Page 93 of Caged Bird

And I was willing to do anything to get him back.

“Do you have children, Mr. Guerra?” I asked, ignoring his threats.

His gaze snapped back to mine. He said nothing, but I didn’t miss the flicker of something in his eyes.

Something that looked suspiciously like hurt.

It had been brief, but it had been there. “You have a son, right? And a daughter?”

I already knew he did. Hayden had told me.

So I just carried on, not waiting for his reply. “You know what it feels like to lose them.”

He shifted his weight. But I could tell he still wasn’t convinced. And so I dredged up every angry part of me, the parts I needed to be ruthless and hurtful, because it wasn’t in my nature. “I heard your wife say you can’t have any more kids. She went to my husband, begging him to give her one.”

His jaw clenched, his face turning a violent shade of red.

“Is that what you want?” I asked him. “You want her pregnant with another man’s baby? Trying to pass it off as yours after they put a bullet through your brain? Her bastard child trying to inherit money that should be for the two children who really are yours?”

“Damn,” Ophelia whispered behind me. “That’s cold, Fawn.”

But it did the trick.

Carlos Guerra lowered his gun. Anger in his eyes.

And I pressed on the weakness I’d created. “Tell us where your wife is, Carlos.”

25

EDDIE

Audrina wrinkled her pretty nose at the room like it smelled bad.

Probably because it did.

Irritation stiffened my neck. “Don’t make faces like that.”

She glared at me. “What face, exactly, do you want me to make when you take me to a hotel that’s not even one star? This place is a hole.”

She wasn’t wrong, but it pissed me off that she was being such a fucking princess. But I bit down on my irritation, because soon, I wouldn’t be fucking sleeping in hotels that smelled of piss and cigarette smoke either. Or in the run-down piece-of-shit shack I’d been hiding out in for years.

With her husband dead and buried, she’d take over his empire.

At least for a little while. Until I knocked her up and took her spot. And then I wouldn’t just get the fifty percent we’d agreed on, but the whole fucking thing. She could stay at home with the brat she so desperately wanted, and I’d fill the gap like I was made for it.

Pride swelled inside me, along with a smug satisfaction. I’d been run out of this town once. Spent years hiding to keep what was mine.

When all along, I belonged here. At the top, with a trophy wife on my arm and a crew who showed me the respect I deserved.

First thing I’d do would be to put out a hit on Fawn’s family.

I smiled to myself, knowing exactly how much it would hurt her to take them all out, one by one, until she was the last one left.

Alone.

She’d come crawling back like the snake she was. Begging me.

And then I’d sell the kid. Or kill him. Right in front of her. Just to remind her she’d never been the one in charge. And that she only got to be happy if I allowed it.

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