by Shandi Boyes
“Yes, it does.” Roberto’s eyes widened when I aimed the barrel of my gun at the crinkle popped between his brows. He knew of my infamous reputation because he aided in it becoming so fierce. “The cameras in Roberto’s compound are hardwired to a private security firm. They’re monitored twenty-four hours a day.”
The widening of Roberto’s pupils exposed the honesty of my statement. I wouldn’t have been bothered if they didn’t. I knew every word I spoke was true because I owned the security firm scrutinizing all of the Petrettis’ compounds.
“If Col doesn’t already have men watching your family, it will only be a matter of time before they gain a permanent shadow.”
Blood rushed to Hugo’s cheeks when panic set in. “Then, I have to warn them.”
His big clumpy steps stopped halfway up the stairwell when I shouted, “Have you never played a game of chess? You learn more from a loss than you ever do a win.” When confusion crossed Hugo’s features, I tried to settle it. “Col likes to gloat, but his sullied reputation doesn’t allow that to occur without proof. For him to win this game justly, he needs his opponent there to witness it.”
Hugo galloped down two steps so he could stray his eyes with mine. “Are you saying he won’t kill my family unless I see the travesty unfold?”
I nodded without hesitation. “Yes. That’s precisely what I’m saying. That’s why you’re now a ghost. An invisible man. As far as anyone is concerned, Hugo Marshall no longer exists.” I tossed him a set of freshly cut keys. In his shaken state, he almost let them fall. “Meet me at the establishment that started all this.”
He appeared hesitant to leave, but since he was aware I was a man of my word, he soon pivoted on his heels and climbed the final eight stairs.
“Hugo,” I shouted just before he left me with a man who’d make me a monster.
“Yeah.” He only spoke one word, but it was the ones he didn’t say I heard the clearest. He was thankful I had saved him and grateful his family would never look at him as he was looking at me.
“We’re never to speak of this again. Do you understand?”
His eyes floated over Roberto’s busted eye sockets and broken nose for the quickest second before they returned to me. After a final dip of his chin, agreeing with my terms, he exited the basement, closing the door behind him.
I fired two shots shortly after that.
10
Isabelle
Love has no barriers.
* * *
My heart drums against my ribs when Isaac asks, “Do you know what it feels like to take a life? To see the light in someone’s eyes extinguish to the point it will never come back.” When I shake my head, guilt darkens his alluring eyes. “I have… more than once.”
Pain stabs my stomach from the gut-wrenching pain of his words. Although he didn’t directly speak Ophelia’s name, I know she’s included in his reference. To him, she’s still dead, otherwise what excuse would he have for the way his life panned out.
Every decision he’s made in his adult life was influenced by Ophelia’s ‘supposed’ death, so even with her not being dead, her ghost still haunts him. The file sitting open on his tablet proves this without a doubt. It belongs to Roberto Petretti, the rightful heir to the Petretti dynasty if his whereabouts are ever unearthed.
Roberto has been missing the past five-plus years, presumed dead. His file’s inclusion in Isaac’s personal matters could only mean one of two things—Isaac either killed him, or he’s responsible for his disappearance.
If I were unaware Isaac isn’t close to the man his FBI file makes him out to be, the logical side of my head would veer toward Isaac being responsible for his death. But since I know this man better than I know anyone, I’m not going to jump to any conclusions until all the facts are given.
Not waiting for permission, I pull Isaac onto the bed he placed me on before straddling his lap. The heat roaring through his body is so potent it scorches my palms when I place them on each side of his cheeks. I peer into his eyes, knowing the man I love is hiding inside of him somewhere, he’s just being blacked out by a hate so strong, it’s spanned almost a decade.
“What happened? Why do you have Roberto’s details in a file on your tablet?”
Pain rises in my chest when I notice how guarded he is. His walls are up as the terror from his past haunts him. I know a way to ease his pain, to have him open and honest, but I’m also aware we need to stop using sex as a crutch. It will always be important to us, but it isn’t all we are.
With patience comes the greatest reward. “Promise me you won’t run.”
A love so strong it almost hurts blisters through me. “I’d never run, Isaac. Nothing you could tell me would ever change my opinion of you. I love you. I’m here through thick and thin. Yours forever.”
My heart whacks out a funky tune when he removes my hands from his cheeks so he can rest them over his heart. It’s raging at a million miles an hour, although it’s only half the speed mine races when he says, “Roberto wanted to die. I merely granted his wish.”
As my heart falls into my gut, my mind spirals. I was so confident I knew the man in front of me, I never anticipated those words to come out of his mouth.
With my mind muddled with confusion, it takes me a few seconds to realize Isaac is playing a movie on his tablet. The image is blurred by the moisture welling in my eyes, but not even the blood dotted across the lens can conceal the horrifying event being undertaken.
A man with inky dark hair and a badly battered face is chained to a large, industrial-size boiler. He’s on his knees and is clasping a newspaper dated the day Roberto went missing. Since he’s barely coherent, I can’t see his face. His chin is balancing too low on his blood-soaked shirt to take in his features.
My eyes stray to Isaac when a man off-screen requests for Roberto to raise his head. I recognize the voice streaming out of the speakers of the tablet. I’ve heard it speak a range of words—some in anger, some in fear, but mostly in love. The voice belongs to Isaac. I’m certain of it.
I return my eyes to the tablet when the man beaten to the point he’s almost unrecognizable recites his name as the Isaac offscreen requested. “Roberto Colum Petretti.”
He sneers a blood-tainted grin at the end of his sentence, either in defiance or a last-ditch effort for a reprieve. Whatever his reason, it does him no good. A suit covered wrist with familiar gold cufflinks enters the frame from the bottom right-hand corner. He’s holding a fully automatic Glock. I startle when it fires two shots at the man helplessly bound and unable to defend himself. Seconds after Roberto slumps against the chains holding him hostage, the video stops.
When I hand Isaac back his tablet, he watches me for several long heartbeats, gauging my response. I truly don’t know how I feel. I’m pleased he trusts me enough to be honest, but I’m concerned as to why the game Isaac and Col were playing didn’t end when Roberto was killed. If it’s an eye for an eye, didn’t Roberto’s death make them even? Or were the rules altered when Isaac took up the task the authorities didn’t?
Isaac grips my chin to carefully raise my eyes to his. “If we weren’t on a plane, would you be running right now?”
“No,” I answer with a shake of my head. “Does that make me a terrible person? It does, doesn’t it? The man I love claimed another man’s life, yet my feelings for him didn’t waiver in the slightest.”
Oh, god. I’m a horrible person who doesn’t deserve the blessed life she has.
“No, Isabelle. It doesn’t make you terrible. It makes you honest.” When Isaac regathers the tablet into his hand, I’m about to tell him I can’t stomach any more confessions today, but his next set of words stops me. “That was the footage my security personnel uploaded to the Petrettis’ servers. This is what really happened.”
The video he plays this time around is exactly the same as the earlier one, except it goes for thirty-eight seconds longer. In that short time, Roberto’s head lifts for a second time. His bruises are
real as are the bullet holes in his stomach, but he’s very much breathing—even easier when Roger places an oxygen mask over his bloody nose and cracked lips.
My eyes snap to Isaac. Shock is all over my face. “You didn’t kill him?”
“I ended his life by sentencing him to the hell the courts should have, but I didn’t kill him.”
He flicks the screen until it arrives at a photograph that stops my heart. It’s the Italian restaurant we dined at with Harlow and Cormack the night we got frisky at Isaac’s nightclub, 57. It isn’t just memories responsible for my faltering heart, it’s the staff picture at the front of the newly opened establishment.
Isaac is cutting a red ribbon with a massive pair of scissors. He’s being watched by over three dozen waiters, a handful of chefs, and two maître Ds more interested in him than posing for the camera. There’s a man at the back of the group who could pass as Roberto Petretti if he didn’t have a rounded stomach and a badly hacked receding hairline. If my memories aren’t failing me, he’s the same man Isaac warned I’d wash dishes with if I couldn’t afford the exorbitant prices of the meals at the restaurant we were dining at.
I still when the fog in my head clears even more. “You called the dish washer Roberto.” When Isaac winks, my mouth gapes. “You hid him in plain sight?”
“If you don’t want a treasure found, hide it in plain sight.” The hairs on my arms bristle when he drags his index finger up my arm, advising who his treasure is. “Roberto wasn’t my treasure, but he was very much Col’s.”
He balks when I push my lips to his. He just admitted he brutalized a man before aiding in his disappearance, but I’m going to kiss him anyway as it could have been so much worse.
“Isabelle…”
His growl of my name is as sexy as sin, and it would usually have my knees knocking, but I can’t approve the lashings of his tongue. We have details to discuss, ones that will prove time and time again he isn’t the man his FBI file portrays. He was immersed in the underworld of corruption and greed, but he rose above that, and I’m so fucking proud of him.
“Does Hugo know?” My excitement takes a backseat when Isaac shakes his head. “Why not?”
“Because I told Hugo I would take care of it. I said I would make Roberto pay.”
“And you did. He’s a thirty-five-year-old dish washer. His penance has been paid in full.”
Isaac smirks, appreciative I’m going to bat for him, but it doesn’t leash his retaliation. “Hugo wanted him dead—”
“Back then. You don’t know if that’s still the case now.” When his brows furrow like I may be getting through to him, I fatten up my campaign. “I overheard part of your conversation the day we collected Callie from the airport. Hugo said if he could go back and fix the mistakes he made, he would—”
“That was regarding your kiss.”
“No, it wasn’t.” I swallow harshly when his furious eyes rocket to mine. “Entirely. He said years ago, as well. Perhaps he was referencing this? People have a change of heart all the time, Isaac. Take this very instant as an example. You went into that scenario intending to kill Roberto.” I don’t need to see the confirmation in his eyes to know my statement is true, but he gives it to me anyway. “Yet, you didn’t.”
“That wasn’t because I believed he had been punished enough. It was realizing killing him would free him from the torment. That’s why I brutalized him the way I did. I wanted him to feel the pain Hugo was experiencing—”
“And you?”
He takes a moment to consider my question before jerking up his chin. “But it didn’t take the pain away. It was still there… thick, black, and heavy on my chest. That’s when I realized killing him wasn’t the right thing to do. It was the easy way out. He didn’t deserve that.”
My heart pains for him. I hate the hurt in his eyes, but I can’t give in to the urge to heal him. We need to start expressing ourselves like the smart, like-minded adults we are. “How did you get Roberto to agree to your plan?”
Isaac’s smirk has my inner vixen stomping her feet like a child. It’s sultry and seductive and one hundred percent like its owner. “I didn’t give him a choice. He either followed my demands, or I’d expose him as the man he truly is.”
“A heinous, cold-blooded monster?”
Confusion stiffens my spine when Isaac shakes his head. “Quite the opposite, actually.”
I stare at him, wordlessly begging for him to fill in the gaps. Mercifully, he doesn’t leave me hanging for long. “Roberto didn’t goad Hugo to kill him because he refused to bow to someone below him. It was because the grief crippling him was too much for him to bear.”
When he taps on his tablet, I adjust my position, so my back is splayed against one half of Isaac’s chest. Now that I’m cocooned by him, I feel more protected than I’ve ever been. “This was taken the morning after Roberto was released on bail.”
The video was shot in a similar location where Roberto’s ‘murder’ occurred, but a makeshift office is set up next to an industrial-size boiler and rusty steel pipes. The desk, which is the size of the one in Isaac’s home office, is covered with stacks upon stacks of bank-sealed bundles. Roberto’s hair is thicker than it is in the photograph at Isaac’s restaurant. His stomach has also had a massive reduction in size. For the short amount of time from the date of this video and the opening of Isaac’s restaurant, I’m beginning to suspect Isaac didn’t just snatch Roberto from his old life, he stole his looks as well.
Forever diligent, Isaac snickers. “Just because you hide someone in plain sight doesn’t mean you can’t ugly them up a little. The fewer eyes Roberto had on him, the more likely his ruse to blend in would work.”
“His ruse? Roberto wanted to be a dish washer.”
Isaac laughs. It’s not his full-hearted laugh, but I’ll take it. “No, but he had a penance to pay, and that was one way he could do it.”
Before I can seek further clarification of his comment, a horrified cry rips through my eardrums. It came from the tablet in Isaac’s hand. Or should I say, from the man in the video playing on the tablet.
After upending the table covered with what appears to be freshly printed hundred-dollar bills, Roberto throws his office chair through a glass windowpane on his right. Even with it sending shards of glass pelting across the floor, he continues trashing his office, only stopping when every piece of furniture is demolished, and the stacks of bills are dumped into the furnace.
They crumble as quickly as he does to the ground.
With his head burrowed in his knees, and his hands clutching his hair, sobs as gut-wrenching as the one that started his rampage rip from his throat for the next several minutes.
“He showed remorse, so you gave him mercy?”
Isaac tries to deny my claims with the quick shake of his head. It’s a pity for him I don’t need him to voice his confirmation. I can see it in his eyes. They’re the gateway to his soul.
“Mercy bears fruits richer than justice, Isaac.” I push the tablet away from me before spinning around to face him. With my knees hugging his thighs and our groins joined, I tilt my head to align our mouths better. “Just like love always wins in the end.”
11
Isaac
Humble days are priceless to a wealthy man.
* * *
After taking in the bland menu in front of me, I glance over at Isabelle, who’s lazing on the daybed of our suite, reading. Our two-bedroom suite isn’t quite up to the standards she’ll soon grow accustomed to now she’s a multimillionaire, but it isn’t too shabby.
When our eyes collide for the quickest second, I ask, “Hungry?”
She peers at me with starved, famished eyes. It was the same look she gave me in the private jet before she sucked me dry of cum. I had planned to return the favor, but Callie’s awakening foiled my plans. She wasn’t happy waking without neither Isabelle or me by her side, and that disdain grew when she discovered Isabelle was occupying my time without her.
I laugh. She’s always hungry. Mercifully, that statement works for sex as well. Isabelle loves sex. Her passion for vigorous activities is thankfully on par with my appetite, which has us wetting our palettes as often as possible.
Although Callie’s inclusion in our life forced us to become inventive, it hasn’t been all bad. It’s kept things interesting while having me eyeing everyday instruments in a new light. Take the coatroom in our home as an example. Seven months ago, it was an area to store coats. Now, I don’t walk in there without a smile on my face. Scarfs come in handy when you have a woman who screams as much as Isabelle.
Isabelle’s beautiful scent strengthens when she pads toward me. “Is anything tickling your fancy?”
I wait for her to be within earshot before answering her question, “It’s not really a thing. More a person.”
The thrill of the hunt thickens my veins when she scrapes her nails across my pecs. Since I removed my suit jacket, tie, and vest, every millimeter her nails rake adds an inch to the length of my cock. I’m hard in an instant, the strong bond of my zipper and my cock as undeniable as my addiction to Isabelle. She only took me to the brink mere hours ago, but it feels like months.
Isabelle’s tongue delves out to lick her parched mouth when she spots the bulge wrangling to be freed from my trousers. Once they’re gleaming with the spit I’d give anything to taste, she returns her eyes to mine.
“That will have to wait for dessert, sex fiend. We have a spectator.” She nudges her head to the right, highlighting Callie’s watchful glare peering at us over her coloring book. “She’s already not talking to me. I don’t want to give her more reasons to hate me.”
I run my finger up her arm, easing the pain in her eyes with my meekest touch. “She doesn’t hate you.”
