Page 26 of Vicious Savage

He says this matter-of-factly as he looks at me out of the corner of his eye.

“What makes you say that?” Dante asks.

“Because she’s not his daughter.”

* * *

It isthe last thing I expect to hear. But it explains why Castillo is comfortable selling her, especially as there isn’t any blood relation. But he has gone to extreme lengths to retrieve her; I can’t imagine this is just to fulfil a contract with another business partner.

“If he’s not her father, then who is?” I ask, and it’s all I can think about. The fact that she’s not really a Castillo. Her use to us as a pawn has been moot from the beginning.

“And why does he want her back so bad?”

“To understand that, you need to go back to the beginning,” The Jekyll starts, stirring in his seat. His massive frame is too big for the chair.

I roll my wrist, telling him to get on with it. He is slowly killing me with his dribs and drabs method of spoon feeding us information.

“Luna’s mother had an affair with one of Castillo’s soldiers. Actually, a lieutenant he was quite close to. Luna was a result of that affair. When Castillo found out, he flew into a murderous rage and killed her mother. Then turned the gun on his colleague. Either he didn’t have the heart to destroy Luna, or he saw the bigger picture and decided to keep her around.”

“Does Luna know?” I ask.

“She knows only that her father killed her mother, because it happened in front of her. Castillo did a good job of covering it up, but she saw what she saw. She told me when I was showing her how to use the tracker.”

“She doesn’t know that he’s not her father?”

He shakes his head. The girl had a miserable, motherless childhood, and now even as an adult, she was still suffering. No wonder she’d taught herself self defense; it was the only armor she had. The only protection in which to wrap herself when the need called for it.

“How reliable is the maid?” Dante asks. “Can we trust her?”

“She despises Castillo; that’s reliable enough in my books.”

27

LUNA

Iknow he’s coming because my father’s boots thunder down the narrow space in front of the cells like he’s a giant on a mission. My hands grip the bars, my desperation licking through the air, as if this will make him open the door and let me out instead of keeping me here like a caged animal. It’s what he did to me as a child every time I brought up my mother’s death and tried to get past him holding a knife to her throat. He’d lock me up down here until I acquiesced and told him I was mistaken. And he swore if I ever told my brothers, he’d keep me down here until I rotted into the ground and became nothing but a speck of dust.

I can smell the alcohol on his breath. I rear back, let my hands fall from the cool metal and take a step away from the bars. I feel hopeless and helpless. I don’t know how long I’ve been down here, but it seems like I never left from the first time he put me in here as a child. I know in reality, it can’t have been more than one or two days.

“I want to know who those men were back in Arizona and what you were doing with them.”

His voice is gruff, scathing. I feel like a child being scolded again. I feel like anything but human. Who treats a person this way?

My breath comes in hitched little gasps as I inhale the stale, musty air. This again. He really wants to know who those men were, and I don’t have the answer for him. This, I know, will only make him angrier than he already is.

His bloodshot eyes stare through me, unblinking. He’s put on weight since I last saw him, a paunch protruding ridiculously against his shorter frame. I don’t know how my brothers and I managed our height with our father being so short.

“Where’s Enzo?” I ask. “I want to speak with Enzo.”

My eldest brother has always had a soft spot for me. They all had, actually, but Enzo especially had always been my guiding light. He was hard, ruthless, damaged probably beyond repair at our father’s hands, but for me, he’s always been soft.

“Your brothers don’t want to see you,” my father spits. “Not after the shame you’ve brought upon our family name.”

“What shame is that, hmmm?” I dare to defy him. “That I chose to live my lifemyway? That I won’t bend to your rules? I’d love to see any one of you accept a marriage to a person you don’t want to be with.”

“If it’s convenient, that’s what we do in this business.”

“This business. I’m not part of this business.”

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