Page 70 of Savage Love

That means he has something else planned for me. Something that I feel sure will be much worse.

“Seeing your sister hurt, though,” Diego continues, flexing the hand that he punched me with, “I think that hurts you more than your own pain. And I’m very much going to enjoy watching you stand there, helpless, while I inflict whatever pain you earn on her. So if you want to spare your pretty little sister, then keep your own pretty little mouth shut. Understood?”

Isabella sucks in a breath, and as my vision clears, I can see the barely restrained fear on her own face. She nods, slowly, and Diego smiles.

“Good. I’m glad that we’ve come to an understanding. Now, if you’ll let me finish explaining.”

“I don’t care about your villain monologue.” I slowly push myself up from the floor, feeling as if every part of my body is beginning to hurt. “Just tell us what you’re going to do.”

Diego lets out a long, slow sigh. “Please do shut up before I gag you.” His dark eyes land on me, full of a venom that sucks the air out of me. “And what I give you to fill your mouth with won’t be something that you want in it in front of your sister.” He looks at Jorge as he speaks.

To my surprise, there’s no look of anticipatory lust on Jorge’s face at the inference that I might be forced to suck his cock as a punishment. If anything, he looks faintly sick at the idea, a momentary flinch that he instantly steels himself against before his boss can see it. It gives me a flicker of hope.

Whatever it is that has led Jorge to be working for Diego, he doesn’t seem to enjoy violence against women. He doesn’t seem towantto hurt me, and he especially doesn’t seem to want to violate me. I have a small, infinitesimal hope that might work in my favor before the end of this.

“You are going to pay for what you’ve done,” Diego continues, looking at the two of us. “Yourfamilyis going to pay for the time you’ve cost me, the sales you’ve cost me, the respect you’ve cost me. I was meant to be given a bride, and instead, I’ve been bled of resources, of men, of time. Isabella was stolen from me, and then your family had the gall to try to refuse me Elena, and then for her to be stolen as well. I tried to recoup my losses by selling her, and I wastricked.” His cheeks are turning red, flushing with anger as he recounts the sins my family has committed against him. “I will have my recompense. And it has already begun.”

I see Isabella pale slightly at that. “What do you mean?” she asks in a small voice, trembling at the edges, before I can. “What are you talking about?”

I know she’s thinking of Niall, of Aisling. My stomach twists at the thought of my niece being harmed, but I don’t think Diego would balk at that. In fact, I feel certain that he wouldn’t.

Diego turns away from us, crossing to the desk as he opens a file, pulling out a stack of glossy photographs. My stomach turns at the thought of what they might be of.

I don’t have to wait long to find out. “Jorge,” he calls over his shoulder as he spreads them out on the desk. “Bring the girls over here, so they can see.”

Neither Isabella nor I struggle this time when Jorge nudges us toward the desk. I understand now why Diego has felt that he only needed one man to guard us both. I won’t fight back for fear of what further violence Diego might inflict on me—even if he doesn’t know that it’s more out of fear for my baby than myself—and Isabella won’t fight back because she knows he’ll take his anger out on me. It’s a perfect plan, in his own twisted way.

We approach the desk, slowly, and as I see what’s in front of me, I hear Isabella’s strangled cry, and bile rises up in the back of my throat, acidic and burning.

“No,” Isabella whispers. “Oh god, what is this?”

The first photos are of a mansion that looks like our childhood home, burned and shattered in places from gunshots, looking like the ruins of a wartime attack. But the others are far worse.

They’re of guards, mutilated, burned, and shot. And then a couple, a man and a woman in their late middle age dressed in what look to be very fine clothes, mutilated beyond the point of facial recognition, and very clearly dead. No one could survive what has been done to them.

The bile burns at the back of my throat, and I can’t stop it. I double over, retching onto the carpet as Isabella gasps, a sobbing moan coming from her lips as I see her stare wildly at Diego out of the corner of my eye.

“This can’t be, it’s not—”

“Your parents?” Diego looks at her with a self-satisfied smile. “It is. This is your home, your guards, your parents. The beginning of my revenge. While you were out shopping, enjoying the freedom that these men you claim to love—the Irishman and the Russian—bought you, your parents were being tortured. Told that their children would be next. Their grandchildren. That I would not stop until the Santiago line is wiped from the earth and the ground salted behind it.” His hand shoots out, grabbing Isabella by the chin, his gaze dark. “Do you understand what I am saying?”

“You’re going to kill us,” Isabella whispers, her voice cracking with barely held-back tears, and Diego laughs, a deep and rumbling laugh that seems to fill the room around us.

“Hardly.” He smiles broadly. “At least, not you. But I will make you pay. And since these Irish Kings were foolish enough to make an alliance with your father, they will pay too. I will wipe them out and take their territory. Boston will belong to the Gonzalez cartel when I’m finished.”

Isabella laughs, not the rasping, mocking cackle of before, but a hollow and broken sound. “Youarea fool,” she says contemptuously. “A stupid fucking fool to think you can take the Kings’ territory, thatyoucan beat the McGregor brothers, the family whose patriarch nearly took away the Bratva and mafia territory in New York, before Viktor found out their plan. You arenothingcompared to them. Connor and Liam will eradicate every man you have and piss on your corpse before you take Boston—”

She breaks off as Diego pushes past her, his hand wrapping in my hair as he drags me forcefully to one side, forcing me to my knees on the carpet as I cry out.

“One more rant from you,” he hisses at Isabella, “and we’ll all have a little show as I get your sister to pleasure my guard. Is that understood? And if you don’t learn your lesson from that, it’ll be my cock I stuff her mouth with next. And after that—”

“Alright!” Isabella shakes her head, her teeth sinking into her lower lip. “I get it.”

“Truly, I hope you don’t.” Diego grins menacingly at her. “I hope you mouth off again, so I can enjoy watching your pretty sister cry while she’s forced to pleasure Jorge here.’

Isabella’s jaw clenches. I can see all the words dammed up behind her gritted teeth, everything she wants to spit at him, but she doesn’t. She remains silent, and Diego makes thattsking sound again.

“A pity. But we’re not done here yet, so there’s still time.” He releases my hair, but doesn’t make a move to pull me up from my knees, and I don’t dare move.

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