Chapter 38
GIO
My throbbing cock rocks into her from behind just as my phone rings.
“Fuck whoever that is,” I grunt in frustration. “I’m too busy reuniting with my fiancée.”
She moans while I trail kisses down her neck, nipping her shoulder.
But the ringing doesn’t end. Someone calling two, three…five times.
“Just gonna see who it is.”
I told Grant about Eriu, and I’m hoping it’s him calling with a lead.
Retrieving the cell from the nightstand, I find his name on the screen.
“Hey,” I groan, thrusting deep inside her while she grips the sheets, twisting her neck to find me staring right into her heady eyes. “You better have a good reason for calling.”
She smiles, and my pulse goes faster.
“Where are you?” he asks.
I instantly recognize the serious nature of his tone. I ease off of her and sit up, and she follows suit, concern tethered to her expression.
“I’m with Iseult. Why? Did you find something?”
“Shit…” he mutters. “I did, but it’s not about her sister. Gio…I need you to check your email. Right now. It’s about Bryce, and you’re not going to like it.”
“What are you talking about?”
Whatever he’s about to tell me, it doesn’t sound good.
“Just look at the damn email.”
He hangs up, and I enter my account and find his name at the top of today’s emails.
“What’s going on?” Iseult asks, my gaze shifting between her and the phone.
“Grant called. He found new information on Bryce and emailed me something to look at.”
“Oh? Do you know what it is?” She slides closer, peering at my phone.
“I’m about to find out.”
Her foot bounces as she clears her throat.
Why the hell is she so damn nervous?
Opening the email, I find a single attachment.
And something inside me says not to open it, that whatever is in there is going to break me.
I give her a lingering look, and she returns it, her brows knitted with emotion, as though she doesn’t want me to open it either.
Before I can change my mind, I click on it, waiting for it to load.
And when it finally does, I can barely breathe, staring at the face of my fiancée, a gun in her hand while my best friend is dead behind her.
Her eyes close, and she inhales long and deep.
“Fucking look at me.” I grab her jaw and turn her face to mine. “Tell me I’m not seeing what I’m seeing. Tell me I’m wrong and that you not only killed my best friend, but lied about it too.”
“I didn’t lie.” Her face turns cold. “You never asked if I did it.” She pushes off my hand and gets to her feet.
Anger coils around my heart as I glare. I try to control the stabbing of my pulse in my ears but it’s no fucking use.
She killed Bryce.
The evidence is staring right at me.
But why? Why the hell did she do it?
Following her up, I plow toward her until I force that body up against the wall, my hand trapping her throat.
“Get your fucking hands off me,” she snaps, fighting to get my arm off her.
But I tighten my grasp instead. “Start talking, baby. Because you’re not getting out of here until I know everything that happened that night.”
She laughs. Icy, taunting laughter. “You want to know what kind of sick, perverted asshole you were friends with, then I’ll tell you.”
Oh, hell…
I don’t know if I’m ready for this.
I knew it had to be something bad, but when it’s someone in your inner circle, you don’t want to believe they can do the unforgivable. And I just know what she’s about to tell me will be that.
“He drugged a girl from that nightclub near the alley, and when I caught him and chased after him, he threatened me. Said he worked for some dangerous people and that if he didn’t take the girl to them, we’d all be dead.”
“Who was he working for?” My nostrils expand.
Fucking Bryce. What the fuck did he get mixed up in?
“I don’t know. But I looked through his phone after I shot him, and there were some cryptic texts to someone named P. He was sending them photos of naked girls, Gio, and they’d reply with prices.”
I force my eyes closed. “Fuck!”
I back away, slamming a fist into the wall beside her. She takes in my rage quietly, placing a hand on my shoulder.
“You didn’t know.”
“Of course I didn’t know!” I curl a palm around her nape. “Is that what you thought? That I’d allow him to do that? God damn it, Iseult! I’m not perfect, but I’m not a fucking monster.”
Her shoulders drop and a crease forms between her brows. “I wasn’t sure what you knew. At first, I worried you did know, but the more time I spent with you…” Her eyes bore into mine. “The more I realized there’s no way you could’ve.”
The edges of my vision blur, my temples throbbing with a dull ache.
She pauses and looks me dead in the eyes. “I have no regrets, Gio. I’m sorry it had to be your friend, but he wasn’t worth your friendship.”
“Do you still have his phone?”
I need to see this for myself. I need to know who the fuck he was.
“My father does. I’m sure after he’s done hating you, you can convince him to show you.”
I snicker. “Yeah, I’m sure he’ll be very cooperative.” I grip the back of my head. “Why the hell didn’t you tell me as soon as you found out who I was looking for?”
“Because I didn’t want to tell you in case you didn’t believe me.”
My heartbeats echo in the chamber of my heart, and in an instant, I erase the gap between us and pull her body against mine.
“I would’ve understood, bambina.” My fingers stroke down her cheek, and her lips part as I do.
“And the man Walter saw that day? Who was he?” I ask, remembering what the homeless man told us.
On that day, I had a feeling she might have known something, and maybe a part of me suspected this, but hearing it is a whole different beast.
She roughs a breath. “He’s someone who works for my father. He took the fall when the hungry detective who wasn’t paid by my family wanted to pin this on someone. Devlin, who you know as Donny—”
“What?” I jolt my head back.
“Yeah…” She grimaces. “I knew about him too. Sorry?”
I regard her with slow, uneven inhales. “Go on.”
“Donny is his first name. Devlin is his middle. To protect me, Devlin made sure his fingerprints were all over the gun they found in the garbage right next to Bryce’s body.”
I shake my head. “I always suspected that gun was left there for a reason. No idiot would leave evidence behind that would be so easy to find.”
She nods. “I’m sorry, Gio. I really am. I wish I wasn’t involved in any of it, but it’s what happened.”
“I don’t even know what to say…” I grind my molars.
Anger toward my friend, the situation, the fact that she omitted the truth from me…it all piles on.
“I’m sure you want this back now, and I understand.”
My eyes jump to her hand as she tries to take the ring off.
My palm fastens around her fingers before she can utter her next word.
“Don’t you dare take that off, Red.” I give her a quick, hard kiss, my heated gaze fixated on her.
“Nice try, though. Too bad for you, I’m still marrying you.
You will be my wife, Iseult Marino…” My lips brush over hers. “Best friend killer or not.”
She breaks with a tearful laugh. “I’m never getting rid of you, am I?”
“Not in this lifetime, and not even in the one after that. And it’s best you remember that.”
ISEULT
His fingers stroke my bare back while I’m tucked on his chest. I would be lying if I said I wasn’t worried about him learning that my family was involved in Bryce’s death. It’s probably one of the top reasons I never told him. Even when it was difficult for me to admit it to myself.
But Gio being Gio, he didn’t leave. He stayed, and then he made love to me, reminding me what I mean to him. After that, of course, he fucked me to all hell, reminding me that he owns me too.
“I’m really worried about Eriu,” I say. “What if something really happened to her? No one knows where she is, Gio.”
Tynan called half an hour ago, saying that there has been no news. They spotted her car on some cameras within a twenty-mile radius from the house, but then it just disappeared.
My sister doesn’t know how to disappear. Something isn’t right. I just hope I’m wrong.
Sergey appears in my mind, as though taunting me, reminding me that he has the upper hand. He knows where I am, but I still don’t know where he is. I don’t even know where to look. I don’t have access to my father’s men or their tech equipment.
I’m on my own, which really sucks.
I should tell Gio, but I don’t want to involve him. Maybe I can talk to Tynan about it, because this isn’t about me anymore. It’s about Eriu now.
“We’ll find her,” he attempts to reassure me. “I have Grant looking too.”
My chest tightens, and I smile easily. The fact that he asked his friend to help means so much to me.
“He’s good at finding people. He did find you,” he teases, causing me to glance up and run the tip of a finger across his full, firm lips.
“You’re so handsome,” I say, warmth coursing through my veins as he grins, his eyes hooded.
He grabs a handful of my ass. “Did you just give me a compliment, or was I imagining it?”
I huff out a laugh. “Don’t get too excited. It won’t happen too often.”
“I’ll take whatever scraps you give me, bambina.”
“I don’t want to give you scraps,” I confess earnestly. “You deserve more than that.”
I drop my lips to his, kissing him forcefully, causing him to groan. He arches his semi-hard cock into my core while his tongue runs across the seam of my mouth. How he’s already hard after what we just did amazes me.
“And what do I deserve?” he asks gruffly.
“You deserve to be told that you’re handsome, strong, comforting.
” I snuggle against him, a smile clasped to both sides of my lips.
“That you are everything I didn’t know I needed.
That you make me feel like it’s okay to be me.
You’re kinda becoming my person, Giovanni Marino, so maybe you’re stuck with me too. ”
“Your person, huh?” He kisses the tip of my nose. “And what does that mean?”
“It means I can depend on you to be there. That I can be myself around you, feel safe in the knowledge that you’ll never willingly leave me, no matter how many times I have told you I’d leave you.”
His eyes gleam with adoration as I go on.