He’d tried to kill her. “All I want is the truth. All I want is for all of us to come out of this situation with what we want. Is that too much to ask?”
“In this lifestyle? Yes. I took you in, Bonnie. I raised you after losing my own damn brother, the only shred of family I had left in this world. Every time I looked at you, I saw him. You have his eyes, Bonnie. His wide, sparkling, telling eyes. And every time I looked at you when you were a child, it hurt me all over again. I relived that night all over again. Time after time. And yet, I still took you in. I still fed you, clothed you.”
“Groomed me to be a killer before you tried to kill me too.”
“Wow. He’s really gotten inside your head.”
“This is all me, uncle. You want me, not Israel. And if I have to keep chiseling away at what you love more than anything on this planet, I will. Is that clear?”
He snickered. “Have you even figured out what you want in all of this?”
I blinked. “What?”
“What’s your end goal, Bonnie? Hm? What do you get out of all this?”
I slowly sat back down. “That’s for me to know and you to find out.”
“Let me take a guess. You either don’t know what you want at all because you’ve been blindsided by Israel, or that’s what you want at the end of all this. Israel. And judging by the conversation you had with my daughter—”
“My cousin, you mean. Because you sure as hell don’t—”
“I’d watch what you say next, Bonnie. Look down at your chest.”
My eyes slowly lowered, and I saw not one, not two, but three different red dots.
All of them, dancing around my heart.
“What are you doing?” I glowered.
“I know you’ve fallen in love with the man. I know you’re fighting this war on his side so you can get him to fall in love with you. I know you two have a deal that you go nowhere without one another, yet Israel leaves all the time with you left behind. I know where you are, Bonnie. I know how your mind works. I know weaknesses you don’t even know you have yet. So, listen closely before we cut this call. Are you listening?”
“Actually, no. I’m not.”
I shot up from the bed and lunged into the bathroom. I hung up the phone call and crawled my way into the stone shower, then curled up into a ball. I expected to hear gunfire piercing through the walls. I expected hollow-point bullets to start battering the outer limits of this penthouse. I waited on bated breath for the pain to swallow me whole. But at least I could do knowing I stuck it to my uncle the only way I knew how to at the time.
Except, absolutely none of that happened.
“Hello?” I asked.
I slowly lifted my head and let my hands fall to the ground.
“Hello?” I asked again.
I stood to my feet and inched my way out of the stone shower. I got down onto my hands and knees and avoided all the windows as I crawled out of the bedroom. The second I made it into the hallway, I scrambled to my feet. I rushed up the stairs and made a break for Israel’s room, my heart pumping wildly in my chest.
“Israel! Are you in here!?”
I threw his bedroom door open and looked around, but he was nowhere to be found.
“Israel!” I exclaimed.
My cell phone started vibrating again, and I knew exactly who it was this time.
“What do you want?” I hissed as I answered the phone.
“You know, he really enjoys his grapes, doesn't he?” my uncle asked.
The hairs on the nape of my neck stood on end. “If you hurt one hair on that man’s head—”
“Oh, he’s fine. Just doing a bit of grocery shopping. Though, I’m curious to know why he didn’t wake you up and take you with him. That is your agreement, right?”
“What do you want?”
“I want you to walk away and leave my businesses alone. The three you’ve converted are already talking, and it’s cost me two more businesses I worked very hard to obtain. Now, I’ve decided to excuse those two businesses because it’s not like they made me any money. So, Israel I said ‘good luck’ with those. But Bonnie?”
“What?”
“If you leave the rest of my businesses alone, I’ll call off the hit on you.”
A way out. “So, you do have a hit out on me right now.”
“You call this war off, and I’ll call the hit off.”
“Israel, too.”
“Can’t do that one. He’s direct competition. It’s just business, though. I’m sure you understand since you’re grown enough to rob the hands that fed you.”
I shook with fury. “Then, you can shove your hit where the sun doesn’t shine. If you don’t lay off Israel, then I don’t give a shit what you do. Because you’re going down, either way.”
He sighed. “I really wish you wouldn't have said that.”
He hung up, and I dropped the phone to the floor. I pressed my back against the hallway and slid down, allowing tears of fear and anger and frustration to trail down my cheeks. I let them drip down my neck as I clutched my phone, trying to still my quaking body.
But now, I was painfully aware of just how many windows this damn place had.
You have to call him. You have to call Israel.
“And say what, though?”
Tell him what happened. Tell him about the snipers.
“Is he really going to believe me, though? I can’t even get the man to sleep with me, much less trust me.”
What’s it going to look like if you don’t try, though?
“I don’t know. Like I was secretly working with my uncle all along? He already believes that, right?”
You never know until you call.
I looked down at my
