He brings my hand back and kisses my fingertips, and my brows crease in question. Angels don’t kiss fingers, do they? My Nonno would know. I want my Nonno. He loves me.
“Can you take me to my Nonno now? I miss him.” (Grandpa)
My angel strokes my cheek. A tear trickles down his nose to drop onto the blankets.
“No sweet girl, I can’t. You have to stay with me, okay?” I just nod and stroke my finger over his lips once again.
“You really are beautiful, you know? I don’t feel well Angel. Are you sure you can’t take me to see Nonno? I miss him. He loved me. I just want to be loved for a little bit.”
He gathers me close, and I close my eyes. I feel sweaty and hot, but I don’t care. He smells so good, and he will protect me till he takes me to see my Nonno and Nonna.
Chapter 21 ~ Alexander
Six Months Later
It’s been six months. Six months of unadulteratedhell.
She left me in early October. It’s the beginning of March now. Christmas came and went, and I haven’t stopped looking yet and I won’t. Sebastian has been just as obsessed as me in his search for her. He has every computer nerd he knows, running every program he can think of. Facial recognition, bank accounts, license plates, fingerprints It doesn’t matter what it is, he’s running it. But so far, we’re coming up empty.
We took care of Robert and his gang of mercenaries. I figured that would make me feel better once we got the answers for my father and the reasons for his abuse of Isabella, but it didn’t. It just drove the need to find her to an obsession. I’ve learned now that it is not the need to own her or possess her, I feel.
I love her and have loved her all along. I take a sip of my whiskey and let the burn settle in my throat. That day plays in my mind over and over again. I want to do it over and make him pay the way Isabella paid at his hands.
We had Robert on the ship less than a week after she disappeared, chained to the ceiling, dangling there, naked from the waist up. Jasper warmed him up for us, and we left him to hang there for the night. It is not a fitting enoughpunishment, in my opinion, if he finally confirms what he did to my poor bunny when she was such a tiny and helpless little girl. Fucken coward.
The three of us entered Robert’s cell; his nose was bleeding, and his eye was swollen shut black and blue. I wanted to do more, but my father put his hand on my chest and made me wait by the door with Carlos.
The room contained a single table, one chair, and a light bulb hanging from the ceiling. My father sat down calmly, undoing his suit jacket and tossing it aside to take out his gun. He sets it on the table slowly and looks directly at Robert, crossing his legs and resting his linked hands on his thighs.
“You know how this is going to end, Robert, so you might as well tell me what I want to know. Even if you don’t, it’s too late either way.”
Robert spits out, “Fuck you.”
My father smiles. “No, I’m pretty sure you’re the one that’s fucked, Robert.” My father slides the handle of the gun back and forth on the table. Then he looks up at Robert.
“Were you behind the death of Angelo Gallo?”
Robert swings on his tiptoes as he tries to fight the chains. Stupid fool. Even if he managed to get free, he is on a ship and there was nowhere to go.
My father sighs, “That’s okay. We can circle back to that one later. I want to know what Isabella’s part in all of this is.”
Robert starts to laugh, a sick, twisted laugh. He looks straight at me. “Did you kill her yet?”
I could feel my throat drop to my stomach. My father slides the handle of the gun back and forth again.
“Now, why would my son kill his wife?”
He says it so calmly. I’m storming inside that he wants me to kill her. I take a minute and it registers, and my rage almost blinds me. He planned it, waited for it, and almost succeeded with it.
Robert tilts his head between his stretched out arms and laughs again.
“Fuck your slow. So, you’re telling me she’s still alive?”
My father links his fingers together again, putting them back in his lap.
“Oh, she’s very much alive, Robert, and we’re going to make sure that she stays that way. Since you planned on taking her inheritance from her.”
Robert smirks, his teeth copper, his lips covered in blood. “Taking it? I fucking took it! She had no idea what she was doing. She signed her stupid trust fund every fucking three months, thinking she was getting her measly 15 grand a month. The rest I took. It was my money. Stupid bitch should have stayed in the goddamn Psych ward like I wanted her to, but her mother thought she was better off at home.”
