My Second Marriage with the Mafia Kingpin novel Chapter 319

Chapter 319: She’s Not Here

"No, no," Lukas shook his head. "She’s probably being threatened. Nikki wouldn’t decide this on her own. If I were in her shoes, I might have done the same."

"Then why haven’t you?"

Lukas stopped at Gustav’s quiet remark.

Gustav tilted his head. "Whatever you decide, Lukas, I’ll respect it. I only hope you make that decision from an unbiased place."

Lukas opened his mouth, then closed it. He sank back into his seat, head hanging low, Nikki’s face replaying behind his eyes.

"Fuck." He winced, dragging a hand down his face and leaning forward, fingers pressed to his temple. "Why would she do that?"

"That’s a question you already know the answer to," Gustav said, watching Lukas glance up at him. "Because she’s Nikki."

It wasn’t that Gustav considered Nikki a bad person. If she were, then so was everyone in Dominion — Lucian included. But she was ambitious. She always had been.

The two men held each other’s gaze. "I don’t see it as betrayal," Gustav said. "I see it as her making the most of the opportunity in front of her."

He looked away, and Lukas let out a faint scoff.

"Without the master, we’re all free to make our own choices," Gustav murmured. "Choices we might have already prepared for — had we not ignored the signs."

Quiet settled over the room again.

If they had caught Lucian’s condition earlier, they might not have been able to change his mind about treatment. But they could have prepared for the day he succumbed to it. Instead, they were here — caught in a wave they never saw coming and had no footing against.

The silence stretched for several minutes before Lukas’s voice broke it, low and defeated.

"You haven’t changed your mind?"

Gustav didn’t answer right away. His eyes stayed on the room’s single window. They could have gone through it — if they weren’t on a floor high enough to make the drop unsurvivable.

Lukas studied his profile. "You’re really choosing to die?"

"No," Gustav said, turning to look at him. "I’m not choosing death. I’m choosing accountability."

It wasn’t blind loyalty that drove him — it was responsibility. A sense of duty he had carried long before last night. As Lucian’s right-hand, he should have stopped what happened. Whether or not anyone said it aloud, Gustav had already accepted that.

"What about you?" he asked. "Have you decided?"

Lukas didn’t answer. He looked away, exhaled heavily, eyes on the floor.

"Death is the only way out of this, isn’t it?" he said quietly. "I don’t want to die."

Gustav nodded, then heard Lukas add,

"But I don’t want to be someone’s lapdog either."

Gustav raised a brow. "Then what are you planning?"

"I’m still figuring that out." Lukas pinched the bridge of his nose. "I can’t think straight right now."

Their hands were tied, their options narrow, and none of those options were good. Looking at the full picture, it was a desperate situation.

"Damn it," he hissed.

As much as it stung to admit, Lukas understood now why Gustav had sided with Ashley. She might not inspire confidence, but the title she held still carried weight — if she knew how to use it.

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