2. Kyril
2
Kyril
L andon lay on Milo’s bed snoring. Every few seconds, Milo threw him a venomous look, but Lan was too out of it to care. I debated moving the idiot and tossing him in a cold shower, but I already had a headache. Carrying Lan’s dead weight would only make it worse.
Torrance Asaro was a sadistic fucker. He killed for fun. Murdered and mutilated because he enjoyed inflicting pain. Rumors of his twisted predilections had circulated for years.
My father had a reputation for being a cold-hearted bastard. I knew from experience that he’d happily kill anyone who stood in his way, but he didn’t kill for fun. He was also too busy keeping his wife happy these days to spend time out in the field dealing with his enemies. If someone needed eliminating, he delegated the task to Krasi, his second. Or me.
I didn’t understand why di Luca had hidden a daughter. Two daughters . It made no sense.
Daughters were valuable currency. A mafia princess could be used to forge alliances. Two daughters meant the opportunity to form two potentially powerful alliances. Yet none of the mafia families were aware di Luca had daughters.
From what I’d heard, di Luca was old school. In some ways, it made sense he thought daughters were a waste of space, but I’d have expected him to flaunt them once they came of age.
Thea was beautiful. The sort of woman my father would choose as a bride for his son and heir. Not that he wanted an alliance with di Luca. He hated that fucker.
“We need to talk to Dario,” Milo said in a low voice. I nodded. Milo was right. “He knows more than he’s saying.” Dario hated Thea, yet had refused to say why. If the two of them were childhood friends, then he was well aware of who Thea really was, which meant he probably knew who the man in the audio clip was.
We needed to figure out what was going on. If only to reassure Cassian that Thea wasn’t the enemy.
I walked back into my bedroom and pulled some pants on before heading for Dario’s room. He was busy throwing clothes into a bag when I entered.
“Going somewhere?”
“None of your fucking business.” I watched for a few moments as he emptied his closet. Something told me he wasn’t coming back, which led me to believe his presence here tied into everything going down right now.
“Why do you hate Thea so much?” I’d asked him before, but he refused to say.
“She’s a whore.” It was the same old shit he came out with every time.
“A whore fucks anyone and everyone,” I pointed out. “She was a virgin less than a month ago.” Had she showered before Torrance took her, or did she still smell of me?
If anyone touched my kotenok , they would die. I’d marked her. Filled her with my cum. That made her mine.
“Liar,” Dario scoffed. “She was supposed to be mine, but she lied to me.”
“So you keep saying, but trust me, she was a virgin when I took her for the first time.” His head snapped up, eyes mere slits at my confident statement.
“I don’t believe you.”
“Then you’re an idiot. I have no reason to lie to you about it.”
He stared at me for a moment and then sat down hard on the edge of the bed, like a deflated balloon. “I saw a video clip,” he admitted, looking sick. “He showed me a video of Thea fucking a bunch of guys. We were supposed to meet. We’d planned it for months. In the chapel, with candles and shit. Fuck, I even stole a bottle of my dad’s best wine to help relax us both.” A burst of hollow laughter fell from his lips.
“Do you still have the video?” Milo asked from the doorway.
He nodded.
“Send it to me so I can prove to you it’s fake.”
From the devastated expression on Dario’s face, the knowledge he’d made a terrible mistake had begun to sink in. If I was a better man, I’d feel bad for him. But I didn’t give a fuck about his hurt feelings.
He’d had his chance with her and blown it. A bit like Cassian. And also Lan. None of those assholes deserved a woman like Thea.
Dario pulled his phone out and a few seconds later, Milo nodded. Then he scurried back into his bat cave to do the technical shit that got him hard. At least, I assumed it did.
“So tell me,” I asked Dario. He stared into space like a zombie. “How come you had an audio clip of Thea agreeing to plant drugs in Cassian’s hotel room? Do you know who released the sex tape of her and the guys?”
I waited patiently while he considered my questions. It would be better for him if he came clean, but I wasn’t averse to torturing him to get the information I needed. Sure, it would be messy, and I’d probably lose my room deposit, but time was ticking on and the longer it took to get the information, the harder it would be to find Thea.
The thought of her trapped in a car trunk, scared, believing we all hated her, made me want to kill people. A lot of people.
“Francesco sent me here to watch Thea. He thought she’d lost her way and wasn’t doing her job.”
“Her job?”
“Yeah. He wanted her to befriend Cassian and find weaknesses he could exploit. Use him to get past Lucian’s security. Francesco wants Lucian dead.”
She’d definitely managed the get close to Cass bit, although Lucian was still breathing. Sadly.
“Why does he want Lucian off the board?”
“I don’t know. All Francesco said to me was to watch Thea - nothing else. Then last week, I got a call from Torrance telling me to go to London and plant some cameras in a hotel room. I now know it was the room Cassian booked.”
My fists clenched, but I kept my face neutral. “So you uploaded the sex tape online?”
“No, that was most likely Torrance. He knew she hadn’t planted the drugs like he told her to do. I guess he realized she was no longer under his thumb and wanted to ruin any chance she had of finding allies.”
His plan had worked. Lan no longer trusted her, and from the way Cassian had reacted when the sex tape dropped, he fucking hated her.
“The fire was me, though.”
The shock of his confession hit me hard. I hadn’t considered the fire. Like everyone else, I assumed it was a freak accident. Dodgy wiring or something.
“Torrance told me to create a distraction so he could pull Thea off campus. He was concerned she’d go on the run, even though I told him she was too worried about Verity to do that.”
“Her sister?”
“Yeah, Francesco keeps Verity locked away. Thea has always watched out for her. Made sure she’s safe from Torrance and Francesco.”
None of this made sense. Girls were important in my world. A valuable asset.
“Why has he hidden the girls away all these years?”
“Thea’s mother died giving birth to Verity. Because Francesco had no sons, he raised Thea as he would have a boy. Trained her and turned her into a weapon. He used - uses - her as a tool. People assume she’s weak because she’s a female. They don’t see her as a threat, which has made her very useful over the years. Keeping Verity around meant he had leverage over Thea. If she stepped out of line, he threatened her sister.”
“And you didn’t think to help her?” He stiffened at the anger in my voice but refused to look me in the eye. Pathetic son of a bitch.
“I tried, but we were both young.” His shoulders slumped. The cocky asshole who loved to taunt me had vanished. This version of Dario was being forced to embrace his mistakes. And I suspected he didn’t like what he saw in the mirror.
“Maybe you should have tried harder.”
“I did everything I could at the time,” he spat. “I had a plan. We were going to leave, take Verity with us. Fake our deaths and then hide out in my uncle’s cabin.”
Moron. As if that would have worked.
“And then Torrance Asaro showed you a video, and you didn’t take one second to question why the girl you loved would do something so out of character?” He threw a hateful glare at me before looking down. The fucker knew I was right. If he’d used his brain and spoken to Thea before leaving her to fend for herself, he’d have realized the video was fake.
“Fuck you,” he muttered.
I sighed. This was all very interesting, but time was ticking on. Thea could be on a plane by now, on her way back to her father’s house. Rescuing her from his estate wasn’t impossible, but would cause me no end of trouble if someone saw me there.
“I need to get Thea back, and you’re going to help me.”