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Mr. Beaumont nodded. “Of course.”
I was letting them borrow a shit-ton of money, so they better be accommodating. I walked out with Bates and shut the door. “What the hell?”
Bates moved into a vacant conference room and shut the door behind us.
“Do you have any idea how—”
“Siena is a lying whore.” He slammed his fist down onto the table, making the entire thing tremble under the force of his hand.
I stilled at the insult but didn’t jump to her aid. My brother was too infuriated for that. He must be making those insults for a valid reason. “What are you talking about?”
“I knew she was full of shit.” He pointed his hand at my chest. “Fucking whore.”
I kept my anger in check even though I wanted to punch him in the face. “What did she do?”
“Her father has been missing for a month.”
Stefano Russo ran a cigar empire. It was respectable but small. People went missing every day, so it wasn’t surprising that didn’t catch my attention. But it was concerning that he disappeared exactly when Siena and I started our relationship.
“I dug deeper and found out Micah and Damien hit his warehouse, killed everyone, and took Stefan as a prisoner. Siena’s brother escaped, and no one has spotted him since.”
My hands rested in my pockets and I kept a straight face, but my heart was starting to pound in my chest. My rage was growing slowly to match his, but I kept it hidden under my icy exterior.
“Siena stopped talking to her father when her mother died. I guess she blamed him for her death and wanted nothing to do with the family business. But Damien threatened to kill her father if she didn’t turn you over.”
Now it became harder for me to maintain my expression, to pretend this meant nothing to me. It felt like a knife was stabbing me through the gut, but I still couldn’t react to it. This woman had been in my bed and I fucked her like she meant something to me, but she’d used me the entire time.
Fuck. I was an idiot.
“Her plan is to get you away from your men so Damien can grab you. They’ll make the exchange then.” My brother was livid, visibly enraged with that vein throbbing away in his forehead. He didn’t have the strength to remain calm the way I did. If this happened to him, he probably would be more graceful about it. But since someone fucked with me, his brother, he couldn’t see straight.
I was the most terrifying man in this country, but I let pussy cloud my judgment. She was different from the other women I met, and that intrigued me. But now I knew she was different because she was never seriously interested in me at all. I was just a farm animal she was fattening up before the slaughter.
Bates stared at me as he waited for me to say something.
I didn’t have a damn thing to say. I turned away and walked toward the window, my hands sliding into my pockets.
“You better kill her.”
I stared at the café across the street, remembering Siena sitting at one of the tables. Maybe she hadn’t followed me for the job. Maybe she’d followed me because she was trying to get under my skin that entire time. “How credible is your source?”
“Very.”
Everything made sense, regardless of how much I didn’t want to believe it.
Bates came to my side and stared out the window with me. “I told you so, asshole. I fucking told you so.”
“Yeah…you did.” I was angry, but most of all, I was humiliated. I couldn’t believe I’d allowed someone to get that close to me, allowed someone to mislead me like that. I fell for her lies like a dumbass.
He turned to me, his jaw strained with rage. “I’ll kill that little bitch if you don’t want to do it. I’d be happy to.”
Breaking down her front door and shooting her between the eyes didn’t sound like enough revenge. “No.”
“Then you’ll do it?”
“Yes, eventually. But I have a better idea.”
“Rescue her father so we can execute him in front of her?” he asked, his eyes brightening with crude violence.
“No. I’ll let her think she fooled me. And just when she thinks she’s gotten away with it, I’ll be the one to fool her.”
“I like that idea. Teach that bitch a lesson.”
I felt no urge to defend her honor anymore. “And then I’ll kill her.”
18
Siena
The nausea got worse because the guilt started to crush me.
I couldn’t believe I was going to do this.
Cato didn’t deserve this.
I threw up every morning for three days because the dread was killing me. I had to choose between my father and Cato, and the choice seemed obvious. But that didn’t make me feel better about my decision.
It only made me feel worse.
