by Bella J
I wrapped my arms around my belly, and Vico glared at me. “Castello knows this?”
I refused to answer him, my glower the only kind of response he would get from me.
Vico snorted. “And I bet the fucker is real glad about it too.”
“Now, now,” Carlo walked up to Vico. “He’s still our brother, Vico.”
“Who betrayed his own fucking family. Who shot his own goddamn mother!”
Carlo remained eerily calm, as if nothing could rattle him. “That’s true.”
“Where is he?” My voice quivered. “Where is Castello?”
Oh God, they did something to him. How else would they have managed to get to me if they didn’t take Castello out first?
“Truth is, we don’t actually know where he is.” Carlo walked closer stopping a few feet away from me. I could not believe he had me fooled earlier. Now that I looked at him, really looked at him, I saw the difference. Besides the fact that he lacked the very prominent scar, his face was a little longer, his eyes slightly more apart than Castello’s. Amazing how I didn’t spot the difference when I first saw Castello, but now that I knew Castello’s face better than the back of my hand, I could see the man in front of me was not the man I had fallen in love with.
He slanted his head to the side, staring at me, his gaze studying my face. “Last night when I entered my dear uncle’s estate, pretending to be my brother—which was incredibly easy, by the way—the security guard at the gate seemed quite surprised to see me…well, him. My brother. He said something about me being back so soon, asking if I forgot something.” His lips curved up at the sides. “I have to admit, I couldn’t have asked for it to go any better. Even though I had my brother’s head of security, what’s his name?”
I gasped. “Giovanni?”
“That’s the name, yes. Giovanni. Even though I had him on my payroll, I didn’t need him actually. Although, he did come in handy by giving most of the security guards the night off.”
Betrayal stung my insides. “Giovanni helped you?”
He reached out and traced his finger down my face. “Ah, my dear, innocent little Tatum. You still have no idea how things work in our world, do you? Money talks, baby. In our world money can buy anything, even loyalty.”
I jerked my face away from his touch, and for a moment it seemed like he was hurt by it. But I didn’t care. “Does Giovanni not know where Castello is? Where he went?”
“Don’t tell me you’re worried about my twin brother.”
“Of course I am. I love him.”
Carlo’s face grew taut, his jaw ticking—just like his brother’s would do. He scrunched up his nose, shaking his head as if trying to get rid of a thought. “Do you love him the same way you loved me?”
“I never loved you!”
He cranked his neck from side to side. “If you didn’t love me, then why did you act all broken hearted after I left?”
What?
“You watched me?”
“Of course I watched you. You were a major part of this plan. I had to keep my eyes on you.”
I stared into his eyes, and the absence of an elongated pupil caused my heart to crack. Where was he? Where was Castello?
Carlo leaned closer, placing his hand next to my head on the wall. “I bet your little brain is about to go into overdrive trying to figure all this out.”
“Just tell the bitch so that we can move on,” Vico chimed in from the other side of the room. Every time he spoke, my body shuddered.
Carlo turned and glowered at Vico over his shoulder. “I think you should give Tatum and me some time alone.”
Dear God, no. As much as I hated Vico, I didn’t want to be alone with Carlo.
Vico shrugged. “Whatever. And don’t let the fact that she’s breeding a bastard child fuck with your head. It just has to die with her.”
“No!” My survival instinct kicked in, and I glared at Vico, wishing I could skin him alive. “You are not going to hurt my baby.”
“Sorry sweetheart, we plan on hurting you so the baby will be collateral damage.”
“What do you want from me?” I bit out between clenched teeth.
Carlo stood up straight and moved back. “Let me explain exactly what’s going on here. You sure you don’t want to take a seat?”
“Fuck you.”
“Ooh, I see my twin brother turned you into quite the feisty one.” His eyebrows lifted, an amused look on his face. “Okay then. So here’s the story.” He started to pace again, but I decided that my attention needed to be on Vico. He didn’t leave as Carlo requested, and he was the devil I needed to fear.
Carlo clapped his hands. “So, where do I start? Okay, so I’m not dead…obviously.” He snorted, and I just glared his way for a second before turning my attention back to Vico.
“See, when I found out about the hit your father had put out on me, I decided to use it to my advantage. I let my family think I was dead, except for Vico here, and my mother.” He cringed. “Unfortunately none of us figured dad’s heart would stop. Oh well, we would have killed him eventually if he didn’t die. So I guess it worked out great.” He smiled, and when he noticed neither Vico nor I were smiling with him, he pulled his face straight. “Anyway, as you know, Castello was supposed to kill you, and your father. But we all know how that turned out. I always knew he was the weakest link in this family.”
“So you faked your own death. And what did you hope to accomplish with that?”
Carlo walked up and down the room. “The plan was to kill you and your father after he paid the ransom, and then once all the dust settled, Vico here would have driven a knife through Castello’s heart, and I would pretend to be him.” He gestured to the side of his face. “I even had a fantastic make-up artist in the bag, or should I say in my bed, to help me look like my brother. I would have eventually pretended to have the scar surgically removed. But yeah, it never got to that because you managed to hook your claws in my twin brother.”
I shook my head. “You’re not making any sense. Why would you want to pretend to be Castello? You were the rightful heir anyway.”
He placed his finger on his lips. “True, but see…our worthless father and his gambling addiction put me in a position where I had to step up. If I didn’t pretend to be dead, Castello would never have wanted revenge. I knew your father wouldn’t give me the money I had asked for in order to assure I stayed away from you, so this was our only option to get our hands on your family’s money. I pretend to be dead, my twin brother demands revenge, we get paid, kill my twin brother, and then I rule. It’s simple.”
I swallowed hard. “Why did you need Castello to kidnap me? Why couldn’t you have just done it yourself since being a stone-cold, lying son of a bitch is your forte?”
That goddamn annoying smile that seemed like it was permanently plastered on his face grew wider. “God, I have to say, I love what he did to you.”
Vico snorted, but remained still.
Carlo sat down on the bed, his elbows on his knees. “You see, Tatum, if I had to just kidnap you, hold you for ransom, and in the end kill everyone in your family, what would that say about me?”
“The truth.”
He cocked a brow. “And that is?”
“That you’re an evil, manipulative bastard.”
He shook his head. “You see, that is your perception of me.”
“It’s the fucking truth.”
“That’s it. I’m slitting her fucking throat right now!” Vico stormed toward me, eyes wide and evil. The look of hatred on his face should have scared me, it should have intimidated me. It was probably his intention to create fear inside me. But he didn’t know that Castello helped me conquer my fear. He made me envision Vico’s face and feel rage, and power rather than panic and dread.
I squared my shoulders, made myself taller and kept my glare on him. I refused to cower. But as he rushed forward, Carlo jumped up and grabbed Vico by the arm.
“Did I not tell you to leave
us?”
“I want her dead.”
“I don’t care what you want. I call the shots.”
Vico clenched his jaw. “She killed our mother, Carlo. If it weren’t for this bitch our mother would have been here to see this plan through with us.”
“I get that. And Tatum will be punished in due time.”
Vico leaned closer to Carlo’s face. “Funny, that’s exactly what Castello said, and look how that turned out.”
Even as determined as I were to not show fear, shivers spread along my body. But I tried my best to remain still as I watched them. They stared at each other in silence, Vico’s face clouded with anger while Carlo’s face remained stoic, yet firm.
“Leave us.” Carlo let go of Vico’s arm, and Vico straightened his suit jacket.
He glared my way. “I don’t know what the fuck it is about you, but I’m starting to think you have unicorn pussy.” His eyes were black as he licked his lips, slowly approaching me. “But before you die, before I slit your fucking throat, I’ll taste that cunt of yours to see for myself if it’s really that good.”
He stopped in front of me, his face inches from mine…and then I spat right in his face. The blow that followed happened so fast. His hand collided with my face, my cheek instantly on fire, and I tasted blood in the corner of my mouth a second later.
Vico seethed. “That little stunt just earned you a slow, painful death, bitch.”
The hate that coated each and every word sunk straight down to my soul. Every bone in my body felt it. Even after he left, walking out the door, I still felt his loathing for me. It was toxic, threatening to break the courage I was so desperate to cling on to.
“Okay, now that he’s gone, let’s continue.” Carlo turned around, his entire demeanor calm and under control. He looked at me with a cocked brow. “Dear God, Tatum. Seeing this fire in you is making me so fucking hard right now. No wonder my twin brother chose fucking you above loyalty to his own family.”
My nostrils flared as my anger only continued to rise, causing me to take quick, shallow breaths. Carlo adjusted his filthy cock in his pants. “So, as I was saying, I …no, we needed a real good reason for us to want to take out your family. Despite what you might think, we can’t just go around killing people in cold blood with no reason. We had to make it seem like we had the right to kill the Linscotts. We couldn’t risk an uprising against our family because we started killing people for money. Besides, being bankrupt is not something we wanted the entire world to know.”
I wrapped my arms around my waist. “So what now? Obviously your plan didn’t work.”
“Because my brother thought with his dick, and not his head.”
“Nevertheless, your family has been torn in two. Everyone thinks it’s war between Vico and Castello. How do you plan on re-entering the world with…”
And then it all came together. Everything clicked, my mind finally piecing together the puzzle. “You still plan on killing Castello. Still plan on pretending to be him.”
Carlo started to clap his hands, his eyes beaming with pride. “My, my, but you are a clever one.”
“But you don’t know where Castello is. No one does.”
“Oh, I assure you, news has a way of traveling very fast in our world. And once word gets to Castello that Vico has you, he’ll come rushing back. Believe me, I’ve tasted that pussy between your legs. Men would kill—or die—for it.”
My insides coiled tight, my body cold as ice, yet I refused to show it. “What are you going to do?”
Carlo stalked toward me, and I pressed my back hard against the wall when he leaned into me his scent making me nauseas. “I’m going to kill him.” Again he traced his fingers down the side of my face, his touch making me sick. “But first, I’ll fuck you in front of him, show him that my cock can make you scream louder than his.”
Bile rushed up my throat as he kept on touching my face, but I swallowed hard before spitting out the words, “I know from experience you don’t have what it takes to satisfy me.”
A huge smirk tugged at the corners of his mouth. “Oh, Tatum. It certainly didn’t sound that way last night.”
I stiffened. “What are you talking about?”
He leaned down, the tip of his tongue dragging all the way up my cheek my body on the verge of convulsing. He moaned softly before whispering in my ear, “It was me.”
He stood up straight, his eyes searching my face. I couldn’t…dear God.
“You?”
“It was me, Tatum.”
Denial shook me at the core. “No.”
“Yes. Last night, at The Capital, you came against the wall…and it was my cock inside you. Not my brother’s. Mine.”
I vomited. I coughed and gagged as images of the night before flashed through my mind like a goddam Powerpoint presentation. Carlo laughed while he stood to the side, watching me throw up. The more I thought about it, the more my stomach churned…yet the more it started to make sense.
That’s why it felt different. Not because of the drugs…because it wasn’t Castello.
“I’ve missed this pussy.”
“No matter what my brother does, he will never erase…us.”
He wasn’t talking about Vico. He was talking about Castello.
Carlo’s laughter sounded like the squeals of demons as it echoed through the room. I kept vomiting until there was nothing left inside me. Tears streamed down my face as I wept, sobbing while everything started to sink in.
Everything hurt. My soul cried while my heart withered into nothing but dust. The pain, the betrayal, the lies. All of it came crashing down and choked the life out of me.
I didn’t even realize that Carlo had left the room until I heard the familiar sound of air escaping a tube, and the door moving into place, camouflaging itself within the walls.
I was alone.
I was hurt.
And I knew nothing would ever be the same again.
24
TATUM
I didn’t know for how long I’ve been sitting here huddled in the corner. Time stood still. My mind had gone completely blank as I stared out in front of me. Nothing mattered anymore. There were so many lies, so much deception, it felt as if I could no longer distinguish the difference between what was real and what wasn’t.
Castello was gone. No one knew where he was.
Would he find me?
Would he manage to save me, see through his brother’s lies?
And what if he did?
What if he managed to save me, to rescue me and hold me in his arms again? What would he do if he found out about what Carlo and I did? Would he believe me when I told him I thought it was him? And what kind of woman would that make me? What kind of woman didn’t realize the man buried inside her wasn’t the man she had claimed to love with all her heart? The father of her child.
Castello would never forgive me. Even if he saved me, he would leave me as soon as he found out the truth. I knew him. I knew that knowing another man was inside me while I claimed to be his and only his would ruin him. Every time he looked at me, he would see me getting fucked by another man. The thought alone killed me. God, it killed me softly, slowly, turning my soul into nothing but shards of brokenness.
The door opened, and the sound brought me back to reality, back to the dreaded room I saw in my nightmares for so long.
“Right where I left you, I see.” Carlo came strolling in with Vico, and another man I didn’t recognize.
“You’ll be happy to know that word about your kidnapping has reached my twin brother. I suspect it’s only a matter of time before he comes rushing here, guns blazing.”
My heart skipped a beat when I heard that Castello might be on his way. But it also made my soul weep, thinking the truth would ultimately kill what Castello and I shared.
I remained silent, and watched with nervous curiosity as the unfamiliar man started to move around the bed.
Carlo came to stand in front of me. “I’m afraid that
you being pregnant wasn’t part of the plan.”
I looked up at him. “What plan? Killing me?”
He crouched down and took my chin between his fingers. I jerked my face away from his touch.
“The plan changed,” he said simply.
“How?”
He placed his arms on his knees. “I’m not going to kill you, Tatum. It took some convincing for Vico, but eventually we came to an agreement.”
“What agreement? What are you going to do to me?”
He reached out and tried to touch me again, but I jerked to the side. “What are you going to do to me?”
He stood up straight. “I’m going to keep you.”
“Keep me?”
“Yes. Despite what you might think, I did have feelings for you, Tatum. I still do. It just wasn’t in the cards for us to be together back then, but now it might be.”
“You’re delusional,” I spat out. Vico stepped closer, and I glowered at him. “So what was the deal you made with your demon brother?”
Carlo loosened his shoulders, rolling his head as if he were wound up tight. “Just let me say I’m not happy about it. But in the end, I do get you, so I’m willing to make the sacrifice.”
“What sacrifice?”
Carlo bit the inside of his mouth, his lips pursed before he glanced in Vico’s direction. “My brother seems to have a score to settle with you. He requested to have fifteen minutes with you…alone.”
I choked on my own spit. “What does he want to do to me?”
Carlo shrugged. “I don’t know. As long as he doesn’t cause any permanent scars, and doesn’t kill you, I don’t care.”
“No.” I started shaking my head, fear pulsing like poison through my veins. “No. Carlo, no.”
Carlo held up his hand silencing me. “That’s not all. My brother here has agreed that I can keep you…as long as we get rid of that…that thing growing inside you.”