Page 105 of Reckless Woman
Viviana’s mouth drops open in horror. “No…no it can’t be. That means thateverythinghe told me was a lie. He swore—”
“Santiago wouldneverhave sold you and Isabella to that bastard. Santiago is the Devil, make no mistake about it, but he was searching for his daughter foryears. It consumed him. It pushed him into the darkness. He’s the one who eventually destroyed Sevastien and his whole pedophile ring in his quest for answers. What happened to Isabella haunts him like a ghost.”
I watch her sink to her knees, her hand pressed to her mouth to muffle her screams. With each new revelation, I’m tearing down the bars to a cell of lies that’s trapped her inside for so long. It’s the same cell that’s made her do unspeakable things to people.
Lie, steal,murder…
“Who is the monster, Viviana?” I ask quietly. “Who’s really behind Vindicta and why does he hate Dante so much?”
All of a sudden, there’s a loud crash downstairs. We’re still scrabbling to our feet when Joseph comes storming into the small apartment, breathing fire and fury. He sees only one person in the room, and it’s not me this time. He has her up against the wall by her throat in seconds.
“Where the fuck is he?” he roars, jabbing the muzzle under her chin so hard, her skin caves into shadow. “I swear to God, you’ll pay for what you’ve done.”
“Joseph, stop!” I cry, trying to tug him away, but he pushes me back to the couch.
“Get out of here, Anna. You too, Gabriela, that’s if you don’t want to see your adopted daughter’s execution.”
I grab Gabriela’s trembling hand. Neither of us are going anywhere.
“I-I don’t know where—” Viviana looks terrified.What the hell has happened to her in the last few weeks?There’s no fight anymore. No life…
Joseph drops the muzzle of his gun to her shoulder. “Lie to me one more time, you fucking bitch, and we’re evening up the score.” He clicks the safety off. “One….”
“I swear, I don’t know what you’re talking about!” she screams. “He threw me out of the organization weeks ago.”
“Two…”
“He said I’d failed him when Santiago found out about my betrayal.”
“Three…”
Her body seems to shrink against the wall. “As my punishment, he let Morozov rape me while I was forced to watch Anna being gunned down.”
Her confession brings a beat of shocked silence to the room as we struggle to comprehend the horror of it.
Her pleading eyes find mine. “I swear I didn’t have anything to do with what happened to you,parcera…Iswear.”
“I believe you,” I whisper back, and I do. Whatever bad things she’s done in the last year, this doesn’t count as one of them.
Eve was right. Our friendship was never part of the deception, but it happened anyway. It caught her unawares, and for a second she wavered between hate and hope.
“What did Morozov do to you after that?” Joseph asks roughly, his gun dropping from her shoulder.
She shrinks even further into the wall. “He trafficked me to another part of Florida.”
There’s a pause. “So, itwasyou who killed everyone at that party?”
“Yes,” she croaks. “I came straight here after. I had nowhere else to go.”
He finally drops his hand from around her neck, too. “If you’re lying to me…” He lets the threat settle for a moment. “I need you to tell me shit right now. He’s gone AWOL, and we need to fucking find him.”
“Who’s gone AWOL?”
“I just had a call from Eve.” He takes a step back from Vi, but he never takes his eyes off her. “Dante went to meet Roman in New York last night, but he never showed. His SUV was pulled from the Hudson this morning.”
Viviana’s eyes widen in shock.
“Oh my God,” I breathe. “Do you think Vindicta’s responsible?”