Page 13 of Ruthless Rival

With his sharp-eyed anaconda, Luisito, slithering around his feet and the specially tailored suits he wore on a regular basis, Carlos radiated power as naturally as he breathed. He didn’t care for drugs or excessive drinking. He kept his mind sharp. His MBA from Wharton and his finance degree from UCLA only made him even smarter. He had been proof that brains and confidence could be as dangerous as a gun. Of course, he had known that about himself, so he’d been unafraid to express pride in himself. This made him mouthy and cocky. If he weren’t my beloved brother, who put me up on a pedestal, I would’ve found it irritating. However, despite the horror stories I heard about how intimidating and reckless he could be, I believed he was the same pure soul I remembered. From my point of view, he was the man who was mesmerized by a simple farm life and smiled the most at the dinner table with a good meal in front of him.

Would he revive to continue being that person?

The thought of Carlos never being that way again made my throat grow tight, but I forced myself to swallow and turn to face my father. Even the sight of him shocked me. Instead of his firm, tough front he put on, he looked frail and years older than he should’ve looked. There were dark bags under his brown eyes, and his shoulders sagged as he hunched over in the chair.

“Papá,” I said evenly to get his attention.

My father lifted his head to stare up at me. He looked miserable and exhausted like he was on the brink of giving up. However, his eyes still harbored the same anger they always had. He couldn’t shake his hatred for me no matter what.

Instead of even speaking to me directly, he grunted and looked away from me, staring down at Carlos. He shot up to his feet, pushing past me to face the family. “I can’t stand just sitting here waiting for him to wake up!” he snapped.

I turned to watch him as his angry voice filled the entire room and spilled out into the hallway. If he was able to handle his anger better, he wouldn’t be such a terrible person, but he had hatred for the entire world. He felt wronged and betrayed every time something went south.

Now, his favorite child was trapped in a coma that he might never be freed from. It was clearly killing him to see Carlos so still and broken. Carlos was young, brave, and handsome, but none of that could save him. The damage had been done. Now, we had to wait for a miracle, and those didn’t come around all that often.

“I want the Mancinis to suffer for this!” my father shouted as he stalked around the room like a rabid animal looking for something poor and defenseless to attack.

“They should all be targeted,” Miguel commented as he stood between Luis and Juan.

While Juan looked enthusiastic to agree, Luis merely lowered his eyes to the floor, seeming tense.

One of the things that bothered me the most about my family was the fact that they were too scared to even fight for themselves. They bowed down to my father, even if they were forced to do things they didn’t want to do. They were afraid of being hunted down like Alex was, but were they really willing to live their lives as my father’s puppets forever?

“Yes! I want every single one of them dead,” my father yelled. “We’ll declare open war and pick them off one by one!”

This spurred grunts and chuckles of agreement from some of my family members. The others remained quiet, but they nodded to act like they were in agreement. They were just too afraid to act uninterested.

“All of them?” Luis finally spoke up. “There’s a good bit of them and we can’t say that they’re weak either.” When glares were directed his way, he cleared his throat and shrugged. “I’m just saying that we need to think about the logistics as well.”

My father waved the others off of Luis’ back. “I want to redirect more of our money to get extra manpower from our allies,” he said.

I stood there unable to do anything just yet, but watch him prowl around and spout nonsense. He acted like going to war with a powerful crime family wasn’t a big deal, like we did this every other week. He didn’t care that there could be casualties, that his own family would suffer.

“And when I mean all of the Mancinis, I meanallof them. Young and old,” my father uttered with cruelness in his dark eyes.

It felt like ice water just got dumped down my back, chills racing through me. If my father had that same attitude when my twins were stolen away, maybe theyweredead. He didn’t seem to have any issues killing children right now, and I knew the Mancinis had quite a few new babies and kids in their family.

Those kids didn’t have anything to do with the rivalry between the Mancinis and the Castillos. They had just come into the world, unaware of the cruelty and darkness waiting for them. It pained me that anyone grew up in this sort of environment. It would change them forever. I would know. Ididknow.

To my horror, some members of my family still seemed to agree with his plan. Were they that cruel too? I didn’t understand how people could be fine with children and babies being killed for their parents’ fight. Guilty by association shouldn’t exist for them. “The children are innocent,” I stated firmly as I took a step toward my father.

The room became eerily quiet as all eyes shifted to me. I stood my ground, refusing to be beat down for my opinion. I was the one in the right. I actually had morals and a beating heart, while my father didn’t even have a soul.

My father slowly turned to face me, seeming to actually acknowledge the fact I was here instead of ignoring me like before. He walked toward me, only stopping within a foot of distance between us. He towered over me, not looking so frail any longer. “I don’t remember asking you,” he murmured in a low, threatening voice.

I met his dark eyes. I hated how we shared some features. I didn’t want to be aligned with him in the slightest, which was one of the reasons why I kept my last name as Mora instead of Castillo. The Castillo family was cursed by darkness and pain. “You have to know that going after the children is wrong. Don’t you have a heart?” I asked him, making him laugh right in my face. Part of me wanted to strike him, to take all of my anger and hatred out on him.

However, he was too well-guarded. Punching him in the face wouldn’t hurt him as badly as I wanted to for all of the pain he’d caused me. It wouldn’t be enough for me. If I really wanted to get back at him, I had to stick to my original plan and play the long game. Unlike him, I had patience.

“A heart? This is why you’re a childless widow,” my father hissed. “This is why you’re no longer my daughter.”

Chapter Six:¿Por Qué No?

Alberto

The thought of the beautiful Gabriela took hold of my mind today. It had to be the anticipation for our meeting tonight at eight o’clock, which seemed so far away. Every time I thought about those full, red lips and long legs, it became a little bit harder to breathe like my suit had shrunken by a whole size. Even when she wasn’t near me, she tortured me.

What a powerful woman.

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