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His family. He really thought I believed he cared about his family. He hadn’t once looked at his granddaughter.
“So you went to my grandfather and you said the same words to him. ‘Please. I am begging you.’”
He flinched, his head moving under my gun barrel as he was giving up. He was folding.
“He blackmailed you with a video of you with an underage prostitute that you had trafficked over to the States for him.” Now I asked, because he had to say the words. Victoria had to hear him admit his guilt. “Didn’t you?”
He had moved to lie on his side, his knees pulled to his chest. He was in a fetal position.
His head was down. His eyes closed. He almost had a blissful look on his face.
I straightened, still holding his own gun but pointing at him from a distance. “Tell your granddaughter the truth.”
He opened his eyes.
He whispered, “You don’t get it. Your men are good, but they’re not that good, because my granddaughter already knows.” Now he looked at her, a deep apology flashing over his face, mixed with sorrow and regret. And shame. So much shame that it lined his every word.
I turned.
Time slowed.
I felt a shift.
Something was coming.
A curveball.
I didn’t want to see when I looked, but I couldn’t stop from looking.
There. On her face. Guilt.
Victoria knew.
Griogos kept talking. “She didn’t know all of it, but she knew enough. Enough where it wasn’t only her aunt that I was prostituting.”
I looked back to him.
God. Victoria.
I had touched her.
I took her to bed.
I asked her, “Me?”
Was she a set-up?
Pain flared in her eyes, but she dipped her head down. A small nod.
His eyes moved to mine, a clearness in the middle of them. “Your grandfather came to us two years ago, said you would be coming for him soon. He was a step ahead. He’s always a step ahead.”
“Don’t, o pappoús mou,” Victoria whispered, her own tone broken.
Jesus.
My insides turned wooden, and I maneuvered so I was facing both of them, with the gun still on Griogos. She was on her knees, shaking her head, pleading with him. Not me. She had one hand outstretched to him, and she implored him again. “Don’t, o pappoús mou. Please don’t.”
“I have to. He has to know. He’s right. His grandfather cannot win, not any longer.” He sat up, ignoring the gun, and reached for her.
She went to him and he folded her in his arms. Her head was cradled to his shoulder and he smoothed her hair back as if she were an infant. He rocked her back and forth, crooning into her ear, “It’s for the best, and then you will be free. He will not let Calhoun hurt you.”
“No! No!” Her hands fisted into his suit jacket and she tried to shake him. Her head was violently shaking side to side. “No!”
He cupped her face, stopping her movements, and his thumbs rubbed back and forth over her cheeks. He was trying to soothe her again, but Victoria kept screaming and shaking and rocking, and nothing was working on her.
She had snapped.
“No!” She turned on me, a feral look in her eyes. “You don’t hurt him. Got it?! You don’t hurt my grandfather!” With that, she launched herself at me.
I grunted.
Her body hit mine, but I swept her to the side.
Balled fists started hitting me. “No! Don’t hurt him! No!”
One of my guards came forward, and plucked her away from me. His arm went around her waist, her back to his front. Her fists were still swinging. She was kicking out. Her entire body was twisting, trying to break free.
Her screams were hysterical and hoarse at the same time. “I’ll hurt you, Kash! I’ll hurt her. Don’t touch my grandfather. Don’t—”
I should’ve expected this, bringing her with me, but I couldn’t have.
They tried to use her to set me up. I should’ve seen that. I hadn’t.
That was my mistake.
Griogos looked up at her, a different pleading look in his eyes, and I motioned for one of the guards.
I snapped, “Take her out of here! Now!”
They took her. One wrapped his arm around her neck. She was still trying to break free. He applied pressure on her neck, just enough so she would lose consciousness.
When she fell silent, he caught her body, lifting her up.
“Take her back. Put her on a commercial flight to Chicago. Get her out of my sight.”
I turned to Griogos.
I was going to kill this man. I hadn’t decided before. I had hoped to use him, maybe turn him for my own purposes, but not anymore.
“Finish. Everything.”
I had lost all patience.
He nodded, his head hanging down. “As you know, Calhoun’s been watching you all your life. He knew the kind of man you were becoming. That you were rallying to fight him. He has underestimated you in some ways, but in others, he was far ahead of you. My daughter was supposed to befriend Quinn Francis. My granddaughter was supposed to befriend you. She was to do more than that. She was supposed to seduce you. In an ideal world, Calhoun wanted her to marry you, to have you fall in love with her, and she was supposed to use her influence over you to bring you back into your grandfather’s control. If nothing else, she was supposed to find dirt on you so he could blackmail you. But nothing worked.”
