Page 49 of The Den of Sin
“I guess. It’s nice.”
“You still have your Jeep?” I frowned trying to remember if I ever told him I had a Jeep. Maybe Tatiana told him. I’ve had it since my last year of high school, and I loved that car.
“No, not anymore.”
“I thought you loved that car.”
“I did.”
“What happened?”
I shrugged my shoulders. “Some jackass poured sugar into my gas tank. It caused some engine issues so I had to get rid of it.”
He growled. “Where? When?”
I could almost feel the threat steaming off his body, ready to avenge my Jeep. I had to chuckle.
“No clue, and about a year ago. I rarely drove it in L.A. since I lived close to the hospital.”
The silence followed and I nibbled on my lip, trying to come up with another neutral subject. Anything but those strong, beautiful, rough fingers that tempted me.
“Isabella, I can’t have you roaming the city alone.” I raised my eyes to watch his face, his eyes on the road. “I have enemies, and I don’t want them to get to you.“
“Adrian had someone follow me. So I thought it was okay.”
His gaze shifted my way, before he returned attention to the road. “You are right, he did.”
I almost expected him to say something else, but he remained quiet.
Chapter Seventeen
Vasili
Ialmost lost my shit when Adrian called me to let me know Raphael Santos approached Isabella. He should have never been allowed to come within miles of her, even less face to face with her. Didn’t I fucking tell Adrian to tighten up the security? That Alphonso Romano and Benito King were after Isabella? I wanted to fucking kill my best friend.
That wasn’t even the worst part. When Adrian proceeded to tell me the guy he assigned to watch over her had been found unconscious and nobody knew where she was, I was ready to fire his entire company and burn it to the ground. The guy was alright, and when he came back to consciousness, he told Adrian someone hit him from behind right after he interrupted Raphael speaking to Isabella.
I imagined the worst scenarios in my head as I grabbed the gun out of my office safe and loaded it with bullets. If they touched a single hair on her head, I’d kill them all. Pushing the gun into my holster, I strode to the garage, rage rolling off of me in waves. She should have never been roaming the city alone. Adrian should have had a fucking team on her.
Why was she alone?
Each second that I looked for her cost me years off my life. And I was already fucking old. Twenty years older than her. I needed every goddamn year so I could love her the way she deserved to be loved for the rest of her life.
Love.
It was a fleeting word and a feeling. I never thought myself capable.
Since I was a child, I watched my parents bicker, argue, and fight. My mother wanted my father’s undying love. My father wanted Marietta’s, Isabella’s mother. He fell in love with her and refused to let go of her so my mother did the unfathomable. She kidnapped the child Marietta had with my father and then she lied to her. Told her my father didn’t want a bastard son. She taunted her with the knowledge that her son was alive. In desperation, Marietta Taylor went to Lombardo Santos, my father’s enemy. Unfortunately for her, he liked beautiful women. So he demanded her body in return for his help. It was how Isabella came to be.
Once she discovered she was pregnant with Isabella, she ran away from Santos and searched for her son alone. She feared Lombardo’s wife would do to her the same as my mother, take another child from her. So now she hid from my father and Lombardo Santos. She really managed to make a mess out of her life.
My mother destroyed the woman my father loved above all else. She thought he’d come back to her once she was gone, but he didn’t. He refused to share my mother’s bed, till one night my mother had colored her hair dark and got him so drunk, he’d mistaken her for Marietta. It was how Tatiana came to be. My father couldn’t stand the sight of a baby by a woman that robbed him of his happiness and my mother abandoned her by jumping from the window. From the beginning, Tatiana lost both her parents.
If only I knew what my mother had done when I made her a promise to avenge her. I would have never agreed to it. She cost my father his happiness and made me sacrifice Isabella. And for what? Her petty jealousy. She should have stayed around to love Tatiana and offered her motherly love. Instead, she opted for one last revenge against my father.
My father spent the rest of his life searching for Marietta Taylor and their son. He never found them.
“I’m sorry I raised my voice.” I glanced her way and noted her shocked expression. Honestly, I was surprised too. It had been a long time since I apologized. Possibly never. “I was worried something happened to you.”
