smart with me boy. I know that my slut of a daughter is here; she has nowhere else to go. Now, hand her over"

"Hand her over? She is not an object; she is an independent woman who can make her own choices"

"Your sister? An independent woman? She is my property! She is obligated to do whatever I command her to do whether she likes to or not. She is lucky we left her alone for a perfect year, which if you ask me is more than she deserves."

All common sense abandons Lucas as he hastily picks sleeping Crystal, places her over his shoulder, and starts running down the stairs. His heartbeat is so fast that his entire body is beating along with his fragile heart.

Now that Angelica is inside the building, it would be twice as hard to get unnoticed. After all, the library is in the first floor; the same roof mama Moreno is in.

Once in the second floor, Lucas hears loud footsteps coming up the stairs. Therefore, he tightens his grip on Crystal's legs. As a result, Crystal wakes up and starts screaming as she throws angry punches at her savior's back.

"Would you stay still for a second? You are going to get us caught!" Lucas hisses, panic starting to consume him.

"Lucas! What are you doing? You do realize that I'm half naked, right?"

"Believe me when I tell you I could not care less about this at the moment. Your parents; though, brought lots of men with them, all whom I am sure would appreciate seeing you in your red thong and visible nipples." Liar; he does care; he can barely control himself to not look to his left where he would be met with Crystal's ass. Not to mention, he can feel her nipples against his back. He is a man after all, and he is not blind; the woman is beautiful.

"But why are we…"

"I swear to God Crystal, if you do not shut the fuck up, I will hand you over to your parents like a trophy." That does the job of shutting up the attractive woman on his shoulder. He takes a sharp turn to the right in the hopes of losing whoever is on their tracks, but when they hear someone yelling: "to the right, they went to the right" Lucas picks up his pace.

"They are going to catch up to us Lucas, we have to hide in a room"

"I'm working on it." It takes a few minutes, but eventually they reach their destination; the room at the very end of this particular floor. Lucas makes sure that no one has spotted them yet before quietly sliding the door open, slipping into the room, and locking the door behind them. The mafia man does not use a key or a lock to lock the door because that would raise suspicion if one of the hostiles tries to search for them.

Lucas puts Crystal down to her feet, and immediately signals for her to maintain the silence in the room. To his surprise, she obeys his order. He chooses to feel grateful for that for if she as much as whispers a word, they can be caught, and she would be chipped to Russia. Still, he is concerned; they are in the music room, which means bumping into any of the instruments will also lead to an unpleasant conclusion.

The right hand man takes big strides towards the piano's chair. He kneels down as he places his thumb over the small wheel on the right side of the chair. Lucas can feel Crystal's gaze follow his each move, but right now, he is more concerned about her well-being rather than keeping the mafia a secret from her. He can also feel her amazement as a small drawer gradually opens.

The Brazilian man takes a deep breath before removing his thumb from the wheel, and taking the small gun out and on display for Crystal to see. As expected, she freaks out.

"Bloody hell, is that a gun? Why do you have a hidden gun? Oh Dio, does Nicholas has a gun too?" She babbles.

"Listen, I know you are confused, but we have to keep going okay?" Lucas grabs her shoulders and looks her in the eyes. This must be the first time he ever saw the confident outgoing that is before him looking scared, something that does not help ease his nerves. He is well aware that Nicholas will skin him alive when he learns that Crystal had seen him pull a gun, but he chooses to focus on one problem at a time. . "Keep going where?" Crystal whispers, her voice a little shaky.

"This room is exactly on top of the library. We are going to climb down the window to the first floor, and sneak into the library."

"What then?"

"Well, let's get these steps done, then we will worry about our next move." Lucas tries to conceal it for Crystal's sake, but deep down he is hesitant to do anything that he has learned in the mafia, part of him is even afraid. If Crystal has not been with him, he would not have even a hint of doubt about his capabilities. Nonetheless, he cannot help but be disappointed in himself for feeling this way. You are the right hand of the Brazilian mafia, agire come tale!

"Come over here" he whispers. 'Once the nearly naked woman is a few inches away from him, he speaks again.

"I want you to jump, and wrap your legs around my hips and your arms around my neck." Crystal is about to protest when the doorknob moves. On instinct, Lucas puts the gun in his pants, wraps his right arm around her body and goes for the long open window. Crystal immediately wraps herself around him, and hold on to him as if her life depends on it, and whether she realizes it or not, it does.

Lucas is tempted to simply climb down the curvy stones into the library, but he knows that that would be an indiscreet plan. Thus, he climbs down until he reaches the play room's balcony on the second floor. Alas, there are already a couple of Dante's men there.

"Lucas…" Crystal is on the verge of tears, he can see that she does not want to be enslaved by her parents. Hell, he would never be able to live with himself if she gets captured. He is about to continue climbing down to their destination on the first floor, but both himself and Crystal gets grabbed and then pushed into the balcony.

"Boss said that you are hot, I did not think he was that accurate." One of the hostile men looks at Crystal with lust in his eyes. Lucas looks down from the balcony to see a familiar figure with a thumbs up – which is one of their secret plans in emergencies-.

If Lucas knew Nicholas well –which he did-, the reason none of their men are here to help protect Crystal is because the Brazilian mafia boss does not want to risk his sister finding out the truth about their work. Oh, if only you knew what I have done my friend.

Lucas abruptly turns to the men with a smirk. He is going to kill his best friend once this is over.

"Oh, you want her?" he wraps his arms around Crystal for a second time this night.

"Then come and get her." he throws her tiny body off the balcony. Once he is sure that Crystal is out of sight, he takes down the enemy one by one.

Lucas walks around the hallways of the mansion with his gun held tightly in his hand; ready for any sudden attacks. All he finds; however, are unconscious or dead body from Dante and Angelica's men. The two cowards must have run off the second they started losing. A sense of bitterness compulsory overcomes Lucas at the acknowledgment that he had not witnessed the two pathetic parents fear for their filthy lives.

"Fuck" He murmurs as he enters the library to find it the only place in the house to be utterly clean. No one has entered this room, not even Nicholas and Crystal. There are two critical possibilities to the recent turn of events, either Crystal is in the helicopter waiting his arrival alongside her brother so they can take off, or his friends have been taken by their parents.

The Brazilian man brushes these thoughts away as he slowly kneels down and steps into the fireplace that is placed between the two large windows in the center of the only wall that does not have any shelves. He turns to the right then cautiously opens the secret passage.

Lucas makes sure that the entrance has been closed properly before lighting his phone to guide him through the grim road ahead.

"You are a dead man." Lucas yells once he reaches the helicopter. He pulls Nicholas by the collar then pushes him against the helicopter's hard wall. Anger consumes his every nerve the second his eyes set on his boss.

"What the hell is your problem?" the hint of a smirk in Nicholas's face makes Lucas have the urge to punch him on the lip, but he suppresses this much-needed desire.

"What is my problem? Are you fucking kidding me right now?" The right hand man leans in so he can be face to face with the man in his grip. He does not want Crystal hearing anything they are going to talk about.

"You fucking make me go fetch your sister who has a red thong on, then you make me throw her off the fucking balcony, and as if that was not enough you leave me on my own in the fucking mansion." Lucas's voice is low but it is filled with venom.

"Firstly, thank you for keeping it down, we do not need my dear sister to hear us quarrel. Secondly, do not dare getting any ideas about my sister. Thirdly, I was under the balcony and I caught her. Lastly, you are a grown man, and a fucking mafia man, so do not act like a bambino." Nicholas's amusement causes a hint of pink to appear on Lucas's cheeks.

"And you are the one to talk considering you pulled a gun out, and climbed the walls down in front of Crystal." The Brazilian mafia leader's tone becomes serious. Lucas's stomach drops; he was hoping his best friend would not mention this matter.

"What did you want me to do? I had to be alert, what if we were cornered, oh, wait, we really did get cornered."

"Yet, you were able to defeat every single one of them without using the damn gun, stupid!" Nicholas slaps Lucas on the back of his neck. "I got it covered. It is going to be fun torturing the ones who our men managed not to kill. And guess what; you won't be there to witness it." Lucas makes a pained voice while Nicholas lets out a loud chuckle.

Lucas gives his boss a bro hug. Just before he steps into the helicopter, Nicholas calls for him causing Lucas to turn around.

"Do not look forward to seeing my baby sister naked, I already gave her clothes to cover up." Before the Brazilian mafia boss can say anything more, his right hand gets into the helicopter, and sits next to his female best friend.

"Where are we going?" It is lucid that Crystal is still a little shook from the events from earlier.

"We, my friend are going to the airport where your brother's private jet is, and from there we are heading straight to Italy."

"Did you see any of my goodies?" Crystal tries to mask her fear with a roguish grin.

"Do not flatter yourself young lady, I have seen way better than what you have." Lucas mirrors her smirk.