A smirk pulls at my lips. Apparently, his little dead girl fetish is a bit of a secret. “Don’t worry, pervert. You don’t need to be shy. It’s nothing that I haven’t already told the boys all about.”
Before he gets a chance to fire back some appalling comment, Marcus steps into my back and gently urges me to keep walking, not wanting to set him off before they get a chance to interrogate him. We walk in through the front foyer and the boys fan out in a way that puts Phillip directly in the center, leaving him no easy escape. “What is all of this about?” he questions, though I’m sure he already knows. “Where is your father? Has he sent you here?”
Marcus narrows his gaze. “Tell us what we need to know, and we will leave peacefully.”
“Why don’t you tell me what I need to know,” he starts, way too confident in his current company, proving that it’s definitely in the genes. “I find it peculiar that just two hours after a blaze tore through my brother’s home, you three show up on my doorstep.”
“What are you suggesting?” Marcus questions.
Phillip’s gaze narrows and slowly glances from brother to brother, skipping by me as though I couldn't possibly know what the hell is going on. “Don’t play coy with me, boy, I am not in the mood. You know exactly what I am suggesting. You killed my brother and that poses an issue for me.”
Roman raises his chin. “How so?”
Phillip’s voice lowers and the tone that sounds through the large foyer sends a chilling shiver through my veins. “That kill was mine,” he growls. “I’ve stood in Victor’s shadow my whole life. I had big plans for him.”
Marcus shrugs his shoulders. “Snooze, you lose, old man,” he says, provoking Phillip and making Levi’s face twist into a cringe. “Victor had many enemies, and if you wished to end his life, then you should have moved a little faster.”
“What was your grievance with my brother?” Phillip spits. “He did not owe you anything.”
“On the contrary,” Roman says, stepping forward. “He had information that I needed and his failure to share earned him a one-way ticket to hell. So I will warn you now, if you don’t tell me what I need to know, then you will be meeting with your late brother sooner than you had anticipated, and I promise you will not enjoy it.”
Phillip narrows his gaze, looking over the brothers in a new light. “It is true, isn’t it? You’re taking over the family business.”
Levi’s lips pull into a wicked smirk and a darkness settles over his gaze that has me oddly turned on despite the dull ache that’s been pulsing between my legs with every step that I take. “It was about time, don’t you think?”
Interest sweeps over Phillip’s face, and I see the exact moment he decides that this new turn of events could work in his favor. “Where is your father now?” he questions, his eyes going far away as the wheels start turning inside his head, probably trying to figure out how he can gain from this.
“That’s what we’ve come to ask you,” Roman says, his tone a subtle warning not to fuck with him. “Up until last night, my father was staying in Victor’s home, yet when we arrived … poof,” he says, blowing his fingers out in front of him. “Gone.”
Phillip laughs. “And you think he would come to me?”
“If we thought he had come here,” Marcus says with a sick grin. “You would be dead on your doorstep by now.”
Phillip eyes him cautiously before turning his gaze back to Roman. “So if you do not think he is here, then why come here at all?”
“Because apart from the fact that you have something that belongs to me,” he says, referring to Ariana and making my heart bleed when he says he still considers her his. “You’re one of the last people to have been in contact with him, and I need to know what you know.”
A noise sounds on the stairs behind us and I flick my gaze around just in time to see a little girl dressed in her nightgown. Realizing something is going on at the bottom of the stairs, her head shoots up and a soft gasp pulls from between her lips. She looks to her father, and for a moment, I want to hate the boys for not having checked if anyone else was in the house, but then that’s on my shoulders as well.
“Daddy,” the little girl says, her wide eyes terrified as she takes in her eldest cousin who she no doubt had been trained to be fearful of. “What’s going on?”
Phillip swallows hard. “Nothing, honey. Your cousins are just here for an early morning business meeting,” he says, making my stomach churn with how sweet he is to his daughter while another woman rots away, most likely in some dungeon cell beneath the foundation of this home. “Go and watch your shows. Mommy will make you breakfast soon.”
The little girl, who must only be four or five, glances at the three boys again, and I have to commend her for the caution that spreads over her face. Assuming she somehow gets away from her father, she might even grow into a really smart girl who can save herself from this messed up world, something I should have done before I allowed it to corrupt my soul to the point of no return.
The girl scurries away and all eyes turn back to Phillip. “You need to leave,” he says. “You never should have come here where my children sleep.”
“The ball is in your court, Phillip,” Roman says as though this is some kind of hostage negotiation. “Tell me what I want to know and handover Ariana. No one needs to get hurt, but fail to give me what I’ve come for and well …”
Roman’s sentence trails off as his gaze sweeps back to the stairs, letting Phillip know exactly what he would do. My stomach twists at just the thought, but a part of me has to believe that Roman is just bluffing. He would never hurt that little girl, but Phillip doesn’t need to know that.
Rage burns in Phillip’s gaze before he finally nods. “False wall in the east wing office. She’s down there.”
Roman nods before glancing at Marcus. “Go. Take Shayne with you.”
Marcus silently walks away and my eyes widen, realizing this is really happening. I scurry after him, not wanting to be left behind as I hear Roman going on. “And my father?”
We disappear around a corner before I get to hear Phillip’s response and I keep myself right behind Marcus, not wanting to get separated from him in this big home. Who knows what other dirty secrets are buried here.
We find the office a short moment later, and Marcus pushes through the locked door with ease and we step into a massive room. It’s bigger than my whole fucking apartment, but I’m not surprised. Everything in this world is big and coated in luxury. It’s ridiculous and most likely funded by drug money.
Despite it being just past six in the morning and the likelihood of someone walking these halls are about the same as the likelihood of me spreading my legs willingly for Giovanni, I close the door behind us.
Phillip said something about a false wall, but I don’t see a damn thing. Marcus moves across the room, searching for what’s hidden in plain sight as my hands skim over the walls. This isn’t exactly something that I have experience with, but I’m not going to lie, it’s sending adrenaline through my veins like a wildfire.
Not finding anything on the side wall, I step in front of a massive floor-to-ceiling bookshelf and scan over everything. It’s packed with books that I’m sure Phillip has never read. There are fancy bookends, limited edition books, and gold trimmed photo frames. Ornaments and fancy sculptures fill every available space and I stare in wonder. Now, if only the books had titles like ‘The Hornets Slutty Hornbag’ then I’d really be impressed. Hell, I might even believe that Phillip had read them.