Page 57 of Hidden Memories

Fuck that.

But the guard nudges me forward, and suddenly, I’m not given a choice.

The men lead me to a room with a table and two chairs, an interrogation room. There’s a two-way mirror, and in the corner is a CCTV camera with a red-light blinking. But as soon as the door closes and locks, the light goes off.

We’re not being recorded?

“Do you know who I am?” the man asks.

Immediately, I know he must be important because only influential people would ever ask such a question.

“No,” I answer, pissed off as fuck, just knowing this man is here to use me. With that light off, I know there’s no evidence of anything I say or do. This is shady.

He isn’t here for some sort of plea bargain where I tellhim what Victor’s been up to in exchange for a reduced sentence. He isn’t here hoping that I’ll rat a gang out and give them Victor’s name, because that camera would be on and this guy wouldn’t be asking if I know who he is.

He extends his hand cordially but smiles like an assassin. “Paul Castellanos.”

The shock that runs through me has my whole body paralyzed. This is Kat’s father?

“What are you doing here?” I ask.

“Well, I’d love to ask you the same question, except I’ve known everything that you’ve done for the last couple of months, Santiago. Santiago, or should I call you Santi? Should I call you…cowboy?” He says the word with a sickening sweetness.

The air in the room shifts.

He knows about us. He’s been watching.

A slow, sick dread claws through my gut. This man has been tracking her, tracking us, for who the hell knows how long.

And he’s here to destroy me.

“Listen, Santiago,” he says, “I’m here to make you an offer you can’t refuse. First of all, it’s important you know that this thing you have with my daughter it’s… it’s time for the game to be over.”

“The game?” I say incredulously, wanting to lash out and screw up his smug smile for life. “Kat is anything but a game. She’s everything to me.”

He tsks, taking every chance to kick me down a peg and patronize. “Well, if you two are so close, you must know about Nicholas by now?”

Paul smirks like a devil and pulls a photo from his suit pocket, sliding it across the table. “Kat is engaged to be married.”

His words crush my soul.

People have often said I have a death wish, but never before have I wanted to actually die. But at this moment, I might have taken death over the pain searing through my heart and the white-hot heat consuming my skin.

My fingers move as if disconnected from my body and I pick up the photo of Kat. She’s with some older guy and her father. They’re all in front of a gigantic roaring fireplace with an elegant mantelpiece. They’re wearing matching Christmas sweaters.

“I take it you didn’t know about Nicholas?” Paul’s tone is light and airy.

He’s speaking this way to get to me, and it’s working.

All I can do is stare at the photo. She lied to me? She was engaged all this time? Is that why she always wanted to meet at the tree in the middle of nowhere? I want to put the photo down, but a sliver of hope has me willing it to be nothing.

I can’t go down without a fight. “This proves nothing.” I toss the photo across the table, and it helicopters to the floor behind him.

A sly smile spreads across his face. He pats his chest. “I have more where that came from.” He slides his cell out from the inside of the other blazer pocket and wiggles it in the space between us. “Care to go through my Nicholas and Kat folder? Lake Como? Paris? The Caribbean?”

My eyes sting. “She never wore a ring.”

His cruel laughter echoes in the barren room. He calms down slightly to speak again. “Kat is to marry someone who will take over my company one day. I never had a son, and she isn’t CEO material.” He scoffs, repeating my words like they were the dumbest thing he ever heard. “A ring.”

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