Chapter 41 Ronan #2
“Fucking hell. He’s known where you were this whole time,” I stated matter of factly, and she nodded in disappointment.
I couldn’t imagine how difficult it must have been to think someone was coming to save you, but they never came.
She cried out loudly as I tightened my hold on her wrist through the bars and pulled out a pocket knife, slicing fast and deep enough to push the tracker right out of her before sliding it into my pocket.
“So, let’s try again. Why were you locked up in that trafficking ring?” I crossed my arms over my chest as I waited for an answer, hoping I’d given her something worth betraying her family for.
“How many girls have you stolen from my father over the years?” She retorted with her own question.
“Probably six, eight with you and your sister,” I had to admit, even though we liked to switch up who we targeted most years, we almost always tended to grab a Bratva trafficking victim.
They were always on our heels, trying to nab any little bit of power from us they could.
Always trying to take back what we fought for.
If they took a mile of the city from us, we snatched it back the next year with interest. It sort of became a cat and mouse situation, and since they never really came out of hiding it was easy to keep fucking with their plans.
“My father counts every penny. If you think he hadn’t noticed before, you’re a fool. He planned this, and you walked right into his trap,” she looked at me like I was an idiot and honestly, I felt it. I should have seen this coming, we all should have.
“So, he sent his daughters off to slaughter in hopes of catching the butcher,” I twisted my face in anger at only myself, and how stupid we’d been. Little boys playing at gang leaders, not paying attention to the bigger picture.
“Exactly, and when my sister realized we weren’t going to be resold and that it was all a game to you, we decided it would be easier to charm our way to freedom so we could then give our father all the information he'd need to bring you down.”
“Except, now she’s free, and no one is coming for you,” I turned around and began to walk out of the room.
I still needed to sort things out with Santos, but this was a start.
If we didn’t deal with our Bratva problem soon, it was going to end up at our doorstep again.
That was a risk we couldn’t take for the sake of everyone who lived here under our protection.
“Are you going to help me?” She shouted at me as I made my way out of the prison-like level.
“I’m not killing you yet, I’d say count your blessings, Susana.”
As if it wasn’t enough that she was refusing to forgive me, the universe kept plaguing me by forcing me to catch her and Mateo pawing at each other every chance they got.
As soon as the elevator door opened, they were pulling apart awkwardly like we were all pretending this wasn’t actually happening.
I felt like I was losing my damn mind.
Kane cleared his throat and grabbed her chin with one hand, pulling her head to the side to expose the tracker embedded in the back of her neck. I boxed her into the corner of the elevator, both hands placed on the wall on either side of her head.
“How does it feel to know that I will always be able to find you, no matter how far you run?”
She got on the tips of her toes and whispered into my ear, “Oddly comforting.” Cecilia winked at me before ducking under my arm as the elevator dinged and the doors opened back into the penthouse.
Two days.
Well, technically two nights. Two entire nights where she slept in Kane’s room after I asked her to stay with me. I didn’t know what it was going to take to earn her forgiveness. It wasn’t like before when sex was just sex, and we could go back to hating each other the moment it was over.
We’d gone too far past that.
We’d exposed too many layers of ourselves, and her secrets were out into the world now.
We couldn’t go back. Not to the way we were when we were just kids, and definitely not to the toxic mess that we’d become since she walked into this high-rise.
There was only one way out of this for us, and it was by walking through the fire. I owed it to her to fix this.
I owed it to us.
I burst into Kane’s room, the door slamming into the wall behind it from the force of my entry.
He barely looked up at me from playing the guitar as he sat on the edge of his bed.
I had one of our guys go pick it up for him a couple of days after the high-rise was raided by the Bratva.
There was a deep sadness within Mateo that was exposed when you took music away from him.
It was an easy gesture to rid him of some of his pain.
And it was important to me that my brother wasn’t suffering.
As if knowing exactly what I came in here for, he tilted his chin towards his bathroom and continued to play “Where is my Mind” by The Pixies on his new instrument.
The hot steam rolled out of the bathroom in a cloud as I opened the door and stepped inside.
“So much for alone time,” she mocked from within the opaque glass that separated the shower and divided us.
“I heard no such thing,” I stepped closer, and she peeked her head out of the barrier.
“Oh. Hi,” she breathed out, her hair plastered to her wet face as the water crashed over her.
“Hi,” I mused back, stepping closer and closer before I stood just inches from the shower entrance.
“Well, are you just going to stand there?” She arched an eyebrow in challenge, and I took it for the invitation it was, quickly shedding all my clothing.
Her eyes drifted down as she took all of me in for the first time since we’d been apart for so many years.
She probably didn’t even realize she was doing it, bitting her lip before her eyes made their way back to mine.
Those dark glossy orbs always threatened to consume me, exposing me until all that would be left were the ruins of who I once was.
“This doesn’t mean anything,” she whispered it again like it was more for her than for me as she dragged a loofa over my chest.
“You keep saying that my little flower, but I’ll keep reminding you, this means everything,” I said, tucking a wet lock behind her ear.
“I still hate you for what you did to me,” she looked down, avoiding my eyes and I lifted her chin up so that her stare could see the truth searing inside me.
“I’d rather feel your hate than not feel anything from you at all. As long as you let me spend the rest of our lives trying to make it right,” I brushed my thumb over her lips, too nervous myself to seal the promise with the kiss I so desperately wanted to take.
But I’d already taken too much from her.
It was time I fixed the damage I caused.
I took her hand into mine, pulling the soapy loofa from her and running it over her body, worshiping every inch of the woman she’d become with the attention she deserved.
“Turn around,” I told her, but her eyes grew in alarm.
“W-wait a minute,” she stumbled backward as she tried to put distance between us, but she couldn’t hide the pained look on her face as the water hit her from behind.
I narrowed my eyes at her, unsure and confused about her reaction.
Grabbing her wrist I pulled her into me, our naked chests pressed together as droplets of water ran between us.
“Let me take care of you,” I murmured into her ear, “Let me try to fix this.” I pleaded, all strength escaping me as my voice broke with my words as the inevitable feeling of defeat washed over me.
“It’s not that; It’s- I- I…” she kept stuttering over her words, but I could see in her face she didn’t have the resolve to keep any secrets anymore.
Whatever was bothering her was something she didn’t know how to or maybe even want to conceal.
I made the decision for her and turned her to face the wall, and that’s when I saw it.
The wound split her back from top to bottom, from her left shoulder down to her right hip. The skin was angry, red, and irritated and though it had been a few days since it happened, the smallest of her movements was enough to get it bleeding again.
I placed my hand on her right shoulder blade, and her body trembled in my hold. I couldn’t see her face, and even with the water drenching both of us, I could feel her shaking under my hand. I lowered my head until my forehead was pressed to the top of her head, and I whispered into her ear.
“I will kill every single one of them,” I vowed turning her back to face me, her eyelashes beading from her tears mixing with the shower water spraying from above.
I pressed a kiss to her forehead before I made my way out of the walk-in shower, grabbing a nearby towel and heading out of Kane’s room.
There was a lot of fucking work to do.
And a lot of Bratva scum to kill.
“Iknow you want to focus on the Bratva,” she said, sitting on the kitchen counter while eating a bowl of cut-up dragon fruit. “But it would behoove us…me, to get some ducks in a row first before you tried to start a war.”
“What kind of ducks you lining up, Sunshine?” Mateo asked, taking a forkful of her breakfast, and eating it straight out of her bowl.
“The kind that guarantees my safety, the kind that lets me sleep a little better at night,” she said looking up and shifting her gaze between the both of us. “I need you to take me to him.”
“No!” Mateo said before I had the chance to.
“Absolutely fucking not, no fucking way. I’m not taking you to see that piece of shit. Not after what I saw him doing to you in those videos,” I told her, eyeing Kane as he nodded his head in agreement with me.
“Contrary to what you may believe, he was never the villain. Family looks different when you’ve been raised by Rafael Flores,” she tried to reason, but it wasn’t enough.
Villalobos was just another Devil in my eyes, and in some ways, he was worse.
I expected him to have loved her like a sister, but he damaged her, then abandoned her as if she never existed.
What kind of monster could do that to their family?
I didn’t budge and she sighed, “Look, I need him, we need him. We need the numbers if you want to go up against the Russian Mafia. This building is big, and it’s impressive, but from what I’ve noticed it’s a bit empty Ronan. You need more soldiers.”
She was annoyingly right, and I hated how that was becoming a regular thing these days. She was so unbelievably smart, and she knew how to lead better than the three of us put together.
Almost like someone had been prepping her for that very thing.
Fucking hell.
“You think he’s just going to jump on board with this even though he’s been practically ignoring your existence for the last fifteen years?” I asked her and Kane nudged her for the answer when she didn’t immediately respond.
“I won’t give him the choice.”