Page 50 of Venomous King
“Sister, I need a favor from you, and you have to ensure Grandmother doesn’t get wind of it. Also I would prefer if you said nothing about it to Theo, Carter, and Finn. Only Mateo knows, and he’s here with me now.” Curiosity rises inside of me at Mia’s cryptic words. What the hell is she up to now? The last time she pulled a stunt where she kept Grandmother in the dark, she apparently gave birth to the twins. I’ve heard all about how furious Stella was, when she found out that Mia and her men hid her pregnancy. I wouldn’t have traded places with her for all the money in the Stratford coffers.Fuck that shit.
“Listen, Mia. You know I love you, but please do not put me on Grandmother’s warpath. I can barely get her to stop raging about Julia’s manners, and how she’s picked up bad habits from Diego. I really don’t need to deal with more of her fury.” At the mention of his name leaving my lips, my chest tightens painfully, and I have to force myself to take a few shuddering breaths.
“Issy, don’t disappoint me here, this is important. You could say it’s almost life and death important.” I hear a grunt as if someone’s been hit in the background, and I wonder what the hell is going on. Is she beating on one of her men again, or having kinky fuckery? God, give me strength. I love my sister,but her relationship with the four of them makes some of the dark romance books I’ve read seem tame.
I roll my eyes, knowing I’m going to do what she wants, despite not wanting to. Mia and I have been thick as thieves, since the moment my father married her mother, and brought her to live with us. I used to be such a lonely only child, always envying the other students at school who had siblings they could relate to. I had no one, just my parents and grandparents. Then my mom died, my father shut down, and my grandfather Jaxon followed suit, and Stella became colder and more distant, and I felt utterly alone, discarded. When Mia showed up, full of righteous anger, a fireball of energy, and a mischievous spirit, I realized that fate had found me a soul mate. The missing part of my heart that would always stand by my side and have my back. I spent too many years apart from her already, when I was hiding from Diego, and now, nothing could keep me from her. Not even my misgivings in whatever she’s about to drag me into. “What do you need me to do?”
A huge sigh of relief sounds through the phone, and it pulls a chuckle from me. What the hell has she gotten herself into? Knowing Mia, and the way she likes to piss off Grandmother Stella, it’s probably going to be epic, and Stella will lose her shit. “I bought a house. One I don’t want Stella to know anything about. I want to get out of the mansion with my men and kids, and you know how she is, Issy. She will never let us go. She thinks we need an army around us at all times, but I don’t want that for us. I want Alexander and Caesar to grow up free and wild.”
She bought a secret house?I feel a moment of envy, that she will get to leave the confines of Stella’s vast mansion here in Manhattan, and have a life of her own with her men and sons. The memory of my house in Oregon appears in my mind. The place where I thought that I would get to raise Julia with Kai andDiego. A shudder races down my torso at the memory of why we don’t live there anymore. How that dream was painfully stolen from me, and my hand strangles the phone in a death grip.
“You love my cock splitting you open, don’t you, whore? You’re mine now to use any way I want to.”Joaquín’s evil voice sounds in my mind, and I choke on air.
“Issy? Are you still there?” Mia questions, her voice filled with concern.
“Yes... I... I’m…here. What do you need me to do?” I force the memories away, preventing them from overtaking me and causing me to shut down.I’m not a prisoner. No one here is going to hurt me. I am safe now. They are all dead. I am in control of my life and future.I repeat the mantra over and over in my head, like I have every time my brain tries to flood me with images that will have me sobbing in the fetal position.
“I need you to leave the mansion without the security team, go to my new house, and meet the realtor there to get the keys and the deed. Stella can’t find out what I have done, until we have packed up and gone. I know she’ll be mad, but I can’t risk her stopping this from happening. It’s for the best, Issy. It’s what should have always happened.”
Her words sound a bit cryptic, but Mia’s always been a little dramatic. Honestly, I was expecting her to ask me for something more nefarious than slipping out, and meeting a realtor on her behalf, to get the keys to her new house. I totally get why I have to elude the security team. They report directly to Stella, so the minute they see where I am going, one of them will be on the phone with Clark or my grandmother. How am I going to get out here undetected?
“I’m going to give you a location where a car without a tracking device will be waiting. Leave your vehicle there, and I’ll make sure it gets back home. Oh, and Issy, after I text you the address, delete the message, and power off your phone. Please don’t turnit back on until after you have left there. Grandmother has a tracker on it.” Jesus, this is all so suspenseful. I feel like I’m about to step into a movie or something. Leave it to Mia to make my life more exciting. Maybe this is exactly what I need; a distraction from thinking about them.
“Okay, Mia, but this is a little overkill, don’t you think? Grandmother loves you and she’ll be mad, but she’ll eventually get over it.” I hear the beep of my cell phone letting me know that she has sent the address for the car. All of this is so weird, but rather than argue with her, I’m just going to get this done, so I can get back right away before Julia gets home from kindergarten. “What do I do with the keys and the deed, once I meet the realtor?” I question, already moving out of the sitting room, and trying to figure out how I’m going to leave the property without being followed by my security shadows.
“Take them with you. Oh, and Issy, I’m sorry to do this to you. I had no choice. I love you, sister.” She hangs up the phone before I can even reply, or ask her where she is.What. The. Fuck.This is getting weirder and weirder, and I have a gnawing feeling in the pit of my stomach. When I see her next, we are going to have a chat about how damn dramatic she is.
I pull up to the house in the charcoal sedan that Mia had waiting for me. When I first arrived at the location, a young blonde-haired woman was waiting with it. Other than nodding politely to me, she quickly got out of the vehicle, handed me the keys, and another car pulled up and took her away, without her even uttering a word. Honestly, if Mia is playing some fucked up game with me, I’m going to beat her ass.
The directions to Mia’s new house were sitting on the passenger seat, written in my sister’s handwriting. I followedthem for over an hour, leaving the city, until I found myself off of the interstate, and on the backroads heading into a more rural setting. I’m embarrassed to say I’ve never been out this way, despite living most of my life in Manhattan. It’s beautiful out here, if a bit desolate. I haven’t seen another car for a little while, and the once-bright sunshine seems to be clouding over and darkening the day. Shit, it’s probably going to snow again soon, and I don’t want to get trapped out here. I’m not a great winter driver.
The directions tell me to pull into a darkened driveway coming up on my left. When I make the turn, I don’t see a house at first, just a whole bunch of deep blue spruce trees that create a dense living perimeter. Fuck this is getting creepy. Leave it to Mia to buy a house in the middle of nowhere, and have the whole thing feel like you’re walking into some trap. I pull down the long gravel driveway until I finally spot the two-story Tudor Revival, and a gasp of wonder escapes my lips.It’s stunning.The red brick, ornate windows, and chimneys standing proud against the cloudy skies call to me, as does the decorative half-timbering on the exterior, against the buttery white background. It’s an image plucked right out of my dreams from when I was a little girl. When I dreamed of a house that looked like Snow White and her seven dwarves lived in it. It was always my favorite fairy tale. It’s perfect, how did my sister find this place? I never would have pictured Mia wanting something like this. She loves modern architecture, but this looks like it was built in the early nineteen hundreds.
I pry my eyes away from the impressive architecture and look around. There’s a large black SUV parked off to the side, and I can see a smaller building behind it.Garage, maybe?Well, at least I found the place, and that must be the realtor’s car, so I can grab the keys and deed and head back, before the flurries start to come down. Maybe I’ll just take a quick look around toquench my curiosity, that won’t take too long. The house doesn’t look that large. Honestly, where is Mia going to put all her men? If I were to guess, this house has four or five bedrooms tops, and there are seven of them with her twins, and she mentioned trying for more kids. She’s going to outgrow this place quickly. That saddens me; the thought that this place won’t have children racing in the yard for long.
I get out of the car, walk up to the beautiful stone-covered porch, and knock on the solid walnut-colored doors. After knocking for a bit with no answer, I try the knob, and the door opens. Maybe the realtor is on the phone, and didn’t hear me? “Hello?” I call into the sizeable, empty foyer, which features rich wood paneling, creamy off-white walls, and a massive two-story ceiling with stunning wood beams. The muted light from the casement windows causes shadows to elongate across the dark hardwood floor, as I make my way further into the space.
“Hello, is anyone here?” I call out again as I follow a hallway that leads me toward the back of the house. On my right, a beautiful formal sitting room opens up through double French-style doors, and I spy a real wood-burning fireplace done in more paneling, and crisp, cream limestone. This room, too, is devoid of furniture or artwork. The house is just a shell for now, waiting for a family to make it a home. Another tinge of jealousy tries to rise within me, but I push it away. I’m happy for my sister and her family. She deserves to be happy, she’s struggled and endured so much over the years.
I force myself to move away from the room, even though a part of me is picturing a fire burning in the hearth, and comfortable furniture in the space. This room would make a beautiful space to read in, with a hot cup of tea, as you watched the snow come down from the window seat. “It’s not yours; knock it off and find the realtor,” I mumble out loud to myself. My footsteps take me down the hallway, until I reach a large open space of acombination grand kitchen, an eating area, and a family space. “Hello, I’m Mia Stratford’s sister. I’m here to pick up the keys,” I holler into the space but get no answer. This is weird, where is this person that I am supposed to meet?
A shiver of unease rises up my spine, causing goosebumps to erupt all over my body. I hear a noise behind me, so I swing around, my heart racing in my chest, and sweat rising along my back in fear. What I see in the doorway leading to the kitchen has all my blood rushing in my veins, and causes my jaw to drop.
“Hello,Princesa, miss me?”
Chapter thirty-six
Diego
“What we have once enjoyed, we can never lose. All that we love deeply becomes a part of us.”
Helen Keller
Iwatch her from the shadows, as she moves through the house I bought her. The one I knew she would love the minute I saw the listing. I know everything there is to know about my broken doll, from her dreams and aspirations to her nightmares. She thinks pulling away from me, and locking herself in Stella’s mansion, will save her from me. Has she learned nothing from our tumultuous past? I will stop at nothing to have her, she fucking belongs to me. She has, since the moment she took her first breath on this earth, and still will once she takes her last.
Casbury, six years ago
“What do you dream about for your future, Princesa? Where do you see yourself living after all this mess is done with?” I stroke her dark, beautiful hair as she lies on my chest, looking up at the stars in wonder, as we lay on Mia’s back patio. “Do you plan to return to Manhattan with your grandmother?” The mere thought of her leaving me ignites a raging fire within me, threatening to have me lose my mind. I’ve become so attached to her in such a short period of time. This snobby, uptight, wealthy heiress from Manhattan. I never pictured myself with someone like her. She’s indecisive, submissive, and weak. I need someone more like her sister, Mia, to rule at my side. Someone who can help me expand the Cabano cartel’s reach, and assist me in gathering more power. Someone strong and equally ruthless, not a woman who cowers and wrestles with her own mind. Yet, I can’t seem to force myself to stay away from her.