Page 55 of Because I Need You
“I’m the only one who knows?” I asked, voice hoarse. I swallowed to clear it.
She nodded.
“You didn’t go to the police? You didn’t report it?”
She scoffed, wiping her face again. “Please.”
“Isabel.” I took a step forward.
“Don’t you fucking dare.” She shot me a murderous look, holding a finger up. “We had an agreement. You said you keep your promises.”
“I do. I just…I need…” I took another step forward.
“I don’t care what you need, Giovanni,” she shouted, backing away. “This isn’t about you.”
I stopped walking, then took half a step to see if she’d change her mind.
“I swear to God, if you touch me, I will shank you.” She reached into her bag, grabbed a black switchblade, and held it up. Under any other circumstance, this would have turned me on. Fuck, it nearly did right now, but I was still stuck on the rape thing.
“Isabel.”
“I will cut up that perfect face of yours,” she said, and I knew, I knew she’d put that scar on his face. “And I’ll never tell you anything personal again. Ever.”
That was where she got me. Not the cutting up my face bit, but the not telling me anything personal thing, because I wanted more. I needed more. I nodded and retreated a step back, then another. She lowered the knife but kept her eyes on mine. I wanted to fuck the fire out of them. I wanted to hold her and tell her it would be okay because anyone who’d ever hurt her would pay, but I didn’t. Words without actions were just letters strung together. Meaningless. I’d make them mean something, though.
“Who was the other guy?” I asked when I managed to get my throat to work again. “The friend.”
“I don’t know.” She shrugged a shoulder. “I’m not kidding, I really didn’t remember what he looked like until I saw him. Until I…” she shivered hard, wrapping her arms around herself. “Just, please stop it with the questions. You can’t imagine how hard it is for me to say this out loud.”
“Thanks for telling me.” I swallowed again and gave a nod as I turned around and walked out of the room. “We’re leaving in thirty minutes. There’s coffee in the kitchen and Eggos in the freezer.”
He’d raped her. That no-good-fucking-asshole. I was an asshole, I knew that. I wasn’t boyfriend material and I’d treated some women in the past like they were just objects to discard. But rape? Fucking rape? By the time I reached my bedroom, I was shaking. My entire body buzzing with a rage I hadn’t felt in years. Even when I’d found out my sister was dating Lorenzo, who I’d seen as a potential enemy at the time, I hadn’t felt like this. I’d been mad, yes, but not like this. Even when Frankie was killed. Even when Vinny kidnapped my sister. Even when my father didn’t kill Vinny, like he should have. Even when my mother walked out on us like we were meaningless. Even when my father knocked me around or called me names.
Even when I was a teenager and heard all of the things the older women said about me behind my back, the way they spoke about my body like it was just a plaything. Even then, I hadn’t felt this kind of rage. This blind, white heat that shielded my eyes from reason. I slammed my door with the back of my foot and paced the room, taking deep breaths. Focusing on that. Focusing on getting my heart rate back to a normal speed. If I made a call right now, I’d sound like a deranged man. I took one last breath as I took my phone out and pushed Dean’s name on my caller ID.
“I need a name,” I said when he answered. “Lawyer, blue eyes, went to Rutgers’s, graduated the same year as Isabel, maybe a little before or after. Has a scar coming down his hairline to the side of his ear.”
“He practices in New York?”
“Yes.” I let out another breath. “He was at William Hamilton’s luncheon yesterday.”
“Give me an hour.” He hung up the phone.
I threw mine on the bed and growled in frustration. I hadn’t been lying when I told her I didn’t kill people. I didn’t. I had, but I didn’t. It wasn’t something I enjoyed. Some people liked it; men and women I employed genuinely liked it. They got a sick power buzz from it, from the torture, from the killing, from having someone’s life literally in their hands and then taking it. I’d never found it appealing. To me, it had always been a means to an end, or when I was a soldier, an order I couldn’t ignore if I wanted to move up in rank. This guy, I’d kill though. This guy, I’d torture. My pulse was racing at the mere thought of seeing the helpless look on his face. And still, it would never be worse than what he did to her, and who knows how many others. My phone buzzed with a text message. I lunged for it and sat at the edge of my bed. It hadn’t even been four minutes and he’d found the man.
