Page 64 of Reckless Woman
I knew he wouldn’t go quietly.
“Don’t.” Santiago’s voice is even colder than the vodka I just dumped all over my lap. “Don’t make a mockery of the family name, any more than you’ve done already.”
My eyes find the silver tray again. There’s nothing there except a black iPad, and my just desserts for my own arrogance.
“You betrayingputa!” I hiss at Sofía, tipping my head back to alleviate the pressure. She’s not looking so docile anymore. Her pretty face is stretched into a snarl.
How did this happen?
Confusion is a spinning wheel I can’t stop. She was our contact here on the island. She gave us the security codes. She killed the cameras…
Except she didn’t.
No.
“You’re a disgrace,zorra!” she hisses back, spitting right in my face, leaving a trail of wetness dripping down my left cheek.
Meanwhile, Santiago has risen from the couch to take a seat on the edge of the coffee table in front of me, collecting his knife on the way.
I try to kick him in the balls, but his knife delivers two quick slashes above my kneecaps.
“¡Hijueputa!’ I scream.Son of a bitch.
“Stop struggling or I’ll score you again.”
The wounds aren’t deep, but they’re enough to make me behave. I sit there like a statue, breathing hard, blood trickling down the inside of my jeans. Pure hatred burning in my eyes.
“Let me tell you a story about loyalty,” he says in the same measured tone that he’d read a fairytale to his daughter with. He rests his elbows on his knees and balances the knife perfectly on one finger, staring down at it for a moment. “Two years ago, I let a man into my compound. I gave him food from my table. I even let him fuck my housemaid…” His lips quirk momentarily. “Turns out, he was working for your father.” He flicks his wrist, catching the knife smoothly, the blade pointing downward and poised above my thigh. “I killed him with this. Slit his throat from ear to ear outside that same warehouse where your Papá died. I vowed that day to choose my people more carefully. Grayson and I made steps to ensure that their devotion was absolute before they ever received a dime of my money.” He cocks his head to one side. “Do you really think I’d entrust the care of my wife and children, my most precious of hearts, to someone who wouldn’t willinglydiefor us?”
His gaze lifts to Sofía and he nods his approval. “Sofía came to me the same day you approached her…six weeks, was it?”
“Six weeks,” confirms Sofía, yanking sharply on the noose. Panic blooms again before she loosens it a notch, allowing air back into my aching lungs. When this is all over, I’m going to rip theputaapart.
“I know that you threatened her mother and sisters in Colombia, so I’ve had them watched every minute of every day since then. Whatever hell you promised to deliver them, not a single drop of blood would have been spilt before my men took you down.”
His revelation gives another hard spin to that wheel.
“Why didn’t you just kill me as soon as you found out?” I rasp.
“I’ve asked myself that a lot recently,” he muses. “It’s been a hard secret to keep, and it’s gone against every basic instinct.” Holding my gaze, he clenches his fist around his blade, making me wince in horror. Moments later, a steady trickle of crimson is dripping from the edge of his hand and onto my jeans.
He never flinches once.Does this man not feel pain?
“Did you know I had another daughter, Viviana?”
“You’re full of shit!”
I know everything about you, Dante Santiago. I know how you masquerade yourself as some anti-human trafficking Avenging Death Angel, while fanning the flames of the industry and selling girls on the sly. Papá told meallabout you.
“Youwillrespect him,” cries Sofía, jerking sharply on the rope.
“Isabella would have been the same age as you.” I watch his eyes turn a darker shade of black. “She might have even looked like you. That’s if your father hadn’t taken it upon himself to sell her into sexual slavery to punish me.”
The ground gives way.
No.
Papá told me to never believe a single word he says.