AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I can practically hear his snide comments right now as the tires of my imported car screech in protest over the tarmac. The Rolls Royce is low enough to the ground that I feel everything. Every minor bump or twist in the road jostles me around uncomfortably. As I race toward my destination at a speed that cannot be defined in any other way but reckless, the rumble of the motor is powerful.
Keep it up, Nathaniel, and you’ll end up in the ground where you belong.
Elijah’s syrupy voice whispers mockingly inside my head. It’s something I swear that he cursed me with. He stared at me in his final moments, his viper’s eyes locked onto mine as his death rattle settled. With it, he cursed me with the inability to forget him. All I want todois forget him. I want to move forward. To do that, I must rid myself of my final tie to Elijah’s treason.
Naturally, Elijah hadn’t been acting alone. He was a slippery bastard. He was cunning, smart, and he tended to be ruthless in every situation. He would have been a great hitman, but he was never content with that. He needed more. He got greedy, and this apparently had made him desperate enough to travel all the way to Mexico looking for unlikely allies.
The Martinez Mafia might have originated in the adjoining country, but its reach had spread throughout Texas like poison in the blood, and it quickly spread their disease into other states and territories. They held more influence than I liked to admit—enough to nearly rival my own. No doubt Elijah thought to stab them in the back after their business was concluded and absorb their many territories into his own. Honor wasn’t something Eliah was capable of.
The city I zip through seems sleepier than I’d like. There is no traffic to oppose me and even fewer people lingering about the streets as my GPS leads me toward my goal.
It wasn’t hard to find what I was looking for once I had narrowed down my targets. It had been hard to find the original contracts Elijah had put into place when he had me kidnapped—carefully planned attacks on my warehouses and the murder of my men… All for the sake of kidnapping me.
The months spent in torture were the result of Elijah’s sadism, but the following prison stints were too much to bear. The fact that I had never once been addressed by my own name in those places was dehumanizing. I was constantly attacked by guards and prisoners alike. Every day was a new horror waiting for me to experience. I know that those responsible for shoving me in that prison wanted to break me. They never wanted me to breathe free air ever again. Isolation was an act of “mercy” on behalf of the warden. Without my younger sister, Diana, and my best friend, Stephan, I would have been left to rot there—left to decay in that proverbial hole in the ground until my heart gave out, or until Elijah decided that he wanted to use me as his plaything again.
Even though I was mainly kept off the books, everything became simpler once I got ahold of the paperwork that Diana had signed while she was acting as my lawyer. My most trusted men found the transfer papers under my false name, and they tracked those logs to falsified police reports. From there it was just a matter of finding out whose payroll those dirty cops were on.
I’ll give credit where it is due: at least the Martinez family wasn’t stupid enough to put their own signature on anything. They couldn’t be acquitted if there was any evidence against them. They were infamous for the sheer number of lawyers they had on retainer. They had fleets,drovesof them, really. And they were all in that bastard’s employ.
Sure idiot, drive faster, why don’t you? That’s a great choice, given the little sleep you’ve had.
I glance at my center console to the now empty cup of coffee sitting there. It had only been three days but now that I finally have my plan in place, I can hardly stop. Not now that, for the first time in a long time, the end to the nightmare I’ve been living is staring me plain in the face. It’s practically calling to me.
As if I had summoned her from the abyss, my phone starts to vibrate with the nameDianapainted across the screen. “Answer,” I speak into my car, and the call comes through the speakers.
“Nathaniel?”Diana’s voice comes through crystal clear despite the massive buildings around me. I can hear a slight tinge of worry in her voice.
“What? This isn’t a terrific time, Diana. I will have to call you back.”
“This is important.”
“Then speak quickly!”
“Mom says that you left quickly again. She’s so worried about you that she’s called Stephan and asked him to check in on you…Now. I know she worries over a lot of stupid things, but-”
“Stephan is supposed to be attending meetings in Boston. Is Stephannotin Boston?” I skip around the question that she’s really asking me to get to the one possible bit of information that I need to know.
If I‘m forced to alter my plans to deal with things I assumed Stephan would be taking care of, I will be grossly behind schedule. I can’t afford to deviate, especially not now that I must be so careful. I’msoclose. I need this. I need this chapter of my life to come to a close so that I can get the voice of Elijah out of my head.
Diana would try to have me evaluated if I said something like that to her.
“What? Of course, he’s in Boston. That is whyI’mcalling you. She couldn’t get to Stephan, and now I’m wondering if she maybe had reason to be concerned! Are you driving right now? Come over when you’re done, and we can talk things out. I knowwith everything that you’ve told me that you have a lot on your plate, and I can help.”
“I’m handling it,” I say. I do not want her help. Even more now than ever because she’s still a newlywed. She should be remodeling her house or planning a vacation. I only enlisted the help of her husband to get things off the ground. Even Stephan Lord doesn’t know how far things have deluged in such a short amount of time. The truce between our two families is still tenuous and hangs on the condition of him being a good and loving husband to my baby sister.
That doesnotinclude any of them in my business. And certainly not after Elijah nearly murdered her.
Rage sparks anew inside my chest.
“I know that you’re handling it, brother. You always haveeverythinghandled! I’m offering to help you,” Diana says sweetly. I know there are no hidden conditions there; she would help me if I asked her to. This is just something I have to do myself.
“Tell you what, I’m actually headed out of town myself. Something has come up, so I’ll be unavailable for some time. Have mother come and keep you company. And I swear that when this business is concluded, I will fill you in on everything.”
“Only if you come here the moment that you touch ground anywhere near here again,” Diana says firmly, and then sighs. “Ijust worry. I don’t suppose there’s any reason to ask you where you are going?”
I smirk. “Naturally, no.”
“Be careful,please.” Diana urges. “Love you, knucklehead,” she says into her phone softly.
