Page 109 of Wicked Intentions (Wicked Games 3)
The sound I make is one of pure anguish, ripping from my throat the way my heart is being ripped right out of my chest. I stagger backward, my hands pressed to my ears, shaking my head and sobbing.
Aroused by my distress, Capo licks his lips. He takes a step forward, but Reynard stops him with an arm held out over Capo’s chest.
“Have you ever wondered what stayed my hand all these years?”
Here, then, is the answer.
Reynard, who isn’t Reynard, but Vincent Moreno’s father, the real capo di tutti capi, boss of all bosses. He’s the head of the snake, the power behind the throne, the secret leader of an international empire of human and drug trafficking. A master of disguise and the man I have loved my entire life.
The man responsible for my sister’s death and oceans of human suffering.
Tears stream down my cheeks, blurring my vision and dripping from my jaw. My chest heaves with my hitching breaths. I’m hot and cold, sick with rage and heartbreak, everything inside me screaming NO! straight down to the marrow of my bones.
I bump against the glass coffee table with the bowl of grapes. I pick up the bowl—it’s crystal, heavy—and hurl it at Reynard with a guttural roar of pain.
He and Capo jump aside, easily avoiding the bowl and the flying grapes. With a crash, it shatters into a million glinting splinters on the marble floor. Reynard sighs as if I’m testing his patience. “I want you to listen to me now, Mariana—”
“Why? Why would you do this? Why would you save me and raise me and pretend to love me?”
He blinks at my screamed accusation, genuinely surprised. “I do love you, my darling. I’ve always loved you, from the moment you were dropped at my feet. You looked up at me with those huge brown eyes like I was a god, like I was your savior, and I was moved. I’d never felt a thing for any of the other girls in my stable, but you touched me.”
When I groan at the way he refers to his victims as stock—like horses, only less valuable—his expression hardens.
“Your problem, my darling—aside from a ridiculous sentimental streak I was never able to train out of you despite my determined efforts—is that you think only in terms of black and white. Good and bad. People aren’t black or white, and neither is life. It’s like the title of that book, Fifty Shades of Grey. Everything is a sliding scale of gray, some paler, some darker, but nothing pitch black or pure white. Those extremes don’t exist, except in your mind. Take me, for example. Haven’t I cared for you? Haven’t I shown you love, given you skills, a job, a life?”
“Lies,” I whisper, breaking apart, piece by jagged piece. “All of it was lies.”
“No,” he says firmly, shaking his head. “It was real. And when you get over this little shock, you’ll realize it.”
“Little shock?” I repeat, a crazy laugh bubbling out of me. “Little fucking shock?”
He makes a dismissive motion with his hand, like he’s tiring of the conversation and my lack of cooperation in moving it along. “You took an oath years ago, and now by bringing us the Hope, your marker is honored. Don’t pull that face at the mention of honor, Mariana. It’s second only to family in importance to me. I grant that the blood oath you took was under clouded circumstances—”
“I thought I was saving your life!”
He smiles. “But in reality, you were saving your life. You were proving your loyalty to me and your worth to the organization. You were earning your spot at the table.”
I have an inkling where he’s going with this and I can’t help but stare at him, speechless, powerless to grasp the real scope of his plan. But he lays it all out for me neatly so my battered brain doesn’t have to do any work at all.
“Outsiders aren’t allowed to do business with the family, except in very rare circumstances where their loyalty and value can be proven beyond a shadow of a doubt. Once you’d grown to adulthood and I’d seen countless times how clever you were, how quickly you learned and mastered all the tasks I set before you, I decided it was time to see if you could be trusted. Not trusted the way thieves or criminals trust each other, trusted the way family is trusted.”
Trust. Fucking trust. I think if I ever hear that word again, I’ll lose my mind.
His tone slightly more somber, he continues. “But there are rules that govern these things. Even I must abide by them. So an oath was made and your name was entered into the logbook. Now there’s only one final thing you must do to close the log and satisfy the marker, and properly join the family. Only blood can pay for blood.”
When I just stare at him, he says, “You need to kill your American.”
My mouth falls open. Every drop of color drains from my face.
Capo chuckles. “God, look at her. She didn’t see that coming.”
“Prove your loyalty to me,” murmurs Reynard, his gaze hypnotic, “and inherit an empire.”
“You’re insane,” I whisper.
He flips his hand. “Hardly. I’m a businessman. You know me, Mariana. This is me.”
I snap. “Yes, I do know you! And you’re nothing but a pimp and a liar and a despicable piece of shit!”
