Page 108 of Reckless Woman
“Too bad she didn’t kill them, too.”
“She managed to escape in Colombia,” he rattles on. “She was picked up on the street and sent to an orphanage. Gabriela Gonzales found her there, by chance. I knew the moment she’d been located, of course, but Sevastien’s tastes were more European by then, and my business interests lay with our cartel. I also had a feeling she’d prove useful one day, and how right I was.”
He inches his wheelchair forward another meter, but not quite far enough for me to reach through the bars and snap his scrawny neck in half.
“You kept her alive as a weapon of hate for future use.”
“Exactly, but she had no ideawhoI was until your whore of a wife shot me. That’s when I made my move. All I had to do was whisper a few lies into her ear and point her in your direction.” His grin fades. “Play the tape of Viviana over,” he orders.
“Which limb would you like me to remove first, Emilio?” I say idly. “As my brother, I think it’s only fair you get to choose.”
“Oh, Dante,” he cackles. “I’m just about to remove your heart.”
“Then get the fuck on with it!” I roar, punching the bars, absorbing the explosion of pain to keep my focus away from the filth happening on screen to Viviana.
He leans forward in his wheelchair until the sour-milk stench of approaching death washes over me. “Sevastien came to see me in the hospital a few months after the events in Miami. He told me the most fascinating thing: they never give the children names in the trafficking circuit. All are simply referred to as ‘girl’. Real names offer them hope, you see—a link back to their families. It makes them harder tobreak.”
I couldn’t hate this man more if I tried.
“After four years, no one could tell the difference between Isabella and Viviana anymore, and by then, they were so conditioned they only answered to ‘girl’.”
The ground starts to shift beneath me. It’s loose stone and moving pieces.
“Viviana was always the feistier of the pair…the one most likely to run away. Assumption played her part, until one of his men saw her again in a nightclub in Los Angeles.
He recognized her right away, but he needed proof so he swabbed her glass.” Emilio leans forward even further until I can count every damn scar on his face. “Isabella lives, Dante. Your daughter didn’t die.”
Your daughter didn’t die.
“This is bullshit,” I say hoarsely, starting to slide with the avalanche. “Andrei Petrov found her bones in a cellar in Amsterdam…”
“Every forensic form can be modified, if the price is right.”
I stumble away from the bars and he crows in amusement. “I told you it was one hell of a secret, Dante.”
Meanwhile in the background,my fucking daughteris still getting raped.
The avalanche gains momentum. I feel myself crashing to my knees, but I don’t feel the pain as his words continue to wash over me.
“It’s the ultimate revenge, brother—instructing the one thing that drove you so deep into your darkness in the first place to destroy you.”
“You bastard,” I grit out, still blocking out Morozov’s grunts.
He’s right. I’m finally in hell.
Hell.
“I sent her to the island to die at your hand, knowing you’d found out about her treachery. Imagine my disappointment when she managed to escape…did you let her go on purpose? I think you did.”
“You. Know. Nothing.”
Even breathing hurts.
“You didn’t kill her six weeks ago because you knew, deep down, who she really was. You felt it as her father.You knew!”
I’m sliding out of control now.
I searched the world for her.