Chapter 21 ~ Alexander
Six Months Later
It’s been six months. Six months of unadulterated hell.
She left me in early October. It’s the beginning of March now.
Christmas came and went, and I haven’t stopped looking yet and I won’t.
Sebastian has been just as obsessed as me in his search for her.
He has every computer nerd he knows, running every program he can think of.
Facial recognition, bank accounts, license plates, fingerprints It doesn’t matter what it is, he’s running it. But so far, we’re coming up empty.
We took care of Robert and his gang of mercenaries.
I figured that would make me feel better once we got the answers for my father and the reasons for his abuse of Isabella, but it didn’t.
It just drove the need to find her to an obsession.
I’ve learned now that it is not the need to own her or possess her, I feel.
I love her and have loved her all along. I take a sip of my whiskey and let the burn settle in my throat. That day plays in my mind over and over again. I want to do it over and make him pay the way Isabella paid at his hands.
We had Robert on the ship less than a week after she disappeared, chained to the ceiling, dangling there, naked from the waist up.
Jasper warmed him up for us, and we left him to hang there for the night.
It is not a fitting enough punishment, in my opinion, if he finally confirms what he did to my poor bunny when she was such a tiny and helpless little girl. Fucken coward.
The three of us entered Robert’s cell; his nose was bleeding, and his eye was swollen shut black and blue. I wanted to do more, but my father put his hand on my chest and made me wait by the door with Carlos.
The room contained a single table, one chair, and a light bulb hanging from the ceiling.
My father sat down calmly, undoing his suit jacket and tossing it aside to take out his gun.
He sets it on the table slowly and looks directly at Robert, crossing his legs and resting his linked hands on his thighs.
“You know how this is going to end, Robert, so you might as well tell me what I want to know. Even if you don’t, it’s too late either way.”
Robert spits out, “Fuck you.”
My father smiles. “No, I’m pretty sure you’re the one that’s fucked, Robert.” My father slides the handle of the gun back and forth on the table. Then he looks up at Robert.
“Were you behind the death of Angelo Gallo?”
Robert swings on his tiptoes as he tries to fight the chains. Stupid fool. Even if he managed to get free, he is on a ship and there was nowhere to go.
My father sighs, “That’s okay. We can circle back to that one later. I want to know what Isabella’s part in all of this is.”
Robert starts to laugh, a sick, twisted laugh. He looks straight at me. “Did you kill her yet?”
I could feel my throat drop to my stomach. My father slides the handle of the gun back and forth again.
“Now, why would my son kill his wife?”
He says it so calmly. I’m storming inside that he wants me to kill her. I take a minute and it registers, and my rage almost blinds me. He planned it, waited for it, and almost succeeded with it.
Robert tilts his head between his stretched out arms and laughs again.
“Fuck your slow. So, you’re telling me she’s still alive?”
My father links his fingers together again, putting them back in his lap.
“Oh, she’s very much alive, Robert, and we’re going to make sure that she stays that way. Since you planned on taking her inheritance from her.”
Robert smirks, his teeth copper, his lips covered in blood.
“Taking it? I fucking took it! She had no idea what she was doing. She signed her stupid trust fund every fucking three months, thinking she was getting her measly 15 grand a month. The rest I took. It was my money. Stupid bitch should have stayed in the goddamn Psych ward like I wanted her to, but her mother thought she was better off at home.”
I didn’t even feel myself move until Carlos grabbed my arm and pulled me back. The gun was in my hand and aimed at his head. My chest heaving up and down ready to blow this motherfucker's head off. Carlos put his hand on the barrel and lowered it to the ground.
“Not yet, brother.” I yield and put the gun back in my side holder and tug my suit jacket straight and stand back once more.
My father’s voice is serene as he speaks. “So, what exactly was your plan, Robert? Once we discovered where the money was coming from and who the bank accounts belonged to, Alexander would lose his cool and put a bullet through her brain to take care of her for you.”
He smiles coolly up at him. “That was your plan, wasn’t it?
Isn’t that why you wanted him to marry her so badly?
He could rid himself of a useless wife and no one would question it because that is his right to execute traitors.
You did make sure to mark her as the traitor in your little takeover scheme. ”
Robert spits the blood that’s running out of his nose onto the floor. “Yes. I knew he wouldn’t want her. Isabella is nothing like the women he fucks. She’s fat, weak and slow. She was easy to manipulate.” He smiles at me, his teeth streaked pink with blood.
“It would have worked for all of us, don’t you think, Alex?” He laughs now, and I want to punch that fucking smile right off his face.
“And Angelo?” My father asks.
Robert looks back at my father. “He had to die. I wanted more responsibility in running the mine and more money, but he wouldn’t give me any.
So, I took what I wanted. I knew Isabella was his favorite.
I knew she was in the Will. But I wasn’t certain.
It was a bit of a shock when I found out she hadn’t died in the accident.
Fucking thing is hard to kill. It’s been a few times I’ve tried, but she just keeps fucking coming back, making my life a misery. ”
My fists clenched so tight by my sides that I can feel my nails digging deep into my palms. I want to crush his throat. I want to hear and feel the crack beneath my fingers.
So smoothly, my father asks, “So why did you have her kidnapped?”
My father’s hand tightens on the gun, the only giveaway that he’s just as affected as I am by this sick asshole. Robert coughs up some more blood and spits it out at my father’s feet and smiles at him.
“The guy I hired called me from the accident and said she was still alive, bawling and crying in the seat beside my father. I told him to grab her and stuff her into the warehouse, and I’d deal with her later.
But then you showed up at the hospital fucking up the plans.
You always like everything so hush-hush, don’t you, Amato? ”
“And?” My father waves his hand in a circle.
“I came up with a kidnapping plan. I got a hold of my guy and told him to tie her up and leave her there and I would come take care of her in a couple of days. Once I read the Will and she was to inherit everything and I was to be the trustee, the plan changed, and I couldn’t kill her.
But I had already made it look like a kidnapping, so I had to follow through.
I wrote the ransom note to get some extra cash.
She needed to stay alive long enough for me to come up with a plan to take it all from her. ”
He looks up at the ceiling and spits out, “Papa is very smart; she had to be married before the age of 25 to a man of the organization. Even from the grave, he still fucked me over.”
My father’s hand tightens on the gun handle.
“So, you killed my best friend so that you could take over the mining company, but you didn’t stop there, did you, Robert? The next step was my chair. You wanted Isabella dead, you wanted to rule it all.”
Robert says nothing as he hangs there bleeding. My father gets up and walks over to him and looks him dead in the eye. “Isabella will inherit at all. She will also inherit your seat. I have no problem with a woman at my table, and neither do the last loyal remaining members.”
My father turns and looks at me.
“Take what you need, son. But the bullets are mine.”
He steps aside, and I take off my jacket and hand it to Carlos. I look at Robert, the reason for it all. Why my bunny is so scared of the dark? Why she stays silent, why she feels like she is never enough or that she isn’t beautiful.
I punch him in the side of the face. He spits more blood on the floor, and I punch him again. I can feel the rage rising. The need to rip him apart, to crush his throat. I want to take my father’s gun and shoot him till the clip empties.
I hold my hand back to punch him in the face again and stop. She has his eyes, and I can see her looking back at me. Isabella wouldn’t want me to beat her father to a pulp. No matter what he’s done, this isn’t her. She’d rather walk away than torture someone.
I dropped my hand and looked him in the eye. “Your plan failed, Robert. All of it, every single one. But Isabella, she’s mine, and I meant every word when I said my wedding vows to her.”
I walk past my father and stop by his shoulder.
“Take your vengeance for Angelo. I’ve already taken mine for Isabella.” I walked to Carlos, who handed me my jacket, and we left the container.
Carlos drove me home that night. I went straight to my room with a bottle of Jack and started to drink.
Three drinks in, I had the liquid courage to open the nightstand drawer and pull out her letter.
When I bring the letter to my nose, her lily scent is almost gone.
I slip my finger under the seal and pull out the paper.
Her ring tumbles into my palm and I close my fist around the cold metal.
Alexander,
These will most likely be my last words to you. If I am going to die, for once in my life, I’m making it on my terms. I will escape this life, either by your hand or by my own means. The sand in the hourglass of my life has nearly run out, and I won’t write false words of pity or make excuses.