AllFreeNovel
Share Us
He was sick in the head.
Absolutely sick.
Amara felt acid from her stomach rising in her throat. “And Dante’s mother? You killed her for the same reason you had me taken? That she overheard a conversation she wasn’t supposed to hear?”
He smiled, a warm smile that made Amara’s skin crawl. “Do you have any idea how vast, how deep our organization is? There are some
very powerful people connected to some very powerful places with us. That’s why we have a simple policy to protect ourselves – no witnesses. Anyone who’s not working with us knows nothing about us.”
“So you’ve killed other innocent people over the years?”
“Of course.”
Amara swayed on the spot as the entirety of it hit her. She was just one in a line of many. Dante’s mother had been just one in a line of many. There were many who died and no one even knew a thing. Who the hell were these people?
She felt Dante put his big hand behind her, holding her just on the curve of her waist, and she leaned into it, glad to have the support.
Once she was steady, he got up, pushed her into his vacated seat, and walked to the side towards another chair.
“I want to kill you, Xavier,” Dante told the man who had sired her calmly, pulling up that chair next to hers. “I want to kill you for what you put my mother and brother through. I want to kill you for what you put my woman through. I want to kill you for what you’ve put so many innocent people through.”
“But you won’t.” Xavier relaxed back in his chair.
“But I won’t,” Dante agreed. “A few years ago, I would have. Now, you are more useful to me alive than dead. The day you stop being useful to me? You’ll perhaps go to sleep and never wake up. Or maybe you’ll pour yourself a glass of water and instead drink acid that melts your organs from the inside. Or maybe you’ll wake up tied to a chair with knives in your skin. Or hell if I’m in a merciful mood, maybe you’ll go to the grocery store and have a terrible accident. I mean, who knows?”
Damn, he was good. Amara saw her father stiffen a bit at each word, even as he stayed silent.
“Are we clear?” Dante asked, taking his jacket off.
“Yes,” her father said quietly.
Dante nodded, slowly folding the sleeves of his shirt over his forearms. “Now, let’s talk like adult bad guys. The kids my father sent twenty years ago, where are they?”
Xavier shrugged. “I wouldn’t know. I was just a foot soldier then here in the Outfit. They promoted me to the ranks afterward.”
“Can you find out?”
“Possibly, yes. But the young ones rarely survive.”
“Hmm,” Dante finished rolling up his sleeves, looking back at Vin. “Hand me the gun please.”
Vin quietly went to the table and picked up a gun, passing it over to her man.
Dante placed it on his lap and took out a cigarette. “In that batch of kids, there was a three-year-old redheaded girl,” Dante began. “I want her and you will get me her information.”
Her father stayed silent.
Dante blew out a puff of smoke. “Why kidnap us a few weeks ago and take us to the same location?”
Xavier looked down at his hands. “It’s a place we started using again a few years ago. She wasn’t supposed to be taken, just you. The guys thought she was collateral.”
Amara’s disgust was probably plastered all over her face because Xavier looked at her and said, “I was never meant to be a father. Some men just aren’t.”
“That’s your excuse?” her tone was disbelieving.
“It’s the truth. Children become what their parents are. Nerea had a shitty mother who left her with me, and she grew up hard; you got a good mother who raised you, and you grew up kind. Me? I was raised by a monstrous man, so that’s what I became.”
Amara shook her head, unable to believe what she was hearing. “We are not our parents, Xavier. Children are… like wildflowers. They may be planted in one place but they grow where their hearts lead. It’s not where we’re planted but where we bloom that defines us.”
