He Didn’t Kidnap Me. Not Exactly novel Chapter 194

Chapter 194

The air seemed to tighten around us. Men who had been watching suddenly found reasons to look elsewhere. Nobody wanted to be involved, nobody wanted to choose a side, and somehow that made everything feel even more serious.

“Get out of my way.”

This time there was anger beneath DeLuca’s voice. Not much, but enough.

Nico studied him for a moment before nodding thoughtfully.

“As the leader, I should probably offer an alternative.”

The smile returned.

“Or you get out of my mansion.”

For the first time, I felt genuine shock. Not because of the insult, but because of the confidence behind it. The absolute certainty.

I looked at DeLuca.

His reaction was subtle enough that most people probably wouldn’t have noticed it. There was a brief pause, nothing more, before it vanished. The shock disappeared. The hurt disappeared. Everything disappeared, leaving behind only that calm expression, that unreadable stare, and that dangerous stillness that always made me nervous.

He looked at Nico.

Nico looked back, and for a moment, neither of them moved.

The courtyard remained trapped in that strange silence where everybody was pretending not to watch despite clearly watching, and I found myself looking between them while a growing sense of unease settled in my chest. The situation had somehow become bigger than a disagreement, bigger than an argument, and perhaps even bigger than the empire they were talking about.

Nico had challenged him, not publicly or loudly, but directly, and Deluca had understood exactly what that meant.

I waited for him to respond. Part of me expected a threat, while another part expected an explosion. Instead, DeLuca did something far worse.

Nothing.

He simply looked at Nico for several seconds before shifting his attention away as though the conversation no longer deserved it. Then, without another word, he turned around and started walking.

The movement was so unexpected that even Nico seemed surprised, although the reaction lasted only a moment before disappearing behind his usual composure. Nobody tried to stop us and nobody spoke as DeLuca carried me past the scattered men around the estate. They parted instinctively to make way for him, and the entire walk toward the gate felt strangely surreal because I could still feel Nico’s eyes on our backs.

I didn’t turn around.

I didn’t want to.

Something told me that whatever existed between those two now wasn’t finished. It had merely been postponed.

Several minutes later, we were back inside the stolen car, and the irony of that realization briefly crossed my mind. I had been shot, kidnapped once, almost caught in a hospital attack, and thrown out of a mansion, yet somehow the detail that continued bothering me was the fact that we were still driving around in a stolen vehicle.

Life was strange.

The road stretched ahead of us while the city rolled past outside the windows, and neither of us spoke. At first, I assumed DeLuca was simply concentrating on driving, but as one minute passed and then another, I eventually realized the silence had nothing to do with traffic.

He was thinking.

I turned slightly in my seat and studied him. His eyes remained fixed on the road, his jaw was tight, and his hands rested steadily on the steering wheel. From the outside, he looked exactly the same as always.

That was the problem.

Most people wouldn’t have noticed anything.

I did.

I had spent enough time around DeLuca to recognize the difference between calm and control, and this wasn’t calm. This was control. The kind that existed only because something underneath it was fighting to get out.

My gaze drifted toward the window as an unexpected feeling settled inside my chest.

I felt bad for him.

Nico wasn’t just somebody DeLuca knew. Nico was his best friend, his brother in every way that mattered, and now that same person had stood in front of him and essentially announced that he had replaced him.

The thought made my chest ache because I knew exactly how I would feel if Aria ever did something similar to me. The betrayal alone would hurt. The friendship ending would hurt. But the worst part would be discovering that the person I trusted had already made the choice long before I even knew it existed.

I glanced back at DeLuca.

He still hadn’t said a word.

That somehow made everything sadder.

The car rolled over a rough section of road, and pain immediately shot through my abdomen. A groan escaped before I could stop it, causing DeLuca’s attention to snap toward me instantly.

“You okay?”

VERIFYCAPTCHA_LABELVerify