Page 108 of The Complete Truth Duet
Leaning in, he put his lips to my ear and snarled, “You’re in my world now. Losing River is just the tip of how bad I could fuck you. You think Manuel is rotting in a prison cell because he cooperated? Don’t fucking test me, Cora. This is not a fight a woman like you wants to take on.”
The pressure in my chest mounted as the adrenaline and the lack of oxygen made my head light. “What…do…you want?” I choked out.
I waited for him to once again ask me where Catalina was.
I waited for him to hit me or scream at me.
I waited for him to strangle me until I passed out or died when I told him that I didn’t know where she was.
But I never, not in a million years, expected his next words.
“Tell her to stay gone,” he seethed. “I swear to God, she gets one fucking idea about showing back up here to claim her brothers’ estates, thinking she can waltz back in, ruin my career because now she has a dime in her pocket… Fuck her. I will kill both of you before I let that happen.”
My vision was tunneling and my lungs were screaming for oxygen, but my mind couldn’t process his words. It was like he was speaking a different language.
Thomas had spent years trying to find Catalina. The same way the Guerreros thought they owned me, Thomas believed with his whole heart that he owned her. Manuel had all but given her to him as a gift. In his eyes, she was the lucky one. No one walked away from a man like Thomas Lyons. Add to the fact that she’d taken his daughter with her… Forget about it. I’d always imagined he’d be still trying to find her on his deathbed to make her pay. But now he wanted her to stay gone?
“I don’t…” Understand. “know where she—”
He gave me a hard shake, slamming me into the wall, knocking what little air I had left from my chest. Closing in on me, he pressed his large frame against my side. “Don’t you fucking lie to me. You know where she is. You have always known. I was willing to let you keep your secret when it benefited me. But if Catalina thinks for one second that her piece-of-shit brothers being ash is her cue to come out of hiding, she obviously needs a reminder of who she really needs to fear.”
I gasped for air when he slid his hand up to my jaw. His fingers bit into my face as he tilted my head up so I would look at him.
His malevolent gaze locked on mine as he seethed, “If you ever want to see River again, you will pick up the fucking phone and tell that bitch to stay…gone.”
He released me with a shove, pain detonating in my head when it cracked against the wall. Whether it was because of my shaking legs, my blurred vision, or my heaving chest, my ability to balance on my own two feet disappeared. My only options were to eat the tile floor or sink to my ass.
I chose the latter but kept my eyes on Thomas as best I could.
He straightened his suit coat and ran a hand over the top of his hair to smooth it back into place. “I took the liberty of scheduling your hearing with Judge Mayso for next week. Before you get too excited, he owes me more favors than I have time. You get word to Catalina, I’ll make sure everything is dropped and you get River back, no questions asked. But I’m watching you, Cora. I catch so much as a scent of that bitch in this city and you can kiss that child goodbye. Say you understand me.”
With my heart in my throat, I nodded.
“Say it!” he demanded, rushing toward me.
I told my body not to flinch. I wanted to be strong enough to lock my emotions down the way I’d trained myself over the last decade. But in just one week, I’d become so emotionally raw that I couldn’t fake it anymore. In that time, every emotion I’d ever possessed had gone to war inside me, my body physically becoming nothing more than the ravaged battlegrounds left behind.
It was supposed to be over.
I was supposed to be free.
But maybe freedom was nothing more than a delusion to convince people like me to continue working in hell. Without the light at the end of the tunnel, we’d accept the darkness for what it truly was: eternal.
I closed my eyes, bracing for his assault, and rushed out, “I got it. I heard you. She won’t come back. I promise.”
“I hope for your sake you can keep your word on that.”
I peeked up when I heard his footsteps moving away. The door opened silently, the sound of people in the distance being the only proof.
