48. Killian
Seeing the look on Maricela’s face, I want to revive Franco and make him suffer more. What else did he do to her? What else did he take?
“I know I need to tell you,” she practically whispers. “You’ll find out eventually. It always works like that.”
I don’t speak, letting her secrets, or lack of them, come out when and if she’s ready. Do I want to know everything that happened during the four years we were apart?
Yes. Yes, I do. But will I make her tell me if she doesn’t want to? I want to say no, but the truth is, I just don’t know.
She says, “If you can’t live in ignorance, tell me, and I’ll give you your freedom. We’ll raise the children together, but we’ll live separately.”
She wants to live apart from me? No secret will make me leave this stubborn woman.
“Answer me, Killian. If that’s what you want, I can accept it,” she continues, speaking without hesitation, but I hear the hitch in her voice—foolish woman.
“I thought I made myself clear, Maricela. You’re mine. No matter what you did in the past or what you do in the future, I will stand by you. I already told you I love you. So, keep your secrets to yourself.”
She looks hopeful, and I feel like a jerk for doing this to her. “But don’t blame me if I do whatever it takes to find out.”
“Don’t, Killian. Please. It will destroy you, and you don’t deserve that.”
I kiss another tear away, caressing her hot flesh, needing the reminder that she’s here with me.
“It won’t because, at the end of the day, pain and all, I know you’ll be waiting, the raw, true, hurt woman I love. The one I will demolish planets for if necessary. If anyone is worthy of distraction, it’s you. I’m a killer. My hands are filled with blood, and you know I’m not done yet. I’m also egotistical. I think about myself more than others. However, there are a few exceptions, and I will destroy anyone who tries to take you from me again. You are my girl. My future wife.”
Her mouth opens to a perfect O. I close it with my lips, kissing her for what feels like hours on end, reminding her to whom she belongs.
“The children—”
“Are an extension of the good you gave me. They’re worthy of someone like you. And I would die for them, too.”
“Don’t die. I need you. Our children need you.” Our children. The words are something I never thought I needed, but I do. Fuck, I do.
“I’ll do anything for you. And if you need my life, I’ll give it to you, one breath at a time.”
She hugs my body, opening the bottom of my shirt just to run her fingers over the tattoo of Isabella—my mom.
I considered getting one of Maricela and the kids, but this is different. Isabella’s tattoo was put there to remind me of my weakness.
Every time I looked at myself in the mirror, I saw the crying woman and remembered that I didn’t do everything I could to help the woman who brought me into this world. In Maricela’s case, I want it to be different.
“I won’t go back to the office anymore,” Maricela informs me before getting out of bed and searching for her leggings.
She doesn’t ask for permission. She just states it as fact. “I’m going to take care of Raven’s studio until she gets back. This is something I have to do. And I’m also going to open the restaurant she wanted with her when she returns.”
“Little Girl—” I start, but she covers my mouth with her hand. Who would have thought that a hand as small as hers would be filled with so much strength and power?
“She’ll be back. Liam must be the one to bring her back, and you know it. She’s madly in love with him. I’ve seen it. And it’s not your story, Killian. It’s hers. Raven was always left in the shadows, loving a man who hated her and with a brother and a mother she couldn’t say she knew. It’s Raven’s story, and Liam has to be the one who rescues her because no one else did.”
Maricela is not in the wrong. Raven was a tool for so long. A pawn on the chessboard. She was Franco’s tool against me and Isabella. Franco’s tool against his brother, and Liam’s tool for his secrets. It is her story.
“She’ll be back,” I promise and hope with all that is left of my heart that I’m not lying.
The days in the office are tranquil without Maricela. Bertha continues to work for me, but I know I must find a new secretary as soon as possible. In a few days, I have a trial in which I defend a man who did nothing. That doesn’t happen often in defending criminals, but occasionally, victims of circumstances come to me.
Sabioni is one of those victims. He murdered the man who raped his wife and his seven-year-old daughter. The problem is that the man he murdered had power, and Sabioni was his employee.
While going through the evidence and documents, Liam bursts into my office. “I’m taking time off, mate.”
“You know where they are.” That wasn’t a question. If anyone could find out where Raven is, it’s Liam, and I can tell by the look on his face he did just that.
“She’s on a deserted island with that son of a bitch, and he’s protected from every corner. It could take a while. I’m flying out today.”
I don’t tell him to keep to himself because I know I wouldn’t do that. I’m not telling him to bring Raven back in one piece because I know he’ll die to get it done.
“Remember, if you bring her back, you’ll give her the choice to marry you or not. She won’t be forced. I’ve made too many mistakes as it is.”
“I know.” He salutes me with his middle finger and promptly leaves the office, leaving me with nothing more than the hope that he’ll be able to keep his word and show Raven how much he loves her because the idiot is so blind and dumb to anything related to emotion and love that he doesn’t see what’s right in front of him.
“Sir, you can’t go in there. Mr. Fierro is busy and—” Maverick bursts into my office and pushes Bertha aside.
“You’re going to get sued for that,” I inform him nonchalantly. “It’s okay, Bertha. You can go back to your desk now. And I want you to write up a complaint about him pushing you.”
Maverick’s laughter violently strikes my ears. I know why he’s here. He wants revenge. Franco is no longer an issue, and now Maverick has decided to hound me in his place.
What Maverick doesn’t understand is that compared to Franco, who thought the journalist couldn’t harm him without any proof and allowed this fucker to keep bothering him, I’m going to eliminate this son of a bitch. Not because of how he treated my family, but because of how he chased us around every corner, and most importantly, because he discovered Maricela’s secrets and used them against her.
“Why are you here, Mr. Hope? You know I don’t have all day.” What a ridiculous last name he has.
“You’re not going to admit to Franco’s murder.” He turns on his little tape recorder, the one he always has with him, even during classes when I was in school.
I fold my hands on the desk in front of me and grin. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. My father died because he was sick.”
“Stop the bullshit. Everyone knows he abused you. Everyone knows what you’re hiding behind your tattoos. You murdered him.”
I yawn and discover I’m not faking the yawn. This son of a bitch bores me. “Let’s see how many things I can sue you for. First, everything you just mentioned is hearsay. You can’t know how my father treated me. I was on perfect terms with him.”
The lie makes me want to laugh, but I keep going. “Second, itinerant harassment. I’m not a public figure. I’m a business owner. So you can’t continue to harass me like this. Even itinerant curiosity has limits, and you know it. You’ll surely receive a lawsuit for the violence you unleashed against my secretary. She’s a respectable woman, and you touched her and pushed her. The cameras will testify to that. So, tell me, Maverick, why did you come here?”
“You’re lying. You murdered your father like you’ve murdered many others. You’re just a criminal with a lot of money.”
“You’re a miserable person, you know that? You come here trying to get me to do what exactly? To make a fake confession? To admit to whatever crazy theories you have running through that little mind of yours?”
As Maverick narrows his eyes, I scoff and relax into my chair. “Let’s cut the bullshit. From the beginning, my family name intrigued your journalistic instinct, but for nearly the last decade, all the rest was because of Maricela. You wanted her, but she never saw you as anything but a fleeting role model.
Now, she came back to me, never to be yours, and it drives you up the wall. You’re so miserable over it all you even fucked one of her best friends.”
Maverick remains silent, and I go on.
“Ronen deserves much more than a man who married for the money he despises.”
From the look on his face, I’m guessing that every word I speak is like a shot in Maverick’s chest. Just as intended. His expression changes, and I know I’ve hit on the truth.
He must have tried so damn hard to be there for my woman all those years, but she never gave him what he wanted. No matter what, she was always loyal to me and always loyal to Serena, even after what her sister did to her.
“Franco raped her, you know?”
Yes, and that’s why he paid for what he did.Again, I grin but don’t give him the satisfaction of reacting.
“You knew, and you killed him for it. Tell me, what did you do to him?”
“Nothing. I didn’t have to do a thing. Now, are you going to get out of my office?”
Maverick chuckles and takes a step closer. “I’m not surprised she aborted her child like she did. It could have been your child, but she didn’t care. All she wanted was to get the Fierro blood out of her womb.”
“You’re going too far. Leave me alone!” I don’t know when I got up from my chair or stepped around my desk. All I see is the red haze that blinds me, and all I hear are his shouts. Screams that should stop me, but they don’t.
What he said couldn’t be true. Maricela’s words, her self-hatred, however, tell me another story.
“What do you know?” I demand.
“I’ll sue you for this,” he gurgles.
Hearing his struggle to speak momentarily clears the fog, and I relax my fingers just enough to allow him to breathe. It’s time to show this man who I am. I told my little girl that I would find out the truth, and I will.
“I’ve heard how you like to flaunt your ass, especially to men who are smaller than you. You go both ways and don’t mind using that to get whatever you want. Well, unless you want your wife to see you fucking men in the club, you’ll tell me everything you know. You’ll tell me now, and then you’ll leave my office and my life immediately after.” I squeeze a little harder, not releasing him until he turns red.
“You’re crazy,” he rasps, and it almost reminds me of Franco and the way he coughed and choked at the end. Almost.
“You came to my office today to do what exactly? Threaten me? I’ve held you by the balls ever since you married. All in all, she’s a good woman. And your little boy? I’m sure he’ll be happy to see his daddy on all fours with two men fucking his ass.”
“You—” I cut him off by squeezing harder because I know men like him always talk before thinking.
“Before you say more, I’ve got something you should see.” I release him and reach for a folder that happens to be on my desktop. Bertha recently printed the contents, but not before telling me how educational this was for her. To my dismay, I also heard a number of discoveries she made about her seventy-two-year-old husband.
I open the folder and spread the photographs across the desktop. There, Maverick can be seen fucking several men at once.
Unlike Franco, I have never been homophobic. I accept my older brother’s sexuality and even encourage it. More than that, I wouldn’t bat an eye if he chose to marry a woman or a man, but what I can’t stand is people like Maverick, the most hypocritical people in the world.
He writes countless articles against the LGBTQ+ community, and in the meantime, he goes to secret clubs and shares his body with everyone and anyone while he’s married to a woman.
I give him leeway to look at the pictures. He, in turn, takes them and tears them to pieces. Fool.
“What do you want?” he dares to ask.
“I don’t want anything, but you do. Tell me, Maverick, why this obsession with my family? There are dozens of wealthy families much easier to harass and hound, so why us? Why, after seeing that I’m as clean as a whistle, do you persist?”
I’m well aware that the device he brought with him is still recording our little conversation, and I know he wouldn’t dare use the recording now. But it’s better to be safe than sorry.
“Then let me go,” he says as if I’m holding him by the neck again.
I’m not but I am close enough to get hold of him before he could get away. So even though I’m not holding him physically at the moment, he knows the information I have on him is a noose around his neck, and all I have to do is push just a little, and he’ll lose it all. His wife’s money, his family, his company, and most importantly, the reputation he created for himself. The reputation of a present-day Robin Hood, who goes against the wealthy elite when he’s just as much a part of it.
“Tell me everything you know about Maricela, everything she told you, and everything you learned. Start speaking. I don’t have all day.”
“I think it should come from her.” I know he’s right, but I need to know. If I’m to believe him, Maricela was pregnant, and she aborted that child. She must have thought it was Franco’s child, I’m sure of that. But she couldn’t have known for sure.