Page 24 of The Forbidden Secret

“It won’t be hard to lure your cronies here. You’re just the first,” I said.

I eyed the bullet holes that took each of them down. All to the knees, and then a hand injury. The man holding the phone couldn’t be trusted for the seconds it would take to reach them. Leaving a phone in play would have been a rookie mistake.

“Answer my questions honestly, and I won’t carve a line. Lie to me, and I will. Piss me off, and I’ll slit your fucking throats. Understood?”

The pants of two of the men darkened with urine, and none of them argued with me as they sensed how serious I was about my rule. They would all die for coming here to take Evelina.

I strolled over to the first man, examining the microdroplets of blood on the blade’s tip. “Answer this, and I’ll move on to your next friend,” I reminded him. My sinister smile had my cheeks aching. “Why is he so interested in Evelina.”

As expected, he spilled his guts. Figuratively, fortunately. I would do it if they pushed me far enough. I’d cut them into littlepieces and deal with the mess. But if I couldavoidthe cleanup… that would certainly be preferred.

“He paid for her. He—”

“I don’t give a fuck about that reason. There has to be more. He’s expending resources that he wouldn’t bother to use if there wasn’t a bigger reason.”

“She’s Alonzo Bianchi’sdaughter.She’s valuable as leverage.”

I glanced at where Arjun answered and tilted my head.

“And?”

He paled noticeably with my attention. “Let me answer, and you’ll skip me for the next question?”

I tipped my head back to laugh. “You have some nerve trying to bargain with me right now.” But I clicked my tongue and nodded. “Let’s see what you can offer.”

“It started because of her bloodline and the leverage it would give him. But then he started digging into her past. He found businesses connected to her. He found her manager, and he heard on the rumor mill that she wasn’t the virgin he thought he had bought.”

“How the hell would he come to that conclusion?” I asked, my voice tight with the words.

“I don’t know, but he’s pissed that she’s not as she was advertised. Her father didn’t take responsibility for it. Bastard said he had no idea and that she deserved to be punished for falsely advertising herself or something. Clide wasangry.He’s on her trail now, and it’s a game. He wants to find her and make her pay for all the money he lost on the faulty investment.”

I ground my teeth together. “It’s not an investment. She’s a fucking person.” I turned to the first man, and when I met his eyes, he began trembling. “Do you have anything to add?”

“The Bianchi mob boss is in hot water, too,” he shouted. “He’s offering to give Clide some of his men as reparation.”

I struck, dragging a deep line down the man’s side. Deep enough to hurt—certainly deep enough to go through all layers of skin—but not deep enough to gouge any vital organs.

He screamed, and I considered going to Arjun, but I didn’t. I wanted him to talk. And if answering my questions took him off the hot seat, I would let the other two men suffer for the information.

By skipping Arjun, I let them see what the reward would be for betraying one another and their master.

“How do we get him to back off?” I asked Elias.

“How the hell do you expect me to know this? I just work for him. I don’t speak for him.”

“Wrong answer.”

I did as I promised, watching the blood well on Elias much quicker than it had on the first man. I took a moment before I turned back to the nameless man, and he sobbed loudly.

“He doesn’t communicate with us directly,” Arjun spoke. “We only know what’s on the rumor mill. We know that he’s dedicated to finding the girl. He’s pissed about her lack of loyalty to a future husband. He made it clear that unless he was compensated for her, he wouldn’t back down. But that changed when he discovered that she was disloyal. That’s all we know. I swear it. We don’t know him personally, nor do we know how to get him off her trail.”

I believed him, and the other two men nodded profusely as if in agreement.

I released a long exhale.

“There’s nothing we can do to get him to back off?”

“Nothing,” Elias said.

---