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Mathieu tightened his grip on the phone pressed to his ear. “That sounds familiar.” He refused to telegraph just how deeply it hurt, his sister doing everything she could to avoid him. Hundreds of miles away in New York where he couldn’t see her and she wouldn’t even answer when he called. He’d been trying every single day since he returned to Miami, and he had yet to hear Chantal’s voice.
“You know what this is.” Her husband—Aleks—didn’t hide his disdain for Mathieu.
Any other man would meet the business end of his gun, but Mathieu understood. He’d fucked up and it seemed it was beyond repair. Still, he wanted to try. He and Chantal were all they had and it’d taken way too long for him to see that. To recognize what he had in his sister. “If I don’t speak to my sister in the next ten seconds, I’m going to assume you’ve hurt her, and I’m coming back to New York on the first thing smoking to light that ass up,” he snarled. “Put her on the fucking phone.” Being nice came hard for him, but he’d tried because he didn’t want to do anything to push Chantal further away.
But he missed her.
He ached to hear her voice.
And he wanted to apologize for all the shit he did, all the shit he allowed to happen under his watch. When he’d been too busy doing things that could in no way be as important as protecting his sister. Their old man was probably spinning in his grave.
Aleks released a loud sigh but didn’t speak. Legs propped up on his desk and crossed at the ankles, Mathieu kept himself still, waiting. He could very well have just made everything worse and destroyed any hope of having his sister back in his life.
“I’m here.”
He closed his eyes at the sound of her voice, so sullen and reluctant, a fine tremor working its way through him. “Chantal.”
“Aleks hasn’t hurt me; he’s doing what I asked. Which is to keep you far away from me.”
The words held no anger, no force, but they dropped into the depths of Mathieu’s gut and sank like a stone. His throat tightened and he had to clear it to speak, to tell her what he wanted to— “I’m sorry.” Nothing else he could do, but repeat those words forever and ever, until she understood just how fucking sorry he was. “I love you.” She was his blood and aside from Win, the only person he would die for. But he’d done nothing to prove that.
“I know you love me, Mathieu. I also know you’re sorry.” She paused and he held his breath. “But we should have never been here at all.”
“I know.”
“Stop calling.”
She broke his heart, but he figured it was only fair…he’d broken hers. “I can’t,” he confessed raggedly. As long as he had breath, he would find ways to make up for what happened to her while she was under his roof and his protection.
“Try.” Then she was gone.
Leaving him with the dial tone in his ear and panic ripping a cold hole through him. He lowered his hand and stared at the phone in his palm. “Fuck!” He threw the phone at the wall and jerked to his feet. “Fuck!”
He’d lost himself when his father died. Grief and anger, the need for revenge so overwhelming he never even tried to fight the intoxicating pull. He’d allowed it to dictate his actions.
Cheating on Win and getting involved with Bishop.
Making a deal to marry Chantal off in exchange for expanding his organization, all so he’d have an army at the ready to go to war with Jairo Beltran. To avenge his father.
He spun away, a fist to his mouth, staring out the window of his office.
His own pain and need for revenge blinded him to so much. He hadn’t seen the damage he was causing, hadn’t seen the horrors he’d forced his sister to endure by keeping her trapped in her bedroom. He’d put his trust in the wrong men and Chantal stopped trusting him altogether. Why would she forgive him? Why would she listen to him? He didn’t blame her. She’d done everything to get away from him, escaping the house and Miami altogether, marrying some hapless fucking idiot in New York as protection so Mathieu couldn’t fulfill his deal and use her as a bargaining chip.
But that first husband was dead now, killed by that unpredictable fucking Russian, Dima Zhirkov. Chantal was under Russian protection, married once again. This time to one of Dima’s men. As powerful as Mathieu was, Dima owned New York. Still, Mathieu would have gone to war to get his sister back…if she’d wanted to leave with him.
But apparently, being anywhere in his vicinity was the last thing Chantal wanted.
He rubbed the back of his neck as he stared outside. There’d been so much contempt in her eyes that day they’d met in New York. So much blame and distrust.
And he was supposed to be her protector.
“Your guy said—”
He swung around at the sound of Win’s voice. “What the fuck are you doing here?”
Win blinked at him. “Uh yeah. Nice to see you too.”
Mathieu crossed the room in three strides and got into his face, staring into his eyes. “It’s daylight.” They didn’t meet at his place in daylight, not if they could help it.
