by Lannah Smith
"You—."
"For every hour that you waste, one of your friends and family's head will be blown to bits. You know where to find me. And don't try to provoke me any longer. It's time for the city to have a new owner, Christopher Lawrence. And it's not going to be you."
The line went dead.
Christopher threw the phone to the wall where it smashed into pieces.
"That was my cell phone," Alec said behind him.
Fixing his suit, Christopher ran a hand through his hair and said, "I'll buy you another one. Edward Locke isn't aware that April has been taken by my grandfather. And he wants the stables. The assassins have orders from him to kill Leon and the others one for each hour that passes that I don't hand April and the stables to him."
Alec nodded curtly and turned to the men. "You have your orders. Move."
As everyone rushed out of the office, Christopher started to punch his grandfather's number into his phone. And as expected, his grandfather didn't pick up the phone. Nor did April.
"Skull."
His eyes went to Alec. Alec's hands were curled tightly into fists. His composure had just shattered and something took place, a change that wasn’t pleasant to witness. His head was twisted to him, his face twisted with pain. Christopher then knew Alec had finally read the results of the DNA test.
"If anything happens to her..." Alec said in a tortured whisper.
Christopher closed his eyes tight and turned his head away. An onslaught of memories took over his brain, overlapping each other, one after the other.
April, exquisitely beautiful and radiant despite the bruises, staring up at him, when she realized whose home it was that she had woken up to.
April pretending she wasn't worried for him and getting furious for him when she learned of the truth about him.
April and her acceptance of her new life with him.
Eating meals with her and arguing whose turn it was to wash the dishes.
Making love all night and her finally admitting that she liked seeing him in glasses.
And falling asleep and waking up with April always in the curve of his arm, her own wrapped around his waist.
He'd woken that morning when her body moved into his. Somehow, throughout all his years, he'd never had a good night's rest until he started sleeping next to her.
Her face went into his neck and she murmured in a sleepy voice, "Don't go to work."
"I can't," he whispered.
"You can. You're the boss."
His laughter shook them both. "You're the last person I expected to hear that from, honey. And you know Alec would have my hide."
April lifted her head and looked at him. "Did he like my birthday present?"
"He did," Christopher reassured her for the nth time. It had been Alec's birthday last night. "You know he's the sweater kind of guy. Sometimes, people would mistake him for the boss when we go to out of town meetings."
She gave him a wry look. "Somehow I don't doubt that happen.
Looking at the time, Christopher decided that it was time to get up. But April's arms went around him, stopping him, and he felt her mouth on his neck, tasting him.
"April," he said.
"Five minutes," she whispered.
He turned towards her and gathered her in his arms. She smiled softly.
"Five minutes," he agreed, knowing that it wasn't going to take five minutes.
Then he bent his head and used his hands and mouth on her everywhere, just like how she liked it and took his time.
He was almost late for work.
He should have been late for work. Or not gone at all.
Then his grandfather wouldn’t have blackmailed her and taken her from the safety of their home.
"You'll regret not taking this deal," Edward Locke had threatened him on the phone last week.
"You'll regret messing up with me," Christopher returned before he hung up on the old bastard.
Another memory sprung up in his mind’s eye.
April's broken and bloody body.
fuck!
Christopher quickly opened his eyes and looked back at Alec.
"Nothing will happen to her if you move your fucking ass!" he snapped, pushing past him despite his brain still torturing him. "My grandfather will keep her safe but if Locke finds them first…” he refused to finish it. “I'm going to the holding room. You call the Moretti head, I need to speak to him. Let's move."
◆◆◆
"Can we turn back?"
Christopher's grandfather gave me a side-frown.
"We can't turn back, Miss Locke."
And I here thought I was already an April.
I shook my head. "I made a mistake."
"What mistake?"
"Not trusting in Christopher." I turned and put a hand on the handle of the car. "You can let me down here. I can find my way home."
His hand fell on my shoulder and his grip wasn't loose. And I just knew that he and the men riding in the cars in front and at the back of the car that I was in would not make me leave as I wished.
"I'm afraid I can't let you go," the old man told me. "Don't make me hurt you, Miss Locke."
My fingers crept to the bracelet around the wrist which could turn into a knife, a gift from Terry.
Then I said, "Do not make me hurt you, Mr.—."
The car suddenly veered crazily right on the road and Christopher's grandfather put an arm to keep me braced in my seat. He kept that arm against my shoulder blades, holding me protectively back when the car jerked to a stop. Then I heard the roar of a car, no, multiple cars and I lifted my head to look up. We were surrounded by at least four black cars.
Men started to get out of the cars. Then I heard gunshots.
So loud. So familiarly loud. Making my ears ring.
Our driver and the man called Ralph pulled out their guns but bullets penetrated the windshield and they slumped over their seats. I sat frozen in a fog of horror as Christopher’s grandfather slid something in the pocket of my coat. Then the door to my side was pulled open. Someone leaned in. My heart and lungs stopped when I recognized him.
Lucas Russo.
Terry Evans’ ex-fiancé. And my father’s recent business partner.
He smiled when our eyes met.
Then he lifted a gun and shot Edmund Lawrence at point blank range in the chest.
Chapter 73
I sat on a chair with my hands on my lap in a cold desolate building that sat at the edge of the city. It was a place where enemies of my father were tortured before they killed. It was a place I had been forced to visit and had been forced to watch, giving me nightmares for weeks. It was the same chair where they were tied up and where they last begged for mercy. The same chair that still had their blood staining the surface, making it reek of old dried blood and the stench of filth and offal.
But unlike those people, my wrists and ankles weren’t tied with tight ropes. I was unharmed.
"How are you, m'dear?" Lucas Russo asked me. He was leaning a hip against a table, cleaning the blood off his knife with a cloth. "It's been years since we last saw each other, am I right?"
I said nothing to him. I was trying to keep myself sane after I watched him kill Edmund Lawrence. Despite the thick coat I was wearing, I was frozen stiff with shock.
Lucas hadn’t changed much in appearance since the last time we saw each other. White blond hair with not a hair out of place, very pale silver blue eyes, tall as well, though reed-thin, with a perfectly sculptured face. He still was good-looking. Could have been perfect. If it weren’t for the long, jagged scar that rested below his right eye to his jaw, he could have.
"It's alright if you don't answer. The last time we saw each other, you weren't particularly talkative either. When was that?" He looked up in thought, tapping the tip of his knife to his chin. "Ah, yes. When Haru Evans kicked me out of the city. When I came to ask your father to help me."
He didn’t just ask, he begged. Like a pauper. He came to th
e house, his face a mess. Made a deal with my father to work like a dog for him before he disappeared into the night. Never to step foot in the city until now.
I stayed silent.
Lucas kept speaking.
"Evans is going to have to live without his precious sister. He destroyed me and my family and I will return the favor by killing her." My gaze went to him and he tilted his head at me and grinned. "I already did, by the way. Her head was the first to go."
He got what he wanted.
A reaction from me.
My already tight body got so tight I thought it would snap in half as pain burned another hole through me.
Lucas had been chatty on the way here despite the fact that I was too dazed with shock and horror to even care and listen. He told me everything that had transpired with disgusting glee. About the deal my father had been trying to make with Christopher and about the assassins. Three hours had passed since my father had demanded for me and Christopher's escort agencies. He even neglected to tell Christopher that he already had me, he just wanted to play games, with lives.
I gritted my teeth and shook my head in denial but the smug expression on Lucas’ face told me he wasn't lying. A scream gathered in the back of my throat. I closed my eyes and swallowed it. It couldn't be true. She wasn't dead. She was always protected. Christopher had seen to it. Her brother had seen to it. John had seen to it. With those layers of protection, she couldn't be dead.
Who else was killed?
My terrified mind was filled with these thoughts.
And who survived?
“fuck, but you used to be so cold and emotionless I would have given anything to see if you were human or a robot,” Lucas muttered heatedly. “Now I see you afraid, April.” His eyes swept over my body, making me feel dirty. “And how I want to fuck that fear.”
I clenched my fingers and breathed hard. He was fucking crazy. If it weren’t for the men watching us from the balcony of the house, I was certain he would have tried something.
I heard the door open. Footsteps in the short hall then my father appeared along with more men who almost filled the great room. And the first thing he did when he saw me was to slap me hard across the face with the back of his hand.
Through the painful ringing in my ears, I heard Lucas crow with laughter.
"You told me not to touch her but here you are, already beating the shit out of her!" Lucas shouted. "Save some for me, Edward. I just found out that the bitch had a hand in my destruction. I want her to fucking pay for that and for the mark that Haru fucking Evans placed on me."
So he knew.
I stared at the dusty floor, blood dripping from my lips.
I anonymously sent Haru the information he needed to destroy the Russos completely. I did not do that for Terry. I did that because I wanted him gone after seeing the way he treated Rita when he came to the house to visit with his parents one time. He spat at Rita and called her a dumb bitch when she couldn't make his drink right. I held my tongue during that awful dinner but when they were gone, I started making plans to destroy him.
Though it did come to me as a surprise that it was Haru all along who put that scar on his face.
"I'm not going to beat her," I heard my father speak before my hair was yanked up painfully. I looked into his eyes. His terribly cold eyes. "She still has some uses," he said, studying me like I was nothing but a pig ready to be sold for slaughter. Christopher will go insane without her and he’ll make mistakes. I'll kill him then give her to the Russians. I'll be the most powerful man in the city then."
He let go of my hair and I dropped my head to my chin.
"Why do you hate me so much?" I whispered.
His eyes shuttered. "I'm sure you already know the reasons why, my curious daughter."
Oh, I did.
My father hated me because I was a product of an arranged marriage. An arranged marriage he tried to get out from because he was already in love with another woman. A beautiful blond whose name was Johanna.
Johanna was raped and killed by my grandfather’s men when my father continued to resist. And he let my father watch. Clearly, sadism and moral insanity ran in the family.
And I was from that family.
"I wonder,” my father said in a thoughtful tone, tilting his head to the side as he studied me coldly. “Will you beg me to save him? Or will you hold on to that massive pride of yours, dear daughter?"
He squatted down on the floor until his eyes were level to mine.
“Your boyfriend has made me desperate, April," he was saying. "He has made me a lose a lot of money for the past few weeks. Paralyzed most of my business operations. Killed a few of my best men." His expression turned angrier and angrier as he spoke. "When I'm done with him, I'll kill all his friends as well. They have been fucking thorns in my side as well, especially Leon Gage. He'll regret his actions when I hand his wife's head on a silver plate. Maybe I’ll let you watch when I kill them all.”
I turned away and clenched my jaw. He laughed, thinking that he had terrified me but no. He only served to infuriate me.
I might be from that family but it didn’t mean I had their immorality and evilness.
And that it wasn’t my fault that my father felt that way for me or my mother. I'd been shown the kind of men they could have been. The kind of father mine could have been. But now I saw they were nothing but weak-minded and ignorant men who killed people and beat women. Because if it came to a battle of wits, they wouldn't stand a chance against me.
Not even my father who I learned the worst from.
In my emotional state I had forgotten to have complete faith in Christopher's ability to keep his friends and family safe. Edmund, bless his soul, knew how to trigger me, knew how to push my buttons and knew all my weaknesses. He made me forget to believe in Christopher. I wasn't going to forget that ever again.
And I was a different woman now. I was no longer alone. No longer despised.
I was loved.
And no one, not even a monster, could make me believe otherwise anymore.
Even if they kill me.
I opened my eyes with new resolve. I was feeling relaxed now. Most importantly, I was in complete control.
"I will show you what happens to a daughter who has forgotten her place, April," my father threatened, unaware. "You’ll regret your insolence."
Neither impressed nor frightened, I tilted my head while I considered the man who had terrified me so much in the past, who took everything away from me. I was suddenly filled with so much loathing, I could barely stand the sight of him. This man had destroyed me again and again over the years.
He would no longer be able to destroy me.
"I feel sorry for you, Father."
His brows lifted. "You what?”
“I feel sorry for you.”
His face went hard. “You dare feel sorry for me?"
“Because you’re an even bigger piece of trash than I thought.”
His body jerked as if I struck him. “What?”
"That's it?” I retorted angrily. “You're doing all of these because of what your father had done to you? You're doing all of these to me because you blame me for everything? How pathetic."
"Jesus Christ, April," Lucas laughed low. "Instead of lecturing your father, you should be more worried about what's going to happen to you."
"Shut up," I glowered at him and the grin on his face faltered. "Don't you see me talking to my father?"
I didn’t wait for his answer. I turned to my father whose face was twisted with fury.
"When are you going to stop whining about how unfair the world was to you?” I demanded, rising from the chair. “Things happen, life is shit and paths are chosen and yet, instead of choosing the right one, you kept on going the wrong path and kept on blaming others for your misfortunes. Are you always going to look for someone else to blame, you selfish prick?"
He slapped me but it didn’t stop the words from pouring out from the deepest part of
my core.
"Wake up!" I screeched. "How long do you plan on living like this? You're just making things worse for you! You could have chosen to live a better life, to not be the man your father wanted you to be! Because that was what your precious Johanna would have wanted!"