AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Bea turned to him and raised an eyebrow. “Really? Your son didn’t seem to have a problem following me.”
He took a step forward, and I placed a hand on his chest to stop his advance. His chest heaved as he looked over at me and I shook my head. He was owed a debt, and he would collect what was due, but not before I heard the full of extent of what had gone on here.
When I turned back to Marco, he was smiling, his straight white teeth reminding me of a shark. “What your sister doesn’t know is that her boyfriend planned to double cross her after Agent Smith got him his corner office. Only Piotr messed all that up when he took Agent Smith before she could finish the job.”
He turned to Brandy, his smile dropping, and his dark eyes flashing. “My brother said you had the means to catch an even bigger fish. Why didn’t you tell your boss about me?”
Brandy raised her chin and met his icy stare head on, which was tough to do leaning forward as she was with the chair attached to her. She might be a traitor, but somewhere along the way she’d also grown a backbone. I wasn’t sure if it made me want to throttle her or fuck her senseless. My dick knew which one he wanted, but he didn’t get a vote anymore.
“What difference could it possibly make? You’ve always hated me, and you’ll put a bullet in me the first chance you get.”
My eyes went to the gun in his hands, which remained pointed at my sister. If he’d wavered at all, or even batted an eyelash in Brandy’s direction, I would have killed him. Ryder’s brother-in-law or not. I wasn’t sure what Brandy was talking about, but she was making it tough to control the monster within. The one that screamed at me to bathe in his blood for threatening her.
“There is a big difference between hate and distrust, Agent Smith. Your sister became friendly with mine rather quickly, then all of a sudden you showed up. Her long-lost twin. It was a rather big coincidence, and I don’t do coincidences. Not with my family. Now, I’ll ask you again. Why?”
“You’re not the only one with suspicions concerning their sister’s safety. Before you showed up and dropped my boss’s head on the floor”—she winced—“I’d been trying to decide what to do about the danger he posed. If he’d been willing to sell out one of his own agents to get ahead, I got to thinking about all the other things he might do.”
She narrowed her eyes. “But I can promise you this, I wasn’t about to do anything that might help the bastard’s career.”
His dark eyes appraised her like he was trying to decide which of his knives he was going to skin her with, and my muscles tensed, preparing to take the backlash that was sure to follow.
“And now that he’s dead, what do you plan to do with the information you have?”
She moved closer, her eyes narrowing. “Nothing as long as you leave Cherry alone. She has no clue I was blackmailed by the DEA into coming. Look as hard as you want, you won’t find a deceitful bone in my sister’s body. All she’s ever wanted was to be Valentina’s friend.”
He nodded, his dark gaze moving over to my sister. If she’d been successful, we’d all have wound up dead. He didn’t need to say a thing because I had plenty to say to her now that Marco was no longer eyeballing Brandy with murderous intent.
“Christ, Bea, why didn’t you just take the deal I offered? You could have had a piece of the pie with none of the risk. If it had just been me, you might have been able to get away with it, but not both of us. Marek was right, the men never would have followed you. Not to mention the Braterstwo coming for you. Did you think they’d leave you alive just because you’re a woman?”
“At least I would have died knowing I took you down first.” She laughed when I raised an eyebrow. “After all these years you still don’t get it.”
“I guess not.” I hissed. “So why don’t you spell it out for me.”
“You left me here after killing our baby brother!”
Her chest heaved with her outburst, and for a minute I was stunned. No wonder she hated me. It wouldn’t change anything, her fate had been sealed by her actions, but she deserved to know the truth before that happened.
“When our baby brother was born with a head full of dark curly hair, I knew right away who his father was. You and I both know Papa would never have stood for being cuckold. Everyone needed to believe that I’d killed him, or he would have suffered the same fate as our mother.”
There was a challenge in her stare, yes, but there was also a seed of doubt. “If he’s alive, then where is he?”
“His father’s sister took him in. She and her husband had been unsuccessfully trying for years to have a baby.”
Her mouth formed an O,recognition dawning as she cleared her throat. “Our brother is Jessup, isn’t he?”
I nodded, and she narrowed her eyes. “That still doesn’t excuse you leaving me with that monster!”
“I thought for sure I’d been marked for death after attacking Father, which meant when they found me, you would have been killed as well. You were far safer with him than you would have been with me. Had I known he would cover for me with the Braterstwo because he didn’t think Piotr was capable of taking over, I might have risked taking you with me.”
Brandy’s voice startled everyone when she softly asked, “Why did you attack your father?”
“I mistakenly thought I could spare my mother’s life by hiding the evidence of her affair. When I came back, Piotr told me our father had walked into her room while the staff was cleaning her up and changing the sheets. When there was no golden headed baby to show for it, he put two and two together, and went ballistic.”
Her eyes widened in horror, which mystified me. If she worked for the DEA, then she had at least a passing knowledge of my father’s body count. No matter how adept the brotherhood was at covering shit up, how he preferred to handle traitors and spies was common knowledge. Surely, she couldn’t be that green. Though it would make sense. If she’d only asked her sister the right questions, she would have easily figured out that Cherry didn’t know anything.
I shrugged. “It was stupid of me to challenge him over something the Braterstwo would have seen as being well within his right.”
“What?!” Her honey eyes had a fury, a fire in them, that only proved she’d been thrown in the deep end without a life raft. “Has the Mafia never heard of a divorce? While adultery is morally wrong, it’s not a reason to a kill someone.”
