He glared at the wall. “I’m done talking.”
Cas was a fucking wreck when we rescued him. He wasstillhealing. “I’ll never forgive you for that,” I whispered.
“Fine,” he sighed. The fight in him bled out before my eyes. “I’ll never ask for your forgiveness, and I don’t need it.”
“You pointed a gun at me,” I threw at him. “At my chest, in my father’s study. You planted a trap to lure me there to kill me. You chased me through myhome. You told me I was part of the corruption and you couldn’t take over the Family while I lived.”
“I thought you’d run, Leona. I thought you’d realize this life is too dangerous. And when you didn’t—” Anguish twisted his face. “—I couldn’t let you ruin ten years of work.”
“So you’d kill me?” My tears were hot and bitter. “You’d send assassins after me in LA? You’d press a knife to stomach in acrowded restaurant while you try to push me out of my inheritance?”
He said nothing.
“What work?” I pressed. “What am I caught in the middle of?”
He looked so…empty. He refused to meet my eyes or answer. We’d gotten off track. I still needed to know the truth about what he was hiding, about what the Albanians wanted from him. What he was doing with the Camorra that had caused the Albanians to kidnap one of the most powerful men in New York.
But who was this man sitting in front of me? And how had I ever thought he was my future?
“What happened to the boy I loved?” I asked quietly.
“He died when I was fifteen,” he responded, voice dead. “I buried him with my father.”
Uncle Massimo’s death had changed him. It had taken Cas and me weeks to fix him, but it had worked. He had returned to his normal self. He had been the old Max we knew. So what was he saying?
“Why? What happened?”
“Enough, Leona.” He turned his body to the side.
“Tell me,” I pleaded.
“There’s nothing to tell.”
“You’re lying. Something happened after your father’s death. You’re hiding something.”
“I think both my parents dying is enough reason to grow up.” He cast a sneering glare in my direction. “I’m sorry it took you so long to do the same.”
I sucked in a breath, trying to figure out what to say to him, when the door to our room screeched open. Both of us snapped our heads up, locking on the three Albanian men who entered the room. I crawled away from the bars, closer to Max, even as my torso screamed in pain. Max shifted his body in front of me.
Buzz Cut sauntered closer. He sneered down his ugly nose atthe two of us. I hated the way I involuntarily flinched. “Ah, she’s awake.”
I pressed my lips into a thin line and dug my nails into my palms to keep me from throwing an insult at him. Until my guys came, I couldn’t risk it. He might not kill me, but he’d take pleasure in hurting me. The pain I’d shoved down inside my chest rattled in its locked box.
“The bitch has learned to hold her tongue,” he chuckled. “About time.”
Max reached his good hand behind him and squeezed my knee. “What do you want?”
He sucked his yellow teeth and stared at me, tilting his head to the side. His gaze turned predatory. “Tell me how to infiltrate the Camorra’s main compound.”
The question was for Max, but the disgusting way he licked his lips was directed at me.
Max said nothing.
“I won’t ask again,” Buzz Cut said. “You have to be useful if we’re going to keep you alive.”
“I don’t know,” Max finally replied. “I thought this was a hostage situation, not an interrogation.”
Buzz Cut sighed before turning toward the two men who lurked behind him. “Open the cell. Grab the bitch.”
