Page 36 of Hearts Of Darkness

“How much do they know?”

“Nothing, I swear it. Señor, please… I haven’t told him anything. You have to believe me!”

I can hear her teeth chattering inside her deceitful head. None of this moves me one iota.

Slowly, deliberately, I take out my gun and release the safety. In spite of what Eve thinks, I don’t hit women for sport, but I do torture and murder anyone who betrays me.

Valentina glances at my weapon and the color drains from her face. She knows how this is going to play out for her. “He was going to murder my family,” she cries, her face dissolving into misery. “My little brother… He’s only seven!”

Innocence is a smokescreen. A fairytale. When I was seven years old, I’d already killed a man.

I aim my gun at her head. “Who did?”

One word. One answer. That’s all I need from her, but she shakes her head. “I can’t, señor. You know I can’t… He’ll kill me.”

“And what the fuck do you think I’m going to do to you?” Her face is only a foot away from the muzzle now. This could get messy.

“Dante, stop!”

My gaze shifts to the doorway. Eve.What the fuck is she doing here?

“Get back upstairs,” I roar.

I don’t want her seeing me like this. Imagination and reality are two very different beasts. She thinks she knows me, but she could never comprehend the true depths of my depravity.

“Not until you lower your gun.” Her voice is shaking, but she’s holding firm. “You heard what Valentina said. She didn’t have a choice.”

Bullshit. There’s always a choice. Except for you, Eve.

“Dante?” The great shadow of my second-in-command appears behind her. I watch his icy-cool gaze take in the cowering Valentina and my outstretched weapon. “What do you need?”

“Take her upstairs,” I say, nodding in Eve’s direction.

“Don’t you dare touch me!” She takes a step away from Joseph who catches my eye briefly. “There’s no way I’m leaving you here to hurt that woman!”

“You will if you know what’s good for you.” Eve fights like a hellcat for what she believes in, but this two-faced bitch isn’t worth it. “Do it, Joseph. Room on the left after mine.”

Joseph nods, sizing Eve up before grabbing her around her waist and tipping her over his shoulder.

“Put me down!” she screeches, bucking like a bronco.

My trigger finger tightens as I watch him clamp one arm over her smooth bare thighs to hold her steady. Seeing another man touching her is enough to make me lose it, no matter who gave the fucking order. I doubt Joseph will thank me for it later, though. Eve’s not going quietly. I listen to her curse and shriek my name all the way up the stairs.

“So, Valentina…” I turn back to my lying housemaid and aim my weapon at her head again. “Exactly how long have you been spying on me?”

I takea shower before I seek Eve out. My knife work isn’t as creative as my cousin’s, but it’s no less effective. At around two this morning, Valentina broke and gave up the name we were seeking. Three missing fingers will do that to a person. I’m surprised she held out for as long as she did.

The name itself offered up no surprises.

Emilio.

So, my brother has started keeping tabs on me. He knows Eve is still alive, and he knows I’m fucking her, but he has no idea how I feel about her…yet. He knows her name though, and that’s bad enough.

Emilio’s as fanatical about loyalty as I am—it’s a given in this business—but I know how his mind works. He’ll interpret my lies about Eve as some kind of conspiracy once he figures out her father’s a DEA stooge, and what she likes to wax lyrical about in the nationals every week.

It doesn’t help that one of her articles helped expose a minor partner of ours last year. The guy was unreliable, she didus a favor, but that’s not how my brother’s going to see it. He’ll want contracts out on her and her family immediately. There’s a storm brewing on the horizon, perpetuated by a blue-eyed angel who has no idea what she’s set in motion and would no doubt revel in it if she did.

Back inside my bedroom, I sit with my hands steepled in front of me as I listen to Eve crying herself to sleep through the wall. It’s a pitiful sound. How can thirty seconds of this wound my soul, whereas some maid can scream at me for hours and I don’t feel a thing?

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