Next to a man who didn’t give a shit about me.
I wish I had someone to turn to.
Normally, I’d have called Brianna. I’d have gone to her with my troubles and would have vented my frustrations to her, but she was no longer an option. Now, I knew my cousin had never cared about me. She’d never considered me family. All I was to her was a means to an end. And now that the end had come, I had been left in the dust.
“Why does everyone leave me?”
I drew in a deep breath and eased the covers off from my head. The sunlight forced itself into the room, illuminating the pure beauty of it before my very eyes. I sighed as I rolled over, facing the wall the bed bucked up to. I curled my legs back up and held them tightly. I slid against the silken sheets that were now smeared with my lipstick.
“Great. Another thing for him to bitch about,” I murmured.
More than ever, I wanted to find a way to make Israel love me. I mean, I figured stealing business from the man who wanted to kill us would’ve been enough, but, apparently, that wasn’t the case. And since he didn’t want my body, I had nothing else to give him.
I’m poor.
As the realization dawned on me, I slowly sat up. Holy shit, I was poor. I had nothing without Israel. Because if he was to cast me out on the street that day, I’d have nothing. No home to go back to. No family to welcome me in. No bank account to live off of and no clothes that were mine to keep. It knocked the wind out of me. It made me feel queasy.
And when I felt bile creeping up the back of my throat, I lunged myself toward the bathroom.
“Oh, fuck,” I choked out.
After dry-heaving in the toilet for a while, I found myself a new resolve. I had to figure out what Israel wanted. It was plain and simple. Yes, he wanted to trust me, but I had to figure out how best to earn that trust because I wasn’t great at being a toddler obeying her father’s orders. I did, however, excel at getting to the true heart of a problem and to do that, I need to get to know him.
Which meant I had to access his home office.
I mean, he spent more time there than he did anywhere else. Including with me. So, that held the answers to his heart and his passion, right? I really hoped so because as I cleaned myself up, I prepared myself to start rifling through his things. His files. Maybe there was a project he was working on I could help him with. Or, maybe there was a customer he couldn't sweet-talk whom I might be able to swing to our side.
His side. “Someone’s side.”
After cleaning myself up, I threw on a bathrobe over my silken bedroom robe. I tied it off and fluffed out my hair as I slipped into the hallway. I didn’t hear Israel upstairs. I didn’t smell his cologne throughout the penthouse at all. So, that meant he had left a while ago.
Long enough for his scent to follow him.
“Time to take a look around.”
I figured the search would take me a while. I knew he was doing a lot of business in the kitchen, but I didn’t know where he was keeping everything. Was there some secret room back here I didn’t know about? I knew there was a phone in the pantry, but that was it.
Until I spotted a folder underneath the kitchen nook bench.
“What is that?” I asked.
I bent down and picked it up before I started flipping through the contents. It didn’t take me long to figure out what I was looking at. I furrowed my brow as I read through page after page of information on my family that Israel had commissioned from his private investigator. However, these documents were old. In fact, these were the documents Israel had presented to me a while back.
So, why were old documents hiding underneath the breakfast nook bench?
I dipped back down and rummaged underneath until my fingertips landed against something else. I grunted as I pulled the file out, and the glistening front of the folder forecasted some new information. I sat down at the table and flipped it open. My eyes scanned the documents and the redacted statements and the notes taken in the margins of the photocopied paperwork.
And when I knew what I was looking at, I gasped.
“Oh, Israel.”
Embedded within the papers were quotes and other things from local lawyers. And if my eyes weren’t deceiving me, everything lined up to serve one purpose:
Israel was looking into ways to charge Pava with my family’s murder.
“You know, you really shouldn't be snooping through his things.”
I snapped the folder closed as Giovanni’s voice sounded in the kitchen.
“What the hell are you doing here?” I asked.
He grinned. “I suppose I could ask you the same thing.”
I stood. “Well, I currently live here. What's your excuse?”
“Just dropping by for a visit. Is Israel around?”
She really wished she had on more clothes. “I don’t believe you for a second. What are you really here for?”
He nodded to the folder. “Does he know you’re looking around in his things?”
“Does he know you were coming by?”
He shrugged. “Of course not. It was supposed to be a surprise. I thought you two had a deal that wherever he went, you went?”
Shit. He’s right. “Israel had an emergency.”
He walked towards me. “I hope you’re better in bed than you are as a liar. Because that was rough. Want to try again?”
I backed up. “Don’t come any closer.”
“I just want to have a conversation on why I’ve caught you screwing around with my brother’s things. That’s all.”
“Those folders
