“My brother will have you arrested for this,” I snapped, the sting of humiliation making my voice sharper than I’d intended.
“He can try. But he has no evidence to tie me with your disappearance. I was nowhere near you when you left the gallery. As far as the world knows, you walked out of there on your own. Your brother will be furious with you, but he has nothing on me.”
My shoulders slumped as I realized he was right.
My brother was going to blame me for ruining his deal. And Jeff Sabri wasn’t the most forgiving business partner. He would find a way to recover his investment as well as punish my brother for humiliating him. Which meant that they were both going to come after me. Leo could say what he liked, but Jeff and Arjun would find me somehow.
Although that did depend on where Leo was taking me. I didn’t think he was the type to kill me and dump me in the Hudson, but I couldn’t be too sure. He did hate me, after all. He still hadn’t forgiven me for what he called my betrayal.
Was it better to die at his hands than to jump out of his moving car somehow and risk being found by my brother?
“Whatever you’re thinking, get it out of your mind right now,” growled Leo.
“You have no idea what I’m thinking,” I said bleakly. “And why are you even doing this?”
He turned to look out of the window.
“What do you think will happen if Jeff finds you missing?”
“He’ll go ballistic,” I said slowly, shuddering at the thought of his anger.
“And?”
“He will pull his investment from the company and Monani Holdings will go bankrupt. Jeff will destroy my brother.”
I looked up to see a thin smile on his face, and enlightenment finally dawned on me. This was payback. Leo was doing this to get back at Arjun for sleeping with his wife. For destroying his family.
I banged on the door that separated us from the driver’s seat.
“Stop the car,” I yelled, but the chauffeur kept his eyes on the road. He didn’t even flinch, which made me wonder if this was a normal occurrence. Did Leo make it a habit to drive off with unwilling women?
When the car didn’t slow down, I sighed in defeat. I was at Leo’s mercy for as long as he pleased.
“Where are you taking me?”
“I’m taking you to the one place where your brother won’t even think of looking for you,” he said coldly.
Then, he picked up the intercom and spoke to the chauffeur.
“Take us home, Sam.”
I whipped around to stare at him in shock.
He was taking me to his home? To the multi-million dollar Donovan estate where he lived with his daughter and the rest of his family?
CHAPTER 5
LEO
Iwas regretting this already.
Wasn’t it enough that I had rescued Tia from that slimy bastard? It was evident that no good deed goes unpunished because why else was I taking her into my family home? I despised this woman. She stood for everything that was taken from me. My wife, my daughter’s mother.
But I had no other choice. I could either keep driving around Manhattan in circles while my brothers found a safe house for Tia, thereby increasing the risk of us being spotted, or I could hide her in my house until the uproar around her disappearance died down.
It was only for a few days, and it wasn’t as if I was going to see much of her. Once I got her home, she was Marcus and Luke’s problem, not mine.
I put out a hand.