Page 37 of Sweet Revenge

“Nothing?” I repeated. “It’s gotta be something.”

Her tone was somber as she said, “Maybe that’s because we are just as rotten.”

Elisa’s explanation did nothing to clear up my confusion. “What’s that?”

“Maybe Drake and I are good at being bad because we are inherently evil, just like our father and the rest of our family. We are dark, evil creatures who can never escape this life. Monsters.”

My teeth sank down into the tip of my tongue, hard. Almost hard enough to draw blood. It was the only way I could keep myself from chuckling, and I knew that if I dared let even the smallest laugh escape my lips, Elisa would find a way to open my door and push me out, despite her small size and my fierce grip.

“No, baby.” Once the pain subsided from my weak attempt at cannibalism, I was able to talk again. “That’s definitely not what I was saying, and it’s certainly not true at all. I was just saying you guys are clever. You’re good at planning for crazy circumstances on the fly. That’s all I meant. Those aren’t talents that are tied to being a monster or a criminal. If anything, they’re traits of a genius. I mean, fuck, he’s a goddamn doctor, and you’re a lawyer.”

“I was a lawyer. Almost a lawyer,” she corrected. “I never took the bar.”

“You would’ve killed it,” I said with a smile. She gave me a death glare. “And not because you’re a killer. That’s not what I meant.”

“Shut the fuck up,” she muttered, rolling her eyes.

“Seriously, though, Elisa. This isn’t about being good or bad. This is about playing the hand we’re dealt. You were put in a position where you had to react in order to survive, and you pulled through. Drake’s the same way. We make choices in life. Sometimes they’re good; sometimes they’re bad. We roll with the punches and keep going. There is no right or wrong. Put your head down, and get through it. I was trying to say I’m proud of you, baby, for gritting your teeth and pushing through it. At the end of the day, we can’t go around these obstacles. We can’t go over them or under them. We have to gothroughthem.”

She was quiet for a long moment, which tempted me to fill the void with more words, but I refused, thinking it was best to let her gather her thoughts. “I don’t know,” she finally said. “Sometimes I feel like someone as evil as my father could never have offspring that weren’t just as bad.”

“Well, when this is all over and the smoke clears, we can debate good and bad, but for now, gorgeous, we just have to focus on one thing.” I gave her leg a tight squeeze and patted it a few times, waiting for the question I knew would come.

“What’s that?”

“Winning.” I let the chuckle I’d been holding back roll out of my throat like it was no big deal, but the truth of the matter was, deep down inside, I knew how high the stakes really were. The idea that I might lose her, that something could happen to take her away from me forever, was terrifying.

Except it was also the spark that kept me going. I had to protect her, to keep her safe, no matter what.

One by one, I would eliminate every motherfucker who dared to stand in my way. No matter who they were. La Rosa’s people, or anyone else who posed a threat.

Even the enemies in my own family.

CHAPTER23

ELISA

The sun had set a few hours before we started to see the tall buildings of downtown Chicago in the distance. My back was killing me from sitting in the uncomfortable passenger seat for so long, but I could only imagine how uncomfortable my brother was in the back.

He probably had absolutely no idea who had kidnapped him. I’d be freaking out, too, knowing I was being held captive by someone and not even knowing who it was. But he fucking deserved it for being such a prick to me and everyone else in the world who wasn’t my father.

Hearing him wrestling around in the back, I thought of how happy Cassandra must be now that she was free from his torment. Daemon had given her a nice sum to keep her mouth shut, and she’d mentioned moving back home to Vermont. I hoped that wherever she ended up, she would be able to take care of her child and not have to strip anymore. Even if this plan blew up in our faces, it was nice of her to help us, and she deserved some good from that.

Taking a deep breath, I leaned my head against the cool glass of the window, trying not to freak out completely. Daemon had been very vague about where we were going next, just calling it a safe house. Since it had turned out his last safe house wasn’t that safe, I was nervous. I’d definitely be on high alert from now on. The fact that I still hadn’t grabbed any mace or pepper spray bothered me. When was I going to learn it was best to have some sort of weapon on hand?

We passed by the dazzling neon lights of a stretch of road populated by fast-food restaurants, and my stomach started to growl. Ever since my brother started to regain consciousness, we’d had to be careful about where we stopped. Daemon didn’t seem to think anyone would notice him or care about him back there, but I wasn’t so sure. It’d been a few hours since we ate, and I was dying for a burger or something else greasy and bad for me.

“We’ll get something to eat in a few minutes,” Daemon assured me. “We’re almost to the house. We’ll get Alex situated, and then we can order some food.”

“You’re going to let DoorDash know where your secret hideaway is?” Confusion washed over me. Why would he do that?

“I’m not Daemon Petrov right now, remember? I’m Derrick Peterson. Derrick can do whatever the fuck he wants.” He turned off the highway onto another busy street, but before long we were winding our way out into the suburbs. This wasn’t the best part of town, but it wasn’t a slum like that place where my dad had pretended to buy all those properties. I leaned back and shut my mouth, letting him do his thing. If the dude on his ID was free to invite over whomever he wanted, perhaps he could also reroute my Amazon subscriptions. The amount of shampoo and eyeliner Sara must have stuffed away in my closet for me by now had to be overwhelming.

Daemon turned off onto a side street into a neighborhood with larger lots. The houses themselves weren’t huge. Most of them were ranch-style homes probably built in the 1970s, but the lots were over half an acre or more each. He pulled into the driveway of a smaller home on a cul de sac and hopped out, retrieving a key hidden in what appeared to be a false sprinkler head. With that, he unlocked the two-car garage, pocketed the key, tossed the sprinkler head aside, and came back to the van.

Once inside the garage, he closed the door, locked it, and then moved to the van where Alex was making quite a fuss. It was hard for him to be heard with the gag and the bag, but he was rolling around, trying to break free of his restraints but not having any luck.

Daemon slid the door open, and I got out to help. This was going to be really hard if Alex didn’t simmer down. Daemon yanked the noise-canceling headphones from his head, and said, “Listen, La Rosa, if you don’t want to die, you’ll cooperate. All I want from you right now is information, not your head. But if you keep acting like a fucking animal, I’ll make sure that you pay for everything that’s happened to me and my brothers in blood. Got it?”