Köhler Lies and Deception Book 11 of The Köhler Series

The Introduction

It felt good to be home, but Luca hated how it seemed like everyone was babying him. They were scared to allow him to walk on his own. He thought that someone had to be standing by the door as he used it, and Adele even tried feeding him as if he were a baby. He knew he had major surgery, but he wasn't handicapped. He could work his hands and feet just fine and wish they would understand that. They loved him, he knew, but what they were doing to him was torture.

"Do you need help putting that on, Babe?" Again, he sighed, glaring through the mirror at his wife as she finished putting on the final touches of her makeup. Luca didn't answer, but he swiftly put on his shirt and turned to her with a smirk. They needed to know he was fine, and once everything was healed, he would be back to his old self. "I told you and our children I'm fine. What I want is for you and them to stop acting like I'm helpless— I heard you met this Ephraim. Is there anything I should know about him?"

"No, he's sweet and loves our daughter. Elijah has some beef with him, but I think it's because he's scared something is going to happen to him and hurt Melody... Luca, how could we be so blind? I never wanted to force my children to marry someone they didn't want to, but somehow, we allowed that to happen twice." Luca admits that he was too harsh on Elijah when he forced him to marry Mariah. The woman trapped him into a relationship, and he overlooked what she had done. Melody was different. They tried to save her from Valentino, but she thought they were in love, and in a way, he felt it would end this way.

"I don't know, but it happened, and we can't take it back. What we can do is make things better and help them along the way."

"Xerxes texted me about an hour ago. He and Riley want to adopt the young girl who's working for them. Cora Matters is an orphan from Iceland who was thrown into foster care at the age of four. Since then, the poor girl has been to over twenty different foster homes until she was eventually thrown into a group home. I got Vic to do the background check, and he is currently searching to see who her parents were. What do you think about the situation?"

Luca didn't see anything wrong with it, but they still had to make sure this girl wasn't placed in their homes as a spy. It wouldn't be the first time this had happened, and he didn't want it to repeat itself. True enough, the girl seemed innocent, but in the mafia, they couldn't trust anyone. "I don't see the harm in it as long as X and Riley get a complete background check of the girl. I'll talk to—"

"No, you won't. I'll have Heaven or Neveah talk to her. Maybe Barkley, but you, sir, are on leave." Luca chuckled, making his way over to his wife, and quickly pulled her up into a kiss. As always, he wanted her, and she was looking sexy tonight. It made him want to say fuck the doctor's order and dinner to fuck her. "Damn, I love you so fucking much, and to know I almost left this earth, leaving you and my children behind. I saw them."

"Saw who?"

"My parents, Ma Barb, our grandmothers, Kellan, Erik... there were more, but they forced me to come back. I wanted to go into the light, but my Dad told me it wasn't my time. He reminded me that you all needed me, and I need you all. I don't mind them adopting, but we need to ensure she's not the enemy." Luca spoke as Adele's phone dinged. He was always nosey when someone texted her, which led him to see Victor's name across the top of the phone. It was something about the girl, and from what he could see, it was sealed records.

"What does it say?"

"Both parents were from Iceland, but somehow Cora's age was mixed up with another child who was abandoned the same day as her. If she were born on the date of these papers, she would be fourteen...."

"They lied about her age because it would make her most unlikely to get adopted. Since she was little, they lied, saying she had a medical condition. That's happened a lot with children who come from drugged, addicted parents." He said, pointing at the comment, saying both parents had an addiction to cocaine. It also stated it was in Cora's system when she was born, but her parents took her from the hospital before child protection services could take her. Later, her parents ended up leaving her in a park at one and a half in the dead of winter. From there, she was in and out of foster homes. The girl never had a stable home. Yet, she wasn't a troublemaker.