Not once did she expose her past.
That beautiful, fucking unfathomably strong woman faked her way through continuous bluffs.
But he’s right. Lorenzo will be pissed if Emmanuel was shot and her family were to blame. I’ll need to prove I wasn’t involved, and do whatever possible to make it seem like she wasn’t either.
“That was two goddamn years in the past,” he argues. “The situation was dead and buried. Yet, they shot Dad three weeks ago.”
“It’s my turn to call bullshit. He was in Italy three weeks ago.”
“Was he? Or were those the rumors we had to start to hide our weakened position?” He mocks. “He’s currently in a makeshift hospital room at home, struggling to ditch a chest infection that stemmed from the bullet wound in his shoulder.”
“What a shame.” I pull my cell from my pocket and open a new text to Bishop. “I guess you learned the hard way that the only thing that gets dead and buried in the lifestyle you’ve chosen are the bodies. The need for revenge lives longer than any of us.”
“You’re judging me?” He raises a brow. “Your sins are far greater than mine.”
I type Get here now before pressing send. “I never abducted a child.”
“If the whispers are true, it’s the only thing you haven’t done.”
I huff a derisive laugh. “I guess you’ll never know, because I’m not explaining shit to you. Now get the fuck out.”
“I can’t believe you.” He starts for the hall, walking away from me. “We were brothers once. But you’re right on one thing—revenge lives longer than any of us. And I’m sure Dad will agree once I tell him she’s fucking you to get back at us.”
“You’re threatening her?” I shove my cell into my pocket and stalk after him. “You’d tell him?” I grab his shoulder and haul him around to face me.
“I’d take pleasure in it. Why wouldn’t I when you abandoned us? You fucking walked and left us with him. Now look where we are.” He throws his arms wide. “You caused this. You caused all of it—that kid’s abduction, her husband’s death. If you hadn’t left, he wouldn’t have spiraled.”
The accusations are sharply embedded into my chest, stabbing me with guilt. With truth. “I couldn’t stay—”
“Because you were humiliated that Grace left you?” he asks with incredulity. “I don’t know how you became the man you did, because the brother I knew was a fucking pussy. I overheard your plans to ditch town with her. But she didn’t wait for you, did she? She didn’t want to stick around to finish senior year because her dad was an abusive drunk and her mom was a junkie, so she took off, not giving a shit that you weren’t—”
I launch, striking my forearm into his throat, slamming him backward against the door. Not seeing. Only feeling.
I press harder, ignoring his rasped breath, not flinching as he claws at my arm. “She didn’t go missing, you pathetic piece of shit.” I lean close, sinking all my weight against his neck, so there’s nothing between us. Nothing apart from my ignorant baby brother and the facts. “He killed her. He slit her from throat to gut and showed me the pictures to make sure it sank in.”
Remy’s eyes bug as he continues to fight me off, his breath wheezing.
“He murdered her because he knew I’d made plans to move out,” I seethe in his face. “He slaughtered the girl I cared about, someone who was still a fucking child, because I wasn’t dedicated to becoming his perfect little minion like you were.”
Remy’s mouth works like a fish as I press and press. Open. Closed. Open.
“He took the one thing that was mine and made sure it no longer existed, because he wanted my attention all to himself.” I watch the panic build in his eyes, enjoying the victory through the devastation. “So yes, I fucking left. I ran away from money and prestige. I hitchhiked across this godforsaken country to put as much distance between us as I could.” Spittle bubbles from my lips, my fury uncontainable. “I lived on the streets. I stole to survive. And you have the fucking audacity to think you know what went down?”
I glare.
I glare so hard I sense an impending aneurism.
“Fuck you, Remy.” I pull my arm away, not giving a shit that his grown ass crumples to the floor before me. “You always were a naive little prick.”
I kick his shoes and step over him, pulling the door wide to find Bishop poised with his key in the air.
“Perfect timing?” He takes me in with caution, no doubt seeing the monster I’ve become—the clenched fists, the heaving chest. “What the hell is going on?”
“Get him out of here.” I turn for the living room. “Before I fucking kill him.”
30
Layla
I close myself in the bedroom, snatch my hair into a vicious ponytail, then dress in jeans, Chucks, and a white blouse. Everything else is shoved into my suitcase and zipped tight.
I spend minutes poised at the door, overhearing muffled shouts and heavy thuds.
They’re fighting again, and I don’t know who I’d prefer to suffer more pain—Remy or Matthew.
No, not Matthew. Dante.
A goddamn Costa.
I will the sickening disgust to the back of my mind, trying not to acknowledge how I fell for a man who shares the same DNA as my daughter’s abductors. My husband’s murderers.
There’ll be enough time to hate myself for it later.
Right now, there’s too much adrenaline to think, the hormone acting like venom in my veins.
I want to hurt him. To drag the vial of cyanide hidden in my jeans pocket and throw the powder in his face. But whenever I picture his death, the only sensation to consume me is regret. Suffering.
I’d loved him.
I’d adored and admired every part of that man and now every memory is tainted and twisted by lies.
I open the door a crack as another one slams on the other side of the penthouse.
More shouting follows, but this time the voices aren’t raised in anger. Matthew’s tone holds frustration. Panic. And it’s Bishop’s responding aggression that brushes my ears as I inch the door wider.
“That little asshole is running back to Emmanuel as we speak,” Matthew yells. “They’re going to come after her.”
I take the news with a sharp breath.
I need to get out of here. To grab my cell from the coffee table and leave.
“What did you expect?” Bishop mutters. “And isn’t that why you got involved? You couldn’t let her be a target on her own, you had to pin a bull’s-eye on our backs, too.”
Matthew growls a reply too low to understand. A threat? A warning?
I pull the door wide enough to slip into the hall, cautiously wheeling my suitcase in delicately slow increments along the carpet behind me, the knife in my free hand.
I hold my breath with each step toward the conversation, the growing thunder of my pulse in my ears making it harder to hear.
Lorenzo’s name is spoken. Others’, too. Men I’m not familiar with.
“What are the options?” Bishop asks. “How confident are you of an outcome?”