Page 130 of The Merciless King

Yes.

“He is still your dad,” I say because it’s true. “You need to tell your mom where you are, princess. She will know about your dad by now and be worried.”

Why the fuck do I care?

I don’t care about Angela Baldassare, but I do care that Gianna has someone to care about her and take care of her.

“She’ll be busy trying to find Dante.” She sniffs against my shoulder.

I straighten.

I want to ask her where he is, but the pain in her eyes stops me. She needs someone in her corner, and she has no one. I don’t want anyone else taking my fucking place, either.

“Go on. Ask me,” she says, looking away and that pain doubling as her face crumples.

“No,” I reply, taking her chin in my fingers and turning her back to me. “I’m here for you. Not your brother. For you, Gia.”

She sniffs and does that little hiccuping intake of breath. “You’re a US Marine.”

I nod. “Yeah.”

“Did you even like me?” she bravely asks, and shame fills my entire being.

I am not going to lie to her. Not anymore.

“I didn’t know you. I thought you were beautiful, sexy and...yes, a way to your father so I could find my cousin.” I glance away.

Gianna is silent for a moment, and I can feel her watching me. When I look back, there is horror on her face.

“You had a cousin there? In the warehouse?” she asks, tears starting up again. “I heard them, Brax. All those women. It was like a nightmare.”

For them too.

Way more so.

Amy was held for weeks and weeks—beaten, refused food and the basic human needs such as a toilet and free air. Ready to be sold to despicable people in the world and used as slaves.

But it will do no good to say those things to Gianna. She wasn’t responsible and, like others, she was a victim of all of this.

She has lost her father.

Lost her brother—however that plays out—and by the sounds of it, her mother may not be the loving parent one would expect in the face of this loss.

Rather, her focus will be on holding the family together.

Connor said it will take the feds a while to work out if they have a case against them. Them being...who?

Frank Baldassare and Salvatore are dead.

There is nothing to prove Dante had anything to do with it. He disappeared when I went down into the holding cell where the women were, so I can’t stand up as a witness and say he knew about them.

Because I don’t know that for sure.

Although we could all hear them.

And why the hell didn’t he shoot me?

For Gianna?

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