Chapter 43
Wylder
“It’s been almost twelve hours, Kortez.” Atlas’s face is set in stone as he watches his brother, hand clasped tightly around the whiskey glass. “I want that explanation now.”
Kortez doesn’t say anything. He sits across from Atlas in the cabin of his private jet, his own glass of whiskey loosely hanging from his fingers as he relaxes with his arms on the back of the couch.
After Kortez confirmed Evie’s whereabouts, we all sprung into action.
Atlas called in his guys, telling them to get down to Jacksonville like the devil was on their ass.
Roman and I worked on packing bags filled with guns, knives, bullets, and even a few hand grenades that they had stashed in my house.
Then I called Carolina, the plant I put in Abel’s school, and asked if she and her husband, Tank, could watch Abel for a few days.
Of course, Abel didn’t want to go. He knew we were going for his mom.
Between Atlas and I, we were able to convince him to go stay with Carolina and her son Will so we could get Evie home safely without worrying about his safety, too.
We promised him we would bring her home.
I’ve never broken a promise to that kid, and I don’t plan to start now.
I refuse to.
The sound of glass shattering brings my eyes back to Atlas with glass now lying around his feet. “Kortez! Fucking answer me!”
I don’t understand how Kortez sits in front of him without a single emotion showing on his face.
He’s been keeping a secret from not only his brother, but the future Don of the Italian mafia.
That’s who Atlas looks like right now – a Don.
A king. He’s all fury and power as he stands, grabbing Kortez’s curls in a fist and dragging his face up to look at him.
“The next time I ask, it’s going to be with a fucking bullet. Eve is at stake here, Kortez! Evangeline! My fucking woman!”
The unmistakable sound of a bullet being slid into a chamber has me springing out of my seat. Atlas’s eyes fly to mine and I hold up my hands in surrender. He doesn’t let go of the gun, though.
“Kor. Just tell him. He’s going to fucking kill you if you don’t.”
Kortez speaks for the first time the entire flight, his voice low and hoarse. “He may kill me if I do.”
“He deserves to know. Now, more than anything.”
Atlas spins, pressing the barrel of the gun into my chest. “You know?” The gun stays level with my heart as he looks down to Kortez. “He fucking knows but I don’t! You fucking answer to me, Kortez! Me!”
The gun is knocked to the ground as Kortez stands, throwing his arm up against Atlas’s throat as he slams him into the wall.
I swear the plane shakes from the movement, the bottles in the bar beside them rattling, but I can’t bring myself to be worried about that when Kortez is finally spitting out his secret.
“I allow myself to answer to you, Atlas! This whole fucking kingdom could be mine if I wanted it! So, watch how you fucking talk to me.” Venom flies from his mouth as he whispers the last line, dragging the point of a knife I never saw him grab until it rests against Atlas’s heart.
“What the fuck are you talking about?” The threat of a blade through the heart doesn’t faze Atlas.
His eyes search Kortez’s until Kor roars and releases his hold.
Atlas rubs at his throat for a moment before reaching out and slapping the blade from Kor’s fingers, proving Kor didn’t want to hurt him in the first place.
If he did, Atlas would be saying his last words right about now.
I stand to the side as Kortez grabs his glass and moves to make another drink. “Aldo offered me Valente throne two years after he took me. I declined. It’s your place, not mine.”
He throws back a shot and pours two more, sliding one across the bar to Atlas. Atlas swallows it down and slides the glass back, “That’s impossible. The family is rooted in blood. The elders wouldn’t have stood for it.”
Seeing that the anger has simmered down, I walk over and sit down beside Roman. He turns his head just enough to whisper, “What do you know?”
I shrug and hear his grunt of acknowledgement before he turns back to watch his cousins.
Roman
Tez doesn’t say anything for a while, instead taking another knife from his pocket and spinning it against his fingertip. I can see the tension rising again in Atlas as he waits.
I’ve only seen Kortez and Atlas go head-to-head one other time when Aldo first brought them back to the estate in New York.
They both left the room broken and bloody.
They didn’t speak for months until one day Atlas saw Kortez limping through the mansion with blood soaking through his shirt and decided to help him.
They’ve been nearly inseparable ever since.
If Kortez has a secret this serious that he’s been keeping, I know it has to be for a reason.
Atlas doesn’t see it that way, though. He’s in boss mode.
He wants answers and he isn’t afraid of getting a little bloody to get them.
He’s his father’s son, after all, and his patience can only wear so thin before it snaps.
“I really don’t want to point a gun at you again, Kortez.”
He stops spinning the blade and clutches the handle in his fist. “If you do, you won’t be able to hold a gun when we go get Evie.”
Atlas swears under his breath before shaking his head. “Just fucking tell me, Kortez. What’s your connection with the warehouse? How did you know that’s where Eve is? What…what does any of this have to do with the Valente throne?”
Tez leans his head back before slamming his blade down into the wooden bar. “Sit down, Atlas.”
To my surprise, Atlas listens. He makes his way back to his chair as broken glass crunches beneath his soles.
Kortez follows, sitting back down across from him. I find myself leaning forward, waiting for his explanation. Beside me, Wylder does the same even though he apparently already knows the secret Tez has been keeping.
“I know that’s where Evie is because that’s where Wade’s mother was held. Aldo locked her away for his men to…have their way with. She died in that warehouse.”
The confusion I feel is reflected on Atlas’s face. “I’m not understanding. If you found that out during recon, why didn’t you let me know before?”
“Because it’s not that simple.” Kortez looks around the cabin, eyes landing on me for a second before he turns to Wylder.
Wyld gives him a subtle nod, something both Atlas and I pick up on.
“Wade’s mother was a maid in your father’s estate.
When Wade was young, his mother got pregnant with another child. ”
“Yeah, Vivianne.”
Kortez shakes his head. “Not Vivianne.” He runs his hands over his thighs before standing and beginning to pace in the middle of the cabin. We all turn to watch him.
“Wade’s mother was raped by Aldo while working for him.
She turned into a shell of who she was and one day, she disappeared.
Wade, Vivianne, and their father all thought she had left.
Wade’s father became abusive and began to work against your family.
” He spins around; hands tangled in his hair.
“This war didn’t begin with Wade, Atlas.
This war began decades ago because of the monster that Aldo is.
Of course, I didn’t know all this years ago.
We could find all this information on his father but never anything on Wade.
Hell, I didn’t even know he had a fucking sister! ”
Kortez’s voice is borderline hysterical as he continues with the story. “I didn’t know how to tell you, Atlas. I didn’t know how to explain that all this bullshit Wade has put us through isn’t because his father was killed in the line of duty.”
“Then what is it because of?” Atlas is surprisingly calm throughout Kortez’s speech, but I have a feeling it’s just the eye of the storm.
Tez laughs, the sound unhinged. I can see his demons rising to the surface – the same one’s that chased Eve through the woods until he fucked her covered in his blood. Except this time, she’s not here to soothe him.
He’s going to break.
“I am! I’m the fucking reason! Our father raped my mother and nine months later, out popped a new heir.
Except, he didn’t want me then. He wanted me to be raised away from the family so I couldn’t grow attached.
So I would be more bloodthirsty. So I would be more like him.
I was supposed to be your replacement!” He grabs the chair in front of him and throws it, the expensive wood frame snapping against the bar.
“That’s how I know Evie is in that warehouse.
It’s the same place I was snatched out of my mother’s arms before being tied up and thrown into the back of a truck while she was shot and bleeding out in the prison our father locked her in! ”
The plane tilts and the captain’s voice comes over the intercom to let us know we’ll be landing soon.
Atlas sits in his chair, eyes downcast and chest deflated as he takes in the weight of Kortez’s words.
I can hardly believe the story, but I know Kortez isn’t lying.
This is what Aldo does. He breaks people.
He drinks the blood of those he should be protecting.
He’s not a king, he’s a coward. And he’s Kortez’s father just as much as he is Atlas’s.
Wylder sits back in his seat but keeps his eyes trained on Tez. When I turn my head, I see why.
Both knives, the one that was stuck in the bar, and the one Atlas threw to the ground, are back in his hands.
Black curls fall over shaking shoulders as he works, and fails, to regulate his breathing.
The dark look in his eyes that makes even me weary is shining bright as he stares down at his hands.
Kortez is gone and his demons are out to play.