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He didn’t make a comment about the house or the grounds. He marched inside, his hostility obvious in the movements of his body. “What is it, Carter? I had to lie to your mother, and I hate doing that.”
“I didn’t ask you to lie to her.”
His eyes flashed with annoyance. “How else would I get over here without bringing her? All she can talk about is the new baby and your place. She’s so excited that you live here now, and she wants to come see you.”
“And I want to see her too.” I led the way into the kitchen, that way our voices wouldn’t echo off the vaulted ceilings and the wooden staircases. “But I have to get this out of the way first.”
“Get what out of the way?” He followed behind me and stopped at the kitchen island. “Your uncle just cleaned up the Skull Kings mess. This better not be another mess to clean up, alright? We’ve got a new Barsetti on the way. We can’t fuck it up for them.”
“Yeah, I know,” I said. “And no, there’s not another mess.” I truly believed I’d tricked Egor into thinking that corpse belonged to Mia. With his temperament, he would have made an attack by now. There was no way he still had the body because it would have decomposed. He must have dropped it in the ocean over a week ago.
He looked visibly relieved. “Then what is it, son?”
I looked into my father’s face, seeing the way he relaxed when he assumed the situation wasn’t that bad. I didn’t know how to break the truth to him, to tell him I disobeyed him because of a large pile of money. He would be disappointed in me. I knew he would be. I could take responsibility for my mistakes, but watching my father disapprove of my decisions hurt.
I didn’t know where to begin, how to start, so I just blurted things out. “About two months ago, I got a strange phone call from a man named Egor—”
“Oh, this isn’t good…” He crossed his arms over his chest.
“Asked me to bid on his sister at the Underground. I told him I wasn’t in the business anymore.”
“Good. Because you shouldn’t be.”
I dropped my gaze for an instant. “Every time I said no, he offered more money. When there was a hundred and fifty million dollars on the table, I caved. I thought this man was admirable for not giving up on his sister. If Carmen were in a bad situation—”
“She would never be in a bad situation because I raised her better than that.”
“Anyway…I went to the Underground and bought her.”
My father’s eyes narrowed, bursts of fire igniting in his gaze. His jaw tightened noticeably as he pressed his lips tightly together. Even the muscles of his arms flexed. His wrath was about to unleash as a bolt of lightning. “Jesus Christ…”
“When I brought her back to the house, she wasn’t like the other women I bought. She was daring, brave, and a bit crazy. She jumped out of my car when I driving sixty kilometers an hour, and she came at me with a knife.”
“Looks like her father raised her right…”
“After talking with Egor, I realized he wasn’t really her brother. It became obvious that he was her former master…that he tortured her and raped her for years. Now he wanted her back, and he was willing to do anything to make that happen.”
Both of his hands tightened into fists. “This story just gets worse and worse…”
“I was supposed to make the trade four weeks after I bought her. I kept my distance from her and didn’t get attached to her. But it was inevitable that she gained my respect. And before I made the trade, she told me something I couldn’t shake off. She told me she had a young son…”
My father didn’t show any pity. “This is why the Skull Kings came after Conway. All this shit was your fault.”
I took the insult like a man. “Conway and I aren’t sure, but we think so.”
He gripped his skull and started to pace in the kitchen. “You risked all of us for some woman?”
“I didn’t know any of this was going to happen. And for the record, Conway didn’t know anything, not until after I bought her.”
“So that just makes it worse,” he hissed. “My son is the reason all of this bullshit happened. My brother walked into the lion’s den and could have been killed, Carter. I talk shit about your uncle all the time, but make no mistake, I couldn’t live without him.” He got in my face, his hand pushing against my chest. “That man is everything to me. He’s my brother—he’s my blood.” He threw his arms down. “And I could have lost him because of your stupidity.”
