Page 79 of Violent Attraction

“Because the second I saw Emilio Castro, I knew that I needed to figure out a way to get you out whatever arrangement your father put you in. I needed you to stay safe, and the only way to do that was to keep you out of it. Keep you out of everything that I was about to plan.”

I turn to the man standing in my studio. The look in his eyes is all I need to see to know that he is telling me the truth.

Chills run up my arms, just thinking about the reason why he would want to get me out of anything that had Emilio involved.

“Who is he? Why did you have to think of a way to get me out of this?”

So many scenarios run through my mind, each one worse than the one before it.

“Isabella.”

“No, tell me. I have a right to know the kind of person he is. If I’m going to marry this man, I have a right to know.”

I’m standing my ground. He knows who this person is, and I’m going to make him tell me.

Surprisingly, Santiago moves towards me and doesn’t stop until his body is only inches away from mine and my face is being held between his hands.

“Tell me. Please.”

I beg him.

Santiago moves his thumbs along my cheeks, wiping away the tears that have escaped.

“Emilio Castro killed my father.”

22

There’s a coldness that runs through my veins as I try to digest what I was just told.

Emilio Castro killed Cristiano Reyes.

So many questions are running through my mind.

“H-how do you know he did it?” I grab onto Santos’ wrist trying to not only hold his hands to my face for comfort but also to keep myself steady.

“You might not remember this, I don’t even think I told you, but the day he died I spent hours looking through footage trying to find something. Anything that would lead me to his killer. I didn’t find anything that day, but something did stick out a few weeks later.”

I knew he had gone down a dark hole after Cristiano died. It was around the time that our relationship started, so I was noticing a lot of things about him.

How he had dark bags under his eyes from sleepless nights. How red his eyes were every single morning, that told me that he spent hours looking at a computer screen. I saw every single sign, but I chose to ignore it because in my head it was his way of coping with his father’s death.

If hunting down his father’s killer was something that he needed to do, then I would look the other way.

As the years went on though, the dark bags started to disappear, and the red eyes stopped. At the time I thought he had given up, but now I’m thinking something different was up.

Maybe something caused him to stop looking.

“What? What stood out?”

Santos removes a hand from my face and shows it to me.

It’s covered with multiple tattoos. All varying in size and all making him look like the badass that he is.

“A tattoo. It was in a few pictures, a little blurry, but I was able to make out the lines and the design. I stamped it into my memory, studied the design for years. Didn’t have much luck finding the person who wore it, until...”

He stops and I’m left wondering when he realized who it was.

That’s when I start thinking.

---