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“They may not have come from my body, but I already had two sons. Matteo and Lino were everything I could have ever wanted. Why would it be any different for Ryker?” I stilled, the point finally settling on top of my head instead of flying right over it.

“I don’t think I forgive you after all,” I whispered, making his face transform with a massive smile.

“That’s alright. You have an entire lifetime to do so.”

Eff.

Sixteen

Ryker

I loved torturing people.

I loved the feeling of their skin splitting beneath my knife and the sounds of their screams echoing against the walls of the freezer.

But with Calla in my life, I no longer wanted to draw it out. I wanted to get the answers we needed so we could get home to the women.

I wanted Calla in my arms, and to spend every waking second striving to convince her of her new reality.

That we were inevitable, and we would be together. Hopefully, Ivory and Samara didn't do any damage to the little progress I'd made. Hopefully, they could convince her to just accept us.

To accept me.

Because I wasn't going anywhere.

I'd stalked her before she could ever be mine, and there were no limits to what I would do now that she was.

"Is Miguel planning on backing down from his war with Tiernan Murphy?" Matteo asked, and he looked bored out of his mind. He was always the best in the room at holding his mask, remaining indifferent no matter what tactics I took to get someone to talk. Simon stared at me like I'd lost my mind, and I knew I'd probably gone in a little hard.

Oops.

I supposed flaying someone alive was a tactic I usually took later in the game, rather than in the first two hours.

Matteo's eyes turned knowing as he glanced at me. "You'll have to excuse Ryker's sloppy work. He's usually an artist." He gestured down at the man's arm that had quickly turned into a piece of meat when I peeled his skin off bit by bit. "But you know how it is when you have a quality woman waiting for you."

"Please stop," Miguel's dealer begged, his eyes fixated on where his tattooed skin sat on the floor.

"Then tell me what Miguel is planning to do."

"He's leaving town! It isn't worth it for him! He has conflicts rising down in Georgia, and he can't afford the war on both fronts." I stopped carving, leaning back on my knees to look at Matteo and study his reaction to the man's confession. We could handle Tiernan Murphy, and we could probably handle Miguel Cuevas too, but Murphy would be a much easier war to win than the Cuevas cartel.

"What's so important down in Georgia that he would choose that over a trafficking ring in Chicago?" Simon asked, stepping forward to kick the fleshy part of the man's arm.

I hadn't bothered to learn his name. It wouldn't matter when he was dead, anyway.

His scream soothed a little of my wariness about being away from Calla for so long, so soon.

"A woman! It's a woman! He's fucking obsessed with the bitch, but she just won't come to heel. He doesn't need the attention she'll bring, but he can't seem to stay away from her." I stood, brushing off my pants. I felt confident that Matteo wouldn't be interested in any more garbage, because if what the guy said was true, there was nothing we could do.

As much as I might want to, we couldn't step in on behalf of a woman we'd never met.

"He's in trafficking. Why hasn't he just taken her?" Simon asked.

"She's the seventeen-year-old daughter of some Governor in his pocket. If he touches a hair on her head, he'll lose the support in Georgia. He's almost ready to take that step, but he can't do that and fight here too."

"So he's playing the doting boyfriend for her Daddy?" I asked, and fury built in my veins. I knew what Miguel Cuevas was capable of.

The poor girl would wish she was dead the moment Miguel owned her.


Tags: Adelaide Forrest Bellandi Crime Syndicate Romance