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My blatant disregard for her thoughts or feelings.
She tried to tell me. She wanted to tell me before the club punished her. She came to my office to tell me, but I hadn’t wanted to hear anything she had to say. Even afterwards, she tried for weeks to get me to listen to her. But I refused to look past my own pain, my own hurt, to see the worry and the fear permeating around her.
It was there all along and I ignored it all because it was easier to blame her for what happened than accepting that it could be anything else. My God. I was the fucking monster. Instead of showing her compassion, I ridiculed and punished her. I forced her into a situation and did the very thing Cynic had done to her.
I was no better than him.
“Shame, I want you to piece together a timeline. I want to know everything from before Largo left to when she returned home. If she wasn’t at the penthouse, she was here, so it should be easy to track her movements. Malice... you’re up. Find that motherfucker. Pippen, go through every fucking file in Bane’s office. I don’t give a shit if it’s personal or not. Brother kept extensive and detailed records. I want to know what he missed and why. Mercy, I need to talk to you in my office. Now.”
I heard Montana but couldn’t move as Silver’s words rang in my head. I saw the fear in my wife’s eyes as she pleaded with Cynic, begged him not to make her do it.
I knew what it was.
We all did.
My wife didn’t want the punishment. She trusted me to protect her and I didn’t.
None of us did.
Not even Montana. And the second that fucker gave her whatever was in that syringe, he took away her right to defend herself.
Bane was right. I had a choice. We all did. When Largo walked into the boardroom, we all went along with the club rules, forgoing what we all knew was right in our hearts.
Cynic played us.
He played all of us, and my wife paid the ultimate price.
Instead of protecting her, we punished her.
Instead of following my gut, I allowed my anger and resentment to override all logical reasoning, and now my wife was out there somewhere, in the hands of who the fuck knew, wondering if I even cared enough to find her.
“Mercy?”
“She’s never going to forgive me,” I whispered, staring at the floor. “All this time, I blamed her. I thought she left me because she didn’t want me anymore. How did I not see this? My brother raped my wife, Montana. Why? Why would he do that to her? To me?”
“Caleb,” Montana said. “Cynic fucked all of us. Not just Largo. We will find the bastard and make him pay. Largo will forgive you. Even after everything that’s happened, she’s stayed, Caleb.”
“Fuck,” I moaned, holding my head in my hands. “I fucking cut her, Montana. We all did. We treated her like a fucking criminal and then I... Fuck!”
“Prez, Fedorov is trying to call you,” the prospect Pippen interrupted.
“I’ll call him later.”
Sitting there, I couldn’t get my head to shut off.
Everything I’d done since her return bombarded me like a wrecking ball. Her story never changed. It was the same no matter how she told it. She never deviated. She left because she believed she was protecting me. From what? The truth of what that sick bastard did? She had to know that I would never blame her. Then there was the mystery behind her family. Nothing was adding up. Largo told us she left because of what happened when she was a child. That her mother was Julianna Guillermo. But Bane said that was impossible. That Julianna and Largo had no genetic connection to the Guillermo Family. And now Renaldo said the man in the photo I believed to be Largo’s dad was actually Stefano Romano.
“Renaldo,” I muttered, turning to the man standing off to the side, listening. “You said the man in the photo I showed you was your uncle.”
“That’s right. Stefano Romero.”
“That man was Largo’s father. I knew him as Daniel Finn or Winters, according to Largo. I talked with him, watched football with him, and ate dinner at his table with him. The woman next to him was his wife, Julianna.”
“Winters?” Rico asked, stepping forward. “Did you say Winters?”
“That’s right. I originally knew him as Daniel Finn, but Largo told us his real name was Daniel Winters. Why?”
“Brother,” Rico said, looking at Renaldo. “The bodyguard. The one Dad hired to protect Julianna. Wasn’t his last name Winters?”
