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I just have to find her first.
Chapter 24
Marco
“There’s no audio, but do you fucking assholes want to tell me why my woman looks like she’s been gutted like a fish just listening to you talk?”
I look at Gio and then Elias. I wait as they stare at one another.
“We didn’t know she was there,” Elias mutters.
“What were you talking about?”
“Marco, we didn’t know she was there,” Gio repeats.
My control is gone. I slap my hand down on the old metal desk. The old steel desk—that was made circa 1960’s—causes a burning pain to hit my palm. I ignore it, my gaze boring into my brothers. “What the fuck were you talking about? What caused my woman so much pain that her entire body recoiled?”
Gio shoved his hand through his dark hair. “Damn it, Marco. We thought we were alone!”
“You have about three seconds to tell me what you said before I beat that shit out of you,” I growl.
“We want you to be happy, Marco. We like Helena, but it seems so sudden,” Elias begins.
“Sudden? What the fuck? Helena has been mine for years!”
“She was forced on you.”
“She was—”
Gio holds up his hand and I snap my mouth shut trying to restrain the urge to kill my fucking brother.
“You said it yourself. You only agreed to this engagement because she chose you. It trapped you because if you said no, she would have gotten one of the twins and you knew what that meant.”
“Is that what you said while she was listening?” I bite out the words. My voice is quiet but filled with anger and shock. How the fuck can my own brothers be so fucking blind?
“Not that word for word, but that’s the gist,” Elias says. “We were worried about you,” he adds, trying to mollify me. It doesn’t work.
“Have you fucking seen me with Helena? Do I look like I’m not happy, you assholes?”
“Marco, you always have had this sacrificing for the greater good complex. You fancy yourself some fucking white knight that has to save the rest of us,” Gio tries to explain.
“God, you can’t see what is right in front of you,” I growl.
“We like Helena. We’d just rather you finally live your life, not tie yourself to a woman who was forced upon you.”
His words make me flinch. Is the bullshit they were spouting when my woman was listening, and her heart was ripped out of her chest. I turn away from him and my gaze automatically goes to the screen where the security film is on a loop. Seeing the pain hit her—drown her—nearly brings me to my knees.
“She’ll be okay, Marco,” Elias says.
“It’s better for her to know. Helena has a soft heart like Melina. She loves you. Being married to you, knowing that you don’t love her, would kill her,” Gio adds.
I don’t think I reach out and wrap my hand around his neck and thrust him up against the wall. “Does she look like she’s better on that fucking video, Gio?”
“Marco—”
“Does she look like she’s fucking better?” I hiss the last of my question, letting the anger inside of me go free, ready to incinerate the whole damn place.
Gio looks at the screen and I can see the regret on his face, but it’s much too late for his regret.
Much too late.
“You tie yourself to her, you’re doing her no favors. That girl wants a fairytale. She wants the white knight you pretend to be. Only, she doesn’t want a pretend hero, Marco. She wants the real thing,” Gio says, his voice softer. I let go of him, shaking my head.
“I can be that for her, you fucking asshole. I was that for her.”
“You can try. That’s what you’ve been doing—trying, Marco, but we have the same blood. We have the same family. We can’t be anyone’s hero. We don’t know what love is and that’s what your woman wants.”
I stare at my fucking brother. I love him. Love. However, right now, I’ve never hated him more in my life. I draw back and plant my fist into his stomach. He groans as he exhales from the force of the blow, his body bending forward. “Get this straight. I may not be a fucking roses and candy kind of hero, but I can still be Helena’s. Not one fucking person has shown me what love is but that woman. She’s mine and I can be whatever the fuck she needs me to be.”
“Marco—”
“Not another fucking word. Find my woman and you better pray nothing happens to her before I find her.”
“Happens to her?” Elias questions.
“She’s the fiancée of a Stratakis. Our father was so fucking hated, if you don’t think we have a million enemies out there, you haven’t been paying attention,” I snap. “Find her.”
“Where are you going?” Sebastian asks, having been mostly quiet through all of this.
