Chapter 27 Rob #3
Alive and hating me. Would that really help our situation? I wanted to see if I could make this work with her, and starting out with the murder of a woman who looked just like her didn’t seem like the way to go.
Then again, starting out with a marriage wasn’t exactly brilliant either.
“Are you even fucking listening to me?” Liam snapped, grabbing me as I walked past him again.
I stared down at where his hand was wrapped around my arm. My anger grew by the second as he dug his nails into my skin.
“Let. Go. Of me.”
“Or what? You’ll walk away? Isn’t that what you do?”
My eyes slowly rose to meet his. I got it. He thought I was a pushover, but that wasn’t true even for a second. There were just things I believed in, and making my wife unhappy by getting another person killed was something I strongly didn’t believe in.
“I’m not turning her in, and that’s final.”
“You’re such a fucking pussy,” he sneered.
Cocking my head, I unleashed all the nasty shit that had been building up inside me since I got here. “Didn’t you hurt your wife to save her?”
His jaw clenched hard as his grip tightened.
“Yeah, made her think you were cheating on her so you could save her life. At least, that’s what I heard.
That’s what my research tells me.” Sighing, I tsked a few times before continuing.
“Couldn’t figure out a way to save her life, so you decided to break her heart instead. Which, in the end, still hurt her.”
“You know nothing,” he growled, his grip tightening.
“I know that she would rather have been told about the situation than kept in the dark, wondering what the hell she did wrong to make you throw everything away.”
With the flex of his muscles, I gripped his wrist and tore it from my arm, twisting it up behind his back as I shoved him against the wall, slamming his face into the dirty drywall.
“I know that every fucking second you were without her, you were fucking miserable.”
I wrenched his arm up, but he refused to beg for mercy.
“I know that even when you hated yourself, you knew deep down that you were doing the right thing because if she got hurt, there would be no moving forward for you. You’d hate yourself forever.
You’d never forgive yourself if anything happened to her because you refused to put away your pride to save her life. ”
He was breathing hard, his white teeth bared in a snarl.
“That’s all I’m trying to do for Krista,” I said, lowering my voice. “She would hate herself if anything happened to another person because of her, even if it wasn’t her fault.”
Slowly, I released him, taking a step back. He shook out his arm, turning to face me with a little less malice than before.
“Maybe I am a fucking idiot, but I will exhaust every option possible before I do something that I know will hurt Krista.”
“Because you love her,” Jeff spoke up.
I glanced his way, shaking my head at the silly grin on his face.
“Love? I think it’s too soon for that. But I do like her, and I do want to see her happy. I want to know if this marriage has even the slightest shot at working, and if I’m going to do that, I can’t start it out with my wife hating herself. So, yeah, I’ll do whatever’s necessary.”
“Even put her life on the line?” Michael asked, inclining his head at me.
“That’s what I’m trying to avoid.”
“But if it came down to it, and that was the only way, would you go through with it?”
This was some sort of trick question. Why would I put her life on the line when all I was trying to do was protect her?
Michael shoved to his feet, stalking toward me. “I have a way for you to end this, but you’re not gonna like it.”
Of course I wouldn’t.
“Send her in.”
“What?”
“Yeah, what?” Liam snapped beside me.
“It could work,” Derek grinned. “It’s fucking crazy, but—”
“No,” I said immediately. “I told you what Alicia said. He’ll never buy it. She won’t risk it. So, why the hell would I—”
“Because you send her in as herself,” Parker interrupted.
I rolled my eyes, scrubbing a hand over my face. “She looks just like Alicia. There is no way—”
“There’s every way. Come on, Rob. This is what you do. You’re the information man. So, go gather up all the information on Krista, and send her in.”
I shifted, trying to figure out his endgame. “Is this to prove that I don’t really care about her?”
“Not at all.”
“Then you want your sister dead. Is that it?”
“You said it yourself, she won’t be happy if she gets someone else killed. So, this is how you get the Ratti family off your back.”
It was insane. He was insane. “This is your sister!”
“Yes, and I prefer her alive more than dead,” Parker grinned. “I’m pretty sure my parents would feel the same way.”
“I don’t know,” Jeff sighed. “Pop’s kind of grumpy lately. Never know what he’ll say.”
I ignored him and focused on Parker. “If I send her in, they could put a bullet in her head before she gets a chance to speak.”
“We bring in Chance and set him up on the roof across from DeLuca’s apartment. He’s a sniper. With a single bullet, he could take DeLuca out if he so much as pulls a gun on her.”
“Then let’s do that now!”
“It still wouldn’t eliminate the problem of the Ratti family going after you,” Sinner spoke up. “Krista buys time for you to get the intel. Chance uses his sniping skills for good.” He shrugged, grinning happily at me. “Seems like a win-win.”
I faced Parker, my eyes wide with disbelief. “You actually want to go through with this?”
“I actually want my sister to live, so yes, I want to go through with this. It’s our best shot since neither of you has the balls to hand over Alicia.”
He handed over a phone, nearly laughing at me. “Now, you just get to tell her.”
Telling her wasn’t the problem. She’d agree in an instant. The rant I gave before I left the house was.
The calm look she gave as she walked away. The silent storm as she headed upstairs. I snatched the phone out of his hands and stared at the numbers.
Yeah, this was going to go well.