Page 60 of Promised Vows

“Yeah, it matters. Tell me.”

He lifted his head and looked at me. Silence stretched. “Our father decided that sex trafficking was a more lucrative stream of revenue. He’d approached Marco Moretti because he knew our family was too weak to venture into it without his help.”

Cora moaned and stirred for a moment. Jason jerked his attention to her. “Cora?”

She took a deep breath and went still again.

He stared at her for a moment and then brought his attention back to me. “We’d suffered severe losses.” Jason licked his lips. “I’d…I’d worked with the previous police chief, Williams, to purge the strip clubs. Michael was already beginning to bring in underage girls, and I couldn’t stand by and let it happen.”

A swell of overwhelming pride filled my chest.

“He’d approached Moretti about a union, and he wasn’t interested until our father suggested sex trafficking. He was going to assign me to the compound in Greece, and I was going to oversee the operation there. It would have been my job to keep the correct people paid off and looking the other way. Then he sweetened the pot and offered you as a way to join the families through a bond.”

I sucked in a sharp breath. “What?”

“He was going to give you to Marco.”

Give me to Marco? Lorenzo said I was promised to a Moretti, but Marco? That overweight, bulldog-jowled Marco. “He’s more than three times my age.”

My brother nodded. “Yeah.”

“Why did you push me away?”

“I’d started planning the coup, but I couldn’t have you caught up in it. He would have used you against me.”

I rolled to my back to give my shoulder a break, but once I realized it hurt worse, I returned to my side. “What are you talking about? I was already in it.”

With a grimace, Jason arched against the chair, like he was trying to stretch. “No, you weren’t. You only saw the very surface of what was going on. You didn’t see him wanting to expand the strip clubs or the kids he hired to perform in them. You didn’t see him excited to talk about selling women and children. I was trying to keep that darkness away from you.”

“He said that’s why you led a coup. You were the one wanting to move into trafficking.”

Shaking his head, he gave a strangled chuckle. “No, I was his second and I was at the meetings. Marco would have little girls with him. He’d call them his granddaughters, but I saw him do things a grandfather wouldn’t do.”

My battle with nausea came to a head and I nearly lost it. The mental picture that was painted was beyond disgusting. Then I remembered Ari asking about Gabriele’s granddaughter. Oh… “You could’ve let me help you.”

“No, you couldn’t. Anna, you are a lot of things, but cunning isn’t one of them. You wear your emotions on your sleeve. You would have never given up trying to convince our father not to do it. Your marriage to Marco was a done deal. The moment you turned eighteen, you would have been handed over to him.”

I knitted my eyebrows together. “But I turned eighteen before the coup.”

My brother nodded. “I was causing him enough problems with Marco that he couldn’t push it through. I was feeding both of them misinformation on each other. Michael?—”

The door to the office swung open. “Oh, Anna, you’re awake,” Papa said.

I rolled my head. “Papa? What’s going on? Why am I tied up?”

Before answering me, he strode across the room and slammed his fist into Jason’s gut. My brother wheezed and groaned.

“I’m not sorry,” Jason said through a moan. That cost him a couple more blows to his midsection.

My father turned away from him and walked to me, squatting down. “I’m sorry, darling, but one of my children has already betrayed me. I can’t take any chances you might as well.”

“What is going on? Why did you kidnap me?” I couldn’t hold back tears. “Ari?—”

“Will not have your hand in marriage because I didn’t approve of it. You have already been promised to someone and I am a man of my word.” He smiled while his hand brushed across my cheek. “I’ve been assured you’ll be well taken care of as long as you’re obedient.”

I shrank back from Papa’s touch. “Obedient?”

“Of course. Marco Moretti will expect that.”

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