Page 58 of When She Unravels
“Okay,” I say.
“Come on.” He takes me by the hand and opens the door. “Martina, there’s someone I’d like you to meet,” he says as he steps inside the room with me on his heels. “This is Ale.” He moves aside to reveal someone perched on the edge of his desk.
My greeting comes to a sharp stop inside my throat. My lips part. Everything around me turns blank as my vision narrows on the girl.
Thegirl.
The one I saw curled up on the floor of my basement through the screen of an iPad.
Her eyes widen in recognition.
Reality feels like a house of cards that’s one breath away from crashing down.
She sucks in that breath.
And then, she screams.
CHAPTER17
DAMIANO
When the newsbroke that someone abducted my sister while she was on her trip to New York, I didn’t panic or give into the rage I felt. I put my best men on tracking her down, called in every favor I had, and scheduled a flight out to New York. I was in the air when I got the call from Ras that she’d made it back to Spain traumatized but alive and seemingly unharmed. We rerouted the plane. I made it home and held my sister in my arms for a long while.
Then I summoned her bodyguard and put a bullet in his head.
Ras was there when I did it. He can vouch I didn’t kill the guard because I was overcome with emotion. No, it was because I run a tight fucking ship, and I can’t afford to have 250 pounds of useless flesh on my team. He stopped providing value, so he ended up dead.
It’s that same levelheadedness that’s allowing me to keep my expression neutral as my little sister screams her head off at the sight of the woman I just claimed as mine.
Mari’s a teenager, but even with all those hormones, this isn’t a normal reaction.
Something is really fucking wrong.
I slam the office door shut behind me. “Mari.”
My sister jumps off my desk and runs to me. Her face is drained of blood, and her eyes are wide. “Dem, I know her,” she says in a trembling voice. “She’s the wife of the man who took me.”
My blood turns to ice.
I knew Ale Romero was lying about her name, but I never could have imagined this. Getting her into my bed had seemed like a more important endeavor than finding out the truth about her. After all, my own secrets were bound to overshadow hers, and I despised being a hypocrite.
Looks like I was wrong.
Looks like I lost mygoddamn mindover a striking face and a body forged in the depths of my fantasies.
How could I have allowed this?
I pull Mari into my side and inhale her scent to temper the violent anger that jolts through me like a bolt of thunder. My nostrils flare. Even her familiar smell, the smell of home and everything that’s good in this wretched world, isn’t enough. Slowly, I move my gaze back to Ale.
She’s looking at us as if she’s seen a ghost.
I clench my fist by my side.
“I can explain,” she says, her voice a mere rasp.
I force a smile to twist my lips. “I’m sure this is all just a misunderstanding,” I say, squeezing Mari’s hip to let her know I’m lying. “Both of you, take a seat. I’ll get you some water.”
Ale’s face softens with relief. She’s bought it, which means she must think I’m a gullible idiot. Why wouldn’t she? All this time, she played me for a fool.
