Page 8 of Pretty Little Lies

Apparently, I’m the only one around here who can call this like it is. Emilio has been terrorizing South Shore since before we’ve all been alive and Bay isn’t the kind of woman who’s just going to forget that.

“Desperate times call for a different mindset,” Emilio replies with a bit of irritation in his tone as he reaches for his brandy. “Without Wallace, she has nothing.”

That woman doesn’t need anyone.

Though, I can’t say her living in South Shore after Wallace finds out about Emilio is something that’s going to sit well with him. But, I don’t take Levi as being someone who would easily turn his back on her.

“You two think I’m being over-trusting?” Emilio states, not bothering to look at either of us. He can sense it. The fucker seems to have a psychic ability to read the room, or maybe it’s just Ramsey and I.

“I think you’re living in a state of denial,” I counter because, even if she did take it, he’d lose everything.

And maybe that’s a good idea.

However, it still wouldn’t work out in mine or my boys for our future plans because I’d be safer to bet that she’d rip my dick off before providing me any leniency under her rule.

“Yes, well…” Emilio stares at the minibar in his study, passing the stone fireplace and rolling his shoulders underneath his pressed black suit. “Maybe I am. Or maybe I throw out that she’s my daughter and force Levi’s hand.”

“You’d have her kicked out of her own town and away from her family?” There’s zero shock in my voice when I pose my question.

Not an ounce.

It’s typical Emilio Wildes to fuck someone over into a state of pure desperation.

“I’m her family.” He pours himself another glass of liquor. “And not necessarily. If she wants to keep that waste of space, Roger Astor, in her life, then so be it. It’s not like he’s worth anything right now, anyway.”

“You think she’d go to war with Wallace?” Ramsey asks, glancing over at me, but posing the question to Emilio.

“If he casts her out, maybe. She’d be disposing the biggest pain in my ass since Roger stepped down and handed his seat over to that ghetto-ass teenager.” He shrugs. “Who’s not ateenager anymore, but still in my way. There’s nothing like a woman scorned and I think Bay has enough of a temper to act on it.”

“What makes you think you’re going to be able to assassinate Wallace after all this time? She’s a woman. They have feelings and all that worthless shit.”

“I never said kill, son. I said takedown. That piece of shit, Muncy, can handle that for me.”

“Take away the muscle,” Ramsey muses. “But keep the emotional support. Roger could always have an accident later on.”

Emilio points at my brother. “Exactly what I was thinking. However, she’s not so easily moved. I was hoping with a few more visits”—he steers his focus to me—“someone could win her over to this side.”

“Me?”

His brows clash together before his face skews up. “No. You’re too like her, and all you do is fight. She’d break up with you within a week.”

I tsk. “The bode of confidence is just astounding from you, Dad. Thanks.”

Emilio smiles at me, but it’s full of malevolent thoughts and plans to destroy everything around her. “Ramsey may be a better fit for her needs.”

I expect my brother to tell him hell no. That he’s gay as shit and he doesn’t like pussy, but he loves to torture women because they’re more scared of him.

Again, he surprises me and doesn’t retort Emilio’s words.

“How so?” he solicits. “We’ve only had two brief encounters.”

Absolutely fucking not.

There is no way I would hand Bay over to my brother on any cold day in hell. If the sun was about to fall from the sky and land on our heads, he’d be the last person I’d let have her.

Not that he’dhaveher in the sense of fucking her, but that he’d break her. He’d shatter her spirit and dismantle that beautiful, annoying-ass mouth of hers.

She may be South Shore and I, the other side of this violent equation, but when it comes down to it, Bay Astor won’t ever belong to my brother.

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