Page 114 of A Foster Fling

Apparently unaware of the danger she was in, she dared to laugh.“Lo siento, mi hermano.You don’t get to be my first everything.” She clucked her tongue and I saw red.

A loud crack brought me back to myself. Plaster fell from the wall where my fist cast a large hole. I stared at the damage, and smattering of blood, but it didn’t bring me any relief. I needed answers now. I needed to know who I needed to kill. And God help that man.

I spoke low. “Who was it?”

Salma, still trapped by her hair, stared wide-eyed at the hole in the wall next to her closet. “No one,” she murmured. “There was no one.”

Her face wore a look of pure confusion. She wasn’t truly scared yet.She will be.

“Who the fuck was it?”

“I-I d-don’t know what you’re t-talking about. Th-there w-was no one.”

I released her hair and found her throat like a magnet finds its other half. I gripped her roughly and pushed her against the wall.

“WHO THE FUCK WAS IT?”

“No one!” she cried. “I was speaking out of turn because I was mad!”

“Who took your mouth? WHO USED WHAT WAS MINE?” I roared, dulling out the sound of her crying. “Tell me now!”

“No one!”

I thrust her away from me disgusted. Fuck this shit. I reached over into her nightstand and found what I was looking for. I pulled out The Holy Bible and hit her across the face with it. She slid down the wall, bawling. I threw it down at her. It bounced off her thigh and opened to the Book of Revelations, which was fitting for my mood. My anger was apocalyptic, and people were about to die.

“I swear to fucking God, I’m going to find him even if it means killing every man in this fucking compound.” I stared deep into her tearfilled brown eyes. “Every. Single. Man.” I promised.

I left her quietly sobbing. If I hadn’t gone when I did, I could’ve really hurt her. I couldn’t believe it. She gave away something that was rightfully mine. It’s gone and I can’t get that back. Was he good to her? Did he touch her right?

I didn’t know the answers to these questions. But I did know that if I didn’t find this man and kill him, I would surely die from the poison of it. Salma was my light and now she was covered in another’s darkness. That wouldn’t work, not at all.

I could only hope that she was pregnant right now. If she were, I would step forward publicly, claiming her and my child. Once the information about my bloodline came to light, Salma would be safe. She would have claimed this whole territory as the sole heir to the Cortez throne. It wasn’t her fault that she didn’t know.

She thought I was her blood brother. She was raised believing we were blood related to each other.

Still fuming, I went and told Bruno that Salma had a touch of food poisoning and wouldn’t be able to attend her graduation. The patriarch looked relieved by the news. He hated going to these events where safety could not be guaranteed by our security.

“It’s for the best,” Padre said.

As I left on my mission to find out who violated my sister’s mouth, I texted Salma the news about the cancellation of the events of that day. I felt a tinge of guilt, but she was the one who was misbehaving, being a spoiled brat, and had let some asshole stick his dirty dick in her mouth.

I had to take a walk. I had to cool down before I made good on my threat to kill every male in the vicinity who had access to my sister.

——

It was late night by the time I had finished my investigation. I had poured over security recordings, emails, text messages, and found nothing alluding to a mystery man who might have stolen my sister’s attention.

Well, actually something did come from my investigation. I had been trying to figure out what had changed to make Salma, who was normally a fairly good girl, act as she had been.

The only thing was she’d learned she was to be married.

Since she’d been told that, she’d turned snarky and sneaky, sullen and snotty, looking for ways to escape me and her duties to our family. She’d been rebellious. And distrustful.

Ultimately, this was my fault. I should have reassured her that she was mine, and mine alone, that she did not need to be worried about being married off in an alliance. I would never allow that to happen.

With my temper having cooled since our argument, I was finally able to think straight and reasoned that Salma was likely telling the truth when she’d said there was no one whom she shared intimacy with other than me. She had simply said what she had said to hurt me.

We needed to talk, so when I didn’t find her in her room, I tracked her to the far library, on the other side of the compound, as far away from Bruno’s office as possible. It was a place she went to for comfort, even when she was young, and wanted to hide away from all of us.