by Penelope Sky
But talking about money seemed to last forever.
Siena’s words kept haunting me. I was a very successful man, but I didn’t have much to show for it. I only had a few friends, but they were just guys I went out drinking with. There was nothing real there. Bates was my brother, but I wouldn’t consider him to be a friend. Instead of building relationships with other people, I just stacked my cash higher and higher. Now it seemed repetitive and boring. I’d been feeling that way for a long time, and the emptiness never wore off.
Siena was right about me.
I had nothing.
My phone rang in my pocket, and I glanced at the screen to see it was one of my security guys. They were always giving me updates, so I ignored it. I returned my attention to Mr. Howard, who discussed inviting more of his colleagues to participate in this move.
My phone rang again. It was the same person on the other line, so I took it. “Excuse me, I have to take this.” I cut off Mr. Howard and pressed the phone to my ear. “What is it? I’m in the middle of a meeting right now.”
“I apologize, sir.”
“Don’t apologize. Justify disturbing me. What’s so important?”
“Giovanni, sir. He left hours ago and hasn’t returned.”
I rose from the chair and let myself out of the conference room.
Bates gave me an irritated look, but he resumed the meeting without me.
The second the door was shut, I screamed into the phone. “You interrupted me to tell me that? That he’s been gone for a few hours? Are you fucking kidding me? The man has a life. Maybe he’s fucking someone.”
He kept a steady voice even though he probably wanted to shit himself. “We’ve tried calling him many times. He’s not answering.”
“You tend not to answer the phone when you’re fucking someone. Don’t bother me with this nonsense again.” I hung up and walked back into the conference room.
Hours later, the snoozefest finally ended.
We all shook hands, and the suits left the office.
Bates immediately broke out the scotch. “Jesus, that was boring. At least it’s going to make us a ton of money.”
“Like we don’t have enough.”
“No such thing as too much money.” He poured two glasses and handed me one.
“But there is such thing as enough. We have enough, Bates. It doesn’t really matter at this point.” I took a long drink then looked out the window. It was getting darker earlier, so I watched the sunset begin.
Bates sat down and looked at me like I was crazy. “What’s your deal? Do you have any idea how lucky we are?”
“No, we aren’t lucky,” I said coldly. “We worked our asses off. Don’t say lucky ever again.”
“You know what I mean. We have everything. You should be happy.”
I’d never been happy my entire life, with the exception of a few instances. Just last night I’d fucked Siena in a way I hadn’t before. She’d asked for it to be nice and slow, and normally, I would overrule her and fuck her hard like I wanted. But I gave in this time…and I liked it. So many women had been in that bed before her, but I couldn’t imagine any afterward. I would fuck them and think about the one woman I actually wanted…the one that I had killed. She was the single ray of sunshine in my life, the only person I confided my real thoughts and feelings in. Those few happy moments I had in life always happened with her.
“We can buy anything we want. Fuck any pussy we want. We’re living the dream, man.”
I liked money. It was important to me. But once I knew how happy Siena was with nothing, it made me question myself. I needed things to be happy, but she needed nothing. What did that say about me?
Bates kept watching me. “This has something to do with that bitch, doesn’t it?”
“Don’t call her that.”
He rolled his eyes. “I’ll take that as a yes.”
“And I felt this way before I met her.”
“It’s just a rut. It’ll pass.”
If it hadn’t passed by now, it wasn’t going to. It felt like there was something missing from my life, something distinct. I couldn’t put my thumb on it.
“Who was on the phone earlier?”
The question brought me back to my earlier conversation. “Security told me Giovanni had been missing for a few hours. They tried calling him a couple times, but he didn’t answer. But he goes to all those little villages and picks up produce, and he doesn’t get reception all the time. Maybe he decided to meet someone for lunch. The guy works all the time, so if he wants to slack off a bit, it’s not a big deal.”
“Maybe something did happen to him. He would be an easy target.”
“For what?” I asked incredulously. “Ransom? I wouldn’t pay a dime for him, so that would be a waste of time. No one is stupid enough to pull a stunt like that.”
“Maybe,” he said with a shrug. “But I know you really would pay a lot of money for him.”
“I would not.”
He rolled his eyes. “Yes, you would. That guy can cook like Siena can fuck.”
My hostile eyes burned into his face.
“Sorry, I just needed a comparison.”
“Don’t use comparisons that include Siena.”
“Whatever.” He put his feet on the table and drank from his glass.
My phone rang again, my security team flashing on the screen. “Did you find him?” I expected Giovanni to come home unharmed. And I also expected this guy to give me his resignation for bothering me during a meeting.
“No, sir. He still hasn’t returned. When he didn’t come back for a few hours, I started to get concerned. So I went into the house and looked for Siena…she’s not on the property either. We checked every room in the house, every closet, and every bathroom. She’s not here, sir.”
My hand shook as it held the phone against my ear. I remembered the way she’d lingered in the doorway and looked at me. There was something peculiar about that stare, like she was saying goodbye to me. And she’d fucked me so slowly, it seemed like it was the last time. “I’m on my way.”
I stormed into the house and immediately headed to her bedroom. Everything was left as it had been. She didn’t take any of her clothes and shoes. Her makeup was on the bathroom counter along with her hair products.
The only thing that was missing was the picture of the sonogram.
The picture she’d kept on her nightstand.
There was no note. No nothing.
“Siena?” I called for her even though I knew she was gone. I did it anyway, half expecting her to step off the balcony or walk out of the closet. Giovanni never would have helped her escape, so I wasn’t sure what happened.
I headed back downstairs.
“You didn’t find her?” Bates asked, his hands in his pockets.
I flashed him an angry look. “Let’s find Giovanni. He’ll have the answers.”
The head of my security listened to his earpiece before he spoke to me. “They found Giovanni in the back seat of his car at the grocery store. His wrists were bound.”
I knew Siena wouldn’t hurt him, but I had to ask anyway. “Is he alright?”
“Perfectly fine,” he reported. “Unharmed.”
I breathed a sigh of relief. Giovanni was in my house every day, serving me and making my mansion a home. We didn’t have serious conversations, but I did care about him and not just because he was an excellent servant.
“He says Siena hid in the trunk of his car. When he was about to put the groceries in the back, she hopped out and forced him into the back seat.”
I shook my head, furious she’d orchestrated this whole thing. She’d fucked me the night before thinking it would be the last time. She waited until I was in Florence before she made her move, thinking an eight-hour head start would be enough to get away from me.
Nothing would be enough to get away from me.
Bates turned to me, his eyes wide.
As irritated as I was, one thing was certain. Sh
e definitely had balls. She was smart enough to figure out that Giovanni was the only one who came and went without the scrutiny of security. He was also the only person with their own car. The only car in my garage that wasn’t expensive was his piece of shit Volkswagen, so it was easy to figure out which was his. She pulled it off overnight, leaving everything behind except a picture of our baby. “Anything else?”
“Giovanni said she left with her brother. He picked her up in a black SUV then drove away.”
Now I knew what they had discussed when he’d come over for lunch. She couldn’t talk to him over the phone because I was tapping her phone. As livid as I was, I was also impressed. She pulled all this together right under my nose.
And betrayed me again.
“I have men looking through camera feeds in the general area to figure out where they went and what direction they headed,” he reported. “When I have a lead, I’ll let you know.”
“Don’t bother.” I pulled my phone out of my pocket and pulled up the tracking app on the screen. “I can find her in two seconds.”
“Tracking her phone?” Bates asked.
“No. She’s too smart for that.” When the screen opened, I saw the little red dot on the main road above Milan. They just reached the border of France. “I put a tracking device in her ankle one of the first nights she was here. Put a pregnancy-safe sedative in her drink, and she was out for a long time. Never noticed.”
My brother nodded in approval. “Like that bitch could outsmart you.”
I watched the little red dot move away, slowly approaching the border of Italy. She probably thought she’d accomplished her goal, that she would start over somewhere else in Europe. Or maybe she would move even farther away, to America or Canada. But little did she know, there was nowhere she could go where I wouldn’t find her.
Bates rubbed his hands together greedily. “Let’s hunt her down. Or we could wait until morning. Let her think she’s safe a little longer.”
I stared at the red dot for another moment before I closed the app. “No.”
“Then when are we going to make our move?” Bates asked.
I shrugged. “If she wants to get away from me so bad, let her. Let her see what life is like without me.” Let her see what it’s like to be alone, to not have me to protect her anymore. She had her brother, but he was nothing compared to me. With a growing child in her belly, every day would get more difficult. She would miss her luxurious life here, knowing nothing could ever harm her or our baby. She probably ran away because she was afraid of me, but I knew she also needed me. I knew she would miss me, that she would think about me every day as our son grew inside her. Then she would wonder if she’d made a mistake, if the life she’d chosen was really better than the one I could have given her.
Bates stood with a confused expression on his face. “You aren’t going to punish her? You aren’t going to go after your kid?”
“Living without me is punishment enough. As for the kid, I’ll keep my eyes on him. My men will watch out for his well-being. But no, I’ll let her live with her decision. And watch her suffer for it.”
19
Siena
After we crossed into France, we headed into the countryside. It was the middle of the night, and once we entered the small town of Les Estables, we went farther into the country until we reached a village that seemed so remote no one would ever find us there.
There were houses spread throughout the surrounding area, and the small village had a center for shopping, apartments, and a few restaurants. It wasn’t a tourist stop because it was far away from Nice and the French Rivera. It was full of natives, and thankfully, my French was pretty good.
It was three in the morning, so Cato knew I was gone by now.
He knew hours ago.
I hated to picture his reaction when he walked into my bedroom and realized I was gone. That I took nothing except the sonogram. I didn’t even let him have the one picture of our unborn child.
It was pretty cold.
The guilt weighed heavily in my stomach, not because of my decision, but the way it must have hurt him.
He probably felt betrayed.
He probably questioned how I really felt about him, if my feelings for him were really genuine.
Of course they were.
But he wouldn’t give me what I wanted, so what choice did I have?
I had to run off to the middle of nowhere just to escape.
“This is a good place to settle.”
“It’s way too close to Italy.”
“If he really wants to follow you, he’s probably going to look at Ireland, America, or Canada. The middle of France is the last place he’ll think of. Sometimes it’s best to hide in the backyard—the last place anyone would look.”
It really was remote. It didn’t seem like they would even get cell service here. I wished I could have sold my house first so I would have some money. I didn’t have anything to my name. Thankfully, Landon had cash that could get us by for a long time. I would have to find a job in a bigger city working with art, but for right now, that was too dangerous. Cato would probably check every art gallery in Europe.
Landon pulled over to the side of the road, in front of a small inn on the main street. “I say we sleep here and find a place to live in the morning.”
“You think they’ll take cash here?”
“I think they’ll prefer it.”
When we woke up the next morning, we went house hunting. There were a few small houses in the vicinity, some of them close enough to walk to town. Since we only had one car, that was ideal. There were no schools in the area, so eventually, we’d have to move somewhere else when the baby started school.
But that was many years down the road.
Landon and I found a small place that we both liked. It was a two-story house with two bedrooms. It had a small kitchen, a garden, and a garage that could only fit one car. It was cheap, and Landon insisted we buy something meager so it wouldn’t draw attention. He bought it in cash then we got the keys.
This was really my life now.
I would live with my brother in a small house. When the baby came, it would be even smaller.
Landon bought furniture from a store a few hours away and returned with a moving truck to get all our stuff inside. After a few weeks of ordering everything, we eventually had everything we needed. The small house turned into a home, and we had a dining table, a refrigerator, a dishwasher, a microwave, and furniture for the bedrooms. The only thing we didn’t have was a washer and dryer.
The house didn’t have the hookups for it.
Now that several weeks had passed, I was further into my pregnancy.
And I’d started to show. My stomach had swelled until it had a distinct curve down the front. I didn’t feel any kicking, but somehow, I knew there was life pulsing inside me. Sometimes, I had the impulse to ask Cato to press his hand against my tummy, but then I realized he wasn’t there.
We hadn’t spoken in all those weeks.
It seemed Landon’s plan had worked—Cato couldn’t find me.
That relieved me, but it also pained me.
Because I missed him.
There were times when I woke up the middle of the night from a nightmare, but Cato wasn’t there for comfort. There were times when I wanted to talk to him about the pregnancy, but he wasn’t a phone call away. I hadn’t realized how much I needed him until he was no longer there.
I felt safe in this small town, but not like I did living at his estate. Even when executions happened right outside the front door, I was never afraid of something terrible actually breaching the property. I felt untouchable, like nobody could hurt me except Cato himself. I didn’t care for luxurious things, but now that I didn’t have Giovanni’s cooking or those extra soft sheets in my bed, I realized the finer things in life were actually valuable.
A couple weeks later, I started to feel really lonely.
Landon was always there. We watched T
V together, played games together, and not once did he complain about his sudden change in lifestyle. When he needed his own time, he went to Nice for the weekend and hit up the bars for company.
Those were the nights I missed Cato the most.
I could go out and find a lover. I was pregnant, but for a one-night stand, a man might not care. But I didn’t want to put myself out there and be with anyone else. There was only one man in my fantasies—the very man who’d vowed to kill me.
I lay in bed and looked at the sonogram on my nightstand, the picture that was taken when Cato and I went to see the doctor for the first time. Ever since I heard that heartbeat, I knew I loved my child. And I knew Cato loved them too.
It’d been five weeks since I left Cato, and now I wondered if he ever tried to look for me at all. Maybe the betrayal was too painful and he didn’t want to hunt down a woman who didn’t want to be found. Maybe it was a relief to him, that his fatherly responsibility had been taken away from him—and it wasn’t his choice.
Maybe he was fucking someone else by now.
It’d been five weeks…of course he was fucking someone else.
He was fucking a lot of women.
The thought made me so sad that tears burned in my eyes. Our relationship had never been based on love, but I always thought there was something else there, something meaningful under the surface. My heart beat for him like no one else. I’d never been in love before, but sometimes I wondered if what I felt was close to that feeling.
But how could I love someone who threatened to kill me?
That would make me a nutcase.
Maybe he let me go so he wouldn’t have to kill me. If I weren’t under his roof, then no one would expect him to do anything. He was released from his obligation. Maybe he didn’t look for me to save me.