Chapter 35 Marfil #2
Sebastian took his cell phone out of his pocket. “I have orders to take you to Marcus’s house. He’ll be the one making the decisions about your safety from now on. Apparently, my work last night was unacceptable. He’s replacing me.”
I started shaking my head as soon as I heard him say Marcus’s name. “You can’t leave me with him…”
Sebastian pressed his lips together, and the rage we both felt seemed to give way to alarm and fear as he took my face in his hands and rested his forehead against mine. “It’ll just be a little while… Let me figure out a way to solve this.”
My eyes filled with tears, and I looked at him, terrified. “He’ll kill me, Sebastian.”
“No, he won’t. He wants you for himself.”
“He’ll hurt me!”
“Do what I’m asking, Marfil. I promise I’ll get you out of there.”
“NO!” I shouted, pulling away from him and rushing over to my purse. I picked up the phone to dial 911. “I’m going to call the police.”
Sebastian looked frightened for the first time, moving closer to me and reaching for the phone.
“Don’t do it, Marfil! They’ll discover your location—they’ll come for you.
Hang up!” He shouted so loudly that I jumped, and the phone fell from my hands.
Sebastian picked it up before I could react and put it in the back pocket of his jeans.
“No one can know anything about this. They’ll already be looking for us because of what happened at the club! Don’t you realize?”
“Don’t include me in this! I’m not a drug lord! I’ll tell the police everything I know and leave it in their hands!”
“You’d be dead before you could count to three.”
“Don’t say that!” I sank to the floor and hugged my knees to my chest.
God, wake me up from this nightmare.
Sebastian walked over to where I sat and crouched down next to me. “I’d give my life for you, Elephant,” he said in a conciliatory tone. “I wouldn’t take you to Marcus if I thought he might seriously hurt you. As much as I hate to say it, it’s the safest place for you right now.”
“Since when is the home of a murderous narco rapist a safe place for anyone?”
Sebastian waited a few seconds before responding. “Ever since the Russian mafia set out to kill you.”
I looked at him, terrified.
“I know it all sounds horrible. I’m not saying Marcus is a great guy, but he has a lot of resources, and he won’t stop until he gets rid of everyone who wants to harm you.”
“Why would he go through all that trouble?”
Sebastian looked at me as if the answer were obvious. “Because he thinks he’s in love with you,” he said coldly.
Just the thought made me want to gag.
“There has to be another way. Don’t take me to him, Sebastian. Don’t leave me, please,” I begged, leaning into him and letting him wrap me in his arms. Suddenly, everyone was an enemy, and Sebastian, the only person I could trust, wanted to turn me over to my abuser.
He embraced me for what could have been hours, but I finally let go of him and went into the bathroom.
I sat on the floor in there for an hour and a half, thinking over all my options.
There weren’t many. I thought about Elisabeth, Gabriella’s mom.
Did she know any of this? Is that why she ended up divorcing my father?
But then I remembered Harold, her new husband, who was a cop…
Elisabeth wouldn’t hide something like that from him…
But how could she not have known? My father was an expert liar, that was clear, and it was also true that he had companies all over the world, fronts for laundering all the dirty money he made from drug trafficking, I now knew.
I decided not to go to Elisabeth. Not only would it put her in danger, but the last thing I wanted was for Gabriella to find out. My sister loved my dad so much. She needed to stay in London, far removed from all this.
I felt as if someone had suddenly stolen my life away from me. I called Liam to find out how Tami was doing and because I needed to hear his voice. I wanted to beg him to come get me, to take me somewhere far away, but I knew I wouldn’t even make it half a block.
And then there was Sebastian… Finding out he belonged to that horrible world had possibly pained me more than learning that my father was one of the most dangerous narcos in the country.
Not only had Sebastian lied to me, but he made me question whether any of what we’d shared had been real.
He’d always warned me that he was no good for me, but I’d thought he was referring to the fact that he was my bodyguard, that he worked for my father, or our age difference…
I never imagined it was because he was a murderer…
That’s how he had referred to himself: Your father is a murderer, Marfil, just like all the rest of us.
Finally, there was a knock on the bathroom door. I looked at it, trying to determine how I felt about the man waiting on the other side.
“Open up, Marfil,” he said, tapping gently with his knuckles. “Don’t make me break it down…”
I stood up and unlocked the door. There he was, wearing a black sweater I’d never seen on him before. Narco or not, he was still incredibly handsome and sexy. I stared at him, and he stared back at me. I closed my eyes as he gently caressed my cheek with his thumb.
“I’m so sorry,” he whispered in my ear. “I’m sorry, Elephant,” he said again, kissing the sensitive skin of my ear.
I felt momentarily comforted, until I remembered what he was planning to do, and I shoved him away. “Don’t kiss me again, Sebastian.”
I moved away from him and walked over to the bed, where I curled into a ball. I had no idea what awaited me or what his new orders were. But I knew that he had made up his mind to leave me with Marcus because I had never seen him so devastated or concerned.
“Drink this,” he said a little while later, giving me a glass of water and a pill, just as he had before.
“I don’t want to relax. I’m fine.”
“You need to rest.”
“What I need is to wake up from this nightmare.”
Sebastian simply looked at me with the pill in his hand. Finally, I picked it up and put it in my mouth. I needed to sleep without seeing the faces of my dead bodyguards lying on the ground or my best friend bleeding out on the concrete or Marcus’s dungeons waiting to swallow me up.
I fell asleep immediately, and when I felt him lift me in his arms, I knew he hadn’t given me the same pill as before. He wasn’t carrying me to bed, but to the car.
The last thing I saw before my eyes closed involuntarily was a single tear sliding down Sebastian’s cheek.
Maybe I’d dreamt it.