Tears fill my eyes, and I’m not sure why any of this is happening. It’s as if it’s all just a wild dream that I’m about to wake up from any minute. “I can’t believe you want to marry me.”
He cups my face and stares into my eyes. “Look, woman. I am fucking obsessed with you. Understand that now. I told you that night you had no idea who you were messing with. You’ve met someone who will never let you go. I’ll track you to the ends of the earth for just another taste of these lips. Now, shower and then rest. I have some matters to attend to, and then I’ll be back with our dinner.”
“Do you have a mistress?” I blurt out as my insecurity continues to engulf my thought process.
“Don’t insult me, or you, like that again. My dick will be in you and only you until the end of our days.” He presses his lips to my forehead before rushing out of the room, and then I hear the lock. There’s a lock from the inside, so it’s not like I can’t get out, but it’s so no one can get in, giving me a bit of security.
I do as he demanded because there’s something so fucking hot about his orders that I can’t fight. I want to be under his thumb. Like a good girl, I head into the shower, finding an array of female shampoos matching the ones in my apartment, all unopened. I smile to myself the entire time I scrub my body down from head to toe. “Goodness, my pussy’s tender as hell,” I mutter. Still, the thought of him touching it again sends a jolt of need right through my body.
Chapter Twelve
Sebastian
“Hey, brother, it’s good to see you again,” I tell David as he sits in the same chair he shot Ricardo in, stains included. It’s a sad state of affairs that we have to be in this position, but he left me no choice.
“Why are you doing this, bro?” he asks, pretending to be sad and confused.
“Why? Can you explain to me why you would betray me?”
“I didn’t.” I should have seen his lies sooner, and that’s my fault for underestimating the prick. In my gut, I knew he had something to do with the incident in Vegas, but I refused to believe it.
“No? You killed Ricardo so he wouldn’t snitch on your ass. I knew from that afternoon that nothing added up. When Martín showed me the footage of the guys watching me being drugged with the women you hired, something told me you had a hand in it, but I gave you the benefit of the doubt as my brother and also because I thought you were too much of a pussy to take me out. You hired women so that you could blame their death on me.”
“Yet you brought one of the sluts home to keep. Hypocrite.” So he doesn’t deny it.
I want to break his jaw, but I have to keep my emotions in check and get answers. If what I dug out is true, my brother has been plotting against the family and me a lot longer than I’d ever known. “Watch your fucking mouth. Candy’s the only innocent motherfucker in this bitch. A good girl mixed up with a bunch of scum, but I’ll make sure to take care of her.”
“I should have killed her before she left the suite and left her on your bed.” I’m on him in a heartbeat, punching him in the face wildly until Cesar pulls me off him. The thought of losing Candy is too much to bear. The day floods back to me like a brutal memory of the body being brought out of the burnt-out trailer and believing it was her.
Cesar reaches out and grabs my arm so I can’t wallop David anymore. “Remember your promise, Sebastian. He’s not worth it.”
“You’re right. I won’t take your life myself. I’ll save that for those who want their dues.”
“Are you serious? You sold me out to that fucking whipped bitch in Vegas?”
“Not only did you try to have me blown up, but you helped have our parents killed.” He pales. “Yes, I know the truth, David. You betrayed those who gave you everything, including life.”
He becomes lax in the chair and sighs, “He should have picked me over you, but he didn’t, so they got what they deserved. If you’re going to kill me, just get it over with already, bastard.” A grin spreads across his face when he calls me that. It always does because he thinks it means something to me, which it doesn’t.
“Ifisn’t the word I’d use. You can call me a bastard all you want. It doesn’t change the fact that I’m the boss and you’re the one who just couldn't cut it. I’m the oldest son no matter how much you wanted it to be otherwise.” I was the product of my parents’ affair before they married each other, and David always loved to call me a bastard for it as if somehow that didn’t make me the firstborn son.
“You’re just like our father, marrying a whore off the street.” He spits at my feet. “Disgusting trash.” I punch him in the gut. David grunts and coughs, but then he looks up at me with a sick smile and adds, “You hit like a bitch.”
“Who in the Carlino Family helped you?” He thinks I don’t know he’s been working with them from the start. It took me a little bit of digging, but the leads all head to that family.
“Not going to fucking tell you since it isn’t going to save me. Let them come after you again.” His smugness makes my fingers twitch on my gun, which causes him to actually flinch. He’s not as tough as he’s playing, but it won’t matter for long because his sentence will be handed down soon.
I turn to Cesar and say, “Let’s go. I need answers. Leave this little bitch here while I go get them.”
He nods, tossing a smirk at David, who he’s always disliked. I lock the basement and tell Jose to keep his eyes on David and not to kill the fucker. Martín and his men will be coming soon to collect payment. I promised my mother that I wouldn’t be the one to end their son, so I won’t even if he’s the one who helped kill them.
We fly up the stairs and into my office, where I dig through my father’s records. I need to know who he was married to and where exactly I can find the rest of the family. I thought that beef had been squashed long before I’d ever been born. Nothing had ever been spoken about it all my damn life, and now, this fucker turned on his own flesh and blood for strangers.
I pull the records and find a brother of my father’s ex-wife. “Fiero Carlino. Where have I seen that name recently?”
“Sir, that’s who was putting money into Sheila Bell’s bank account up until two months ago when her daughter turned eighteen,” Cesar answers. That’s why he’s my second-in-command.
“Fuck.” I’m going to have to kill Candy’s father.