Chapter 39
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Rio
The security feed flickers on my phone screen and my blood turns to ice.
A shadow moves through the garden, too large and deliberate to be an animal but also, far too confident to be a random intruder.
I lean forward in my office chair, abandoning the shipping manifests I was reviewing, and zoom in on the figure.
The figure is broad, tall and has dark hair.
My best guest is male. He moves like he owns the place, like he knows exactly where to go which pisses me off more.
My hand hovers over the button that would send a dozen armed men flooding into the garden within seconds. One press and this fucker would be bleeding out on my manicured lawn before he could take another step, but something stops me. Curiosity, maybe?
I switch cameras, tracking him as he slips behind the olive trees near the east side of my yard.
If I was home right now, I would already be outside beating this fucker to a pulp.
Unfortunately, I had a few meetings to attend and now I’m regretting my decision to leave this morning.
Motion detects another figure and I switch over to see Liana, barely dressed, racing across the patio like she's being chased by a lion.
My jaw clenches so hard I taste blood. Does she know this man? Did she invite him?
I pull up the audio feed and the sound crackles to life just as the man steps out of the shadows and I finally see his face.
Antonio Manitellie. Her cousin.
"Took you long enough, little L," his voice comes through the speakers.
I watch as he embraces her tightly and something dark and ugly coils in my chest. Jealousy. Pure, irrational jealousy that makes me want to find him and rip him apart with my bare hands. Cousin or not, no man should be holding my wife like that.
‘She's mine.’
"I came for you," Antonio says, and the words hit me like a bullet to the chest. "To take you home."
My fingers curl into fists, nails biting into my palms as I force myself to stay seated. Every instinct screams at me to head home to intervene and remind her exactly who she belongs to. But I don't. Instead I watch, listen and wait because this is the moment of truth.
I've given her everything these past weeks. My protection, my honesty, my trust. I've shown her parts of myself I've never shown anyone, and now, with freedom dangling in front of her like a prize, I need to know if any of it mattered. Have I been wasting my time?
"You don't actually love him, do you?" Antonio's voice cuts through my thoughts, and I find myself holding my breath, waiting for her answer.
‘Do you, Datura? Do you feel anything for me at all?’
“Our family isn’t exactly innocent, Antonio,” she says, snapping at him. If it weren’t for the fact that she completely avoided answering that question, I would be smiling right now.
"I…I don't know," she says finally, “I don’t want to go home and be forced into another marriage alliance. I’ll be trading in one cage for another.”
My chest tightens at that omission. Doesn’t she realize this isn’t a cage yet. What more do I have to do to show her how much she means to me now? I watch the conflict play across her beautiful face. She's torn, uncertain even, and that means I still have a chance.
Both their heads whip around at the sound of security approaching and I watch as Antonio leans down to whisper.
I hear every word he says about coming for her, about being ready, and then he's gone. She stands there for a good amount of time, looking far too lost for someone who’s been exploring that garden practically every day for months.
I should be furious. I am furious. I should hunt down her bastard cousin and make him regret ever setting foot on my property. I should go home, drag Liana to our bedroom and fuck her until she forgets her own name, until the only word out of her mouth is mine.
Instead, I close my phone and lean back in my chair, staring at the ceiling as my mind races.
She could have agreed immediately. She could have told her cousin yes, could have started packing her bags right then and there and been gone before I was home.
She didn’t though. She hesitated. She didn’t say she loved me, but she didn’t say that she didn’t either.
A bitter laugh escapes my mouth. Look at me, the cartel prince, hanging on the uncertainty of a woman who was forced to marry me.
My father would laugh at me right now, looking so weak.
If I didn’t know any better, I’d think he did this on purpose.
My brothers would mock me mercilessly, I know it.
Yet here I am, willing to let this play out, to give her the chance to choose me instead of forcing her to stay.
My phone vibrates with head of security messaging about the motion detection and I reply for him to not pursue.
Let Antonio think he got away clean and let him plan his little rescue mission. Because when the moment comes where Liana has to make her choice, I want it to be real. I want to know she chose me.
And if she doesn't? My hand tightens around the phone until the case creaks.
If she doesn't, then I'll burn the whole fucking world down and she’ll be stuck with me anyway. My little Datura isn’t going anywhere.
I watch the security feed as Liana finally makes her way back inside, her face a mask of confusion and conflict. She doesn't know I saw everything and she won’t. She doesn't know that her fate now hangs on a choice only she can make.
‘Go back to bed, Datura’, I think as I grab my keys. ‘I’m on my way to remind you who you belong to.’