Chapter Forty-Two
Tristan
I gaze out the kitchen window feeling like a lost soul.
We just got back to the house.
Nick was taken to the hospital before we arrived.
We discovered our security systems had been screwed with since last night.
Screwed by Alfonse, a man I trusted. A man we all trusted. He betrayed us.
He betrayed me.
This whole crock of shit is my fault. It was me who told him I took Isabella, me who told him that we planned to eliminate Mortimer, and like a love sick fool I asked him to take Isabella back to Rhode Island. I asked him because I trusted him with her care, all the while not knowing he was a fucking spy.
That man has been in our lives for as long as I can remember.
No one questioned anything when Alfonse came in the house. The men on site didn’t know what Mortimer or Dmitri looked like so they all came in and took Isabella easily. The only man who would have been able to do anything was shot with the intention to kill. And, if Nick hadn’t survived and told me it was Alfonse who took her I would be none the wiser. I’d even contemplate the possibility of her escaping, although I would have thought it impossible because she wouldn’t have been able to pull it off with the place so heavily guarded.
Heavily guarded and look what happened.
What’s the point?
Alfonse did the very same thing Andreas did. He used his face to fool everybody. Just like Andreas, he walk in plain sight on the right hand of the devil without a soul raising any alarms because of who he was.
I can’t even be mad anymore because if I do I’ll go on some rampant rage and destroy everything in my path including myself.
Massimo and Dominic walk in and I turn to face them. We hardly got to spend time with Candace when she woke up.
“Came to talk. It’s time,” Massimo says. His face is stern.
I don’t know what he has planned to say to me but he’s right. It is time to talk.
I have one thing to say but they won’t like it. The fucking plan to get Mortimer is a bust and we now have nothing to hold over him. He has his daughter back and I know he’s going to kill her because she helped us.
Alfonse is the only person who could tell him that. Mortimer will kill her for betraying him. I can’t let that happen to her. I promised her I’d take care of her. It was a promise made to be kept.
I kept saying I was the brother with nothing left to lose. I was wrong. When they took Isabella they took the last thing from me. When I decided to let her go it was different. It was so she could have a life. Freedom. Freedom is the only thing I would allow to have her over me.
Not bondage. Not death.
“I’m going to get her back,” I begin and Massimo tenses. Dominic stares back at me and I wonder what he’s thinking. The things he said about Isabella last night still don’t sit well with me. “Mortimer will know she helped us I’m going to get her back and I’m not asking you to come with me. The element of surprise is gone so if I go in I know I might not make it back out, but I’m going.”
That’s all I have to say. I’m just going to head to the airport and get on the first plane out. I won’t even be as bold as to ask for the jet or anything.
“Tristan—” Massimo says but I cut him off.
“No. You said to me not just a few days ago that I could be the one to give her, her dreams back. My version of doing that was not this. I don’t want her to be any part of it. so I’m going.”
I move past them and head to the door.
“I’m going with you,” Dominic calls out and I stop midstride.
I turn around and stare at him, thrown by the offer to help. “No, you shouldn’t.”
“You gonna tell me I can’t come too?” Massimo challenges. “Let’s all go. I wanted to talk about what we’re doing but it looks like we know what we want to do.”