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“He claims that someone who knew that Cory owed him a favor must have posed as him. It’s possible. I’m not sure I believe your brother, though.Youwant to. I can see that. I don’t blame you. But you know your family, Cat. You know what they’re capable of. Do you really think it would bother them much to give you a scare?”
I swallowed, pained that my answer could only be … “No.” I bit hard on my bottom lip. “You said ‘them,’ not ‘Julian,’” I noted, recalling his latter comment. “You’re thinking what I’m thinking—that if my brother did send that message, he wouldn’t have done it without Jorge’s knowledge.”
Danton nodded. “Your father might have even put him up to it.”
I balled up my hands, wishing I could protest. The reality was, though, that I was nothing but property to Jorge. “There’s something I really don’t get. The text said that a message needs to be sent. If Jorge or Julian had something they needed to say to me, wouldn’t they have done it face to face? They could have given me a scare just fine in person.”
“The message wasn’t for you, baby. It was for me.”
I frowned. “I don’t understand.”
He played with the ends of my hair, not moving his gaze from mine. “Jorge considers himself a powerful man who should be respected and feared. I don’t respect him. I don’t fear him. And I made that clear when I told him in his study that he has no control over you anymore and that you’re under my protection.”
I grimaced. “Julian mentioned that. Jorge apparently didn’t much like how you ‘laid down the law.’”
“No, he didn’t. Just as he didn’t like that my claiming you didn’t mean I’d agree to do business with him—something I’ve repeatedly refused to do over the last month. He remained civil, leery of pissing me off. But I suspected he’d strike out at me in a way that couldn’t be traced back to him. That’s his style. It’s alsohis style to target those who are closest to anyone who’s wronged him, but I have no family. It didn’t occur to me that he’d think to use you to get to me. But he did.”
Feeling disheartened, I let my eyelids fall shut. “Yeah, he’s all about power games. He wouldn’t care who got caught in the crossfire, not even his own daughter.” I took a deep breath, meeting Danton’s gaze again. “Do you think Julian was involved or that Jorge might have acted independently?”
His eyes intently raked over my face. “I know you’d like me to say that it was probably just Jorge, but I won’t lie to you. I don’t find it difficult to believe that your brother was involved.”
Honestly, I didn’t find it difficult to believe either. There was a time when Julian never would have said or done a thing to hurt me, but that time had long since passed.
“Juliancouldhave acted alone, though. I wouldn’t have thought he’d make a move without Jorge’s say-so, but it’s possible. He has motive to come at me.”
“You turned Risa,” I remembered.
“Yes. It wasn’t difficult. Vicente brought her to me. He’s her ex. She went to him looking for protection.”
I tipped my head slightly to the side. “From who?”
“Jorge. She overheard him promising one of his men, Marcos, that they’d all be using her as a party favor that night.”
Party favor? God, my father wassucha bastard.
“She wasn’t sure if Julian had agreed to it, but she did feel that he wouldn’t contradict Jorge. So, because I’m not a complete asshole and Vicente asked me to help her, I did. In exchange, she gave me information on Julian and Jorge.”
I couldn’t exactly blame her, but my brother certainly did. I wondered if he knew what had sparked her to run. I would like to think that he didn’t; that he’d been clueless as to Jorge’s plans for her and that he wouldn’t have let it happen. But our father’sapproval meant more to him than anything else, so Risa had been right to not take her chances.
“Julian came to see me recently,” I said. “He demanded I ‘get rid’ of you.”
Danton’s eyes flared. “Did he now?”
“It seems that Jorge wants you out the picture, so he sent Julian to whisper some stuff into my ear that would turn me against you.”
“Like what?”
“Like that you don’t have any true interest in me,” I replied, my voice even. “That you only want me because I’m Jorge’s daughter. That you’re using me to both piss him off and squeeze any information out of me that you can.”
“Which you know is bullshit,” Danton said with a derogatory snort. “I made a move on you simply because I wanted you. Any man would.” He drifted his fingers through my hair. “You’re a work of art come to life.”
I could have said the same about him.
“And you follow directions so beautifully,” he added, his lips hitching up slightly. “You’re your own person, and you own your strength. You need no one, but you surrender all control to me.” He moved his face closer to mine. “I fucking love that.”
Ignoring the tingles skipping along my skin, I searched his eyes as I asked, “Did you ever intend to use me to get information about my family?”
“I thought about it when we first met,” he admitted, matter of fact.
