“Oh really? How do you know that?” I challenge, wondering how much he actually knows or if he’s trying to con me.
“She’s got a tracker in her. Did you think I’d not know where she was at all times?”
I scoff. “Bullshit.” I lean back in my chair as if I don’t have a care in the world. At this moment, I know that we’re about to go toe to toe, but it’s been a long time coming. We may be blood, but we aren’t family. “You’re a liar. Nice try, Rafael. I’m not one to try that with.”
He can see that I’m not budging on this one bit. I’m not the gullible fuck he sent away. “You got smarter in prison.”
“I’m glad you noticed. It means you’re not entirely an imbecile.”
“You think you’re so fucking special, don’t you? You always thought you were.”
“No, I’m just not a psychopath like yourself.” I smirk at the bastard, loving the way he’s becoming unnerved. “What do you really want, Rafael?”
“I told you I want you to give me back my wife.”
“Ha. Are you trying to find another reason to put me back in prison? Because I’ll see you there first. I’ve already got enough on you and your father for you to spend the rest of your lives there. Is that why you tried to kill my lawyer?”
“The lawyer we had nothing to do with. We don’t have problems with the Russians, so we never touched him. Although you, on the other hand, I’d rather see you in a pine box, gladly.”
“You first, Rafael,” I snarl, standing up.
He whips out the gun he hid under his jacket. He goes to pull the trigger, but he has no idea how long I’ve been waiting for this moment. I twist my body to the side as the bullet cracks the window behind me. It’s strong glass so it doesn’t shatter, but I make a beeline in his direction.
As he goes to shoot again, I rush him, sending him to the ground with my arms around his throat, choking him. The gun falls from his hand, but he can still reach it as he stretches for it, so I drill my elbow into his wrist. He hollers out in pain, making me smile.
“God, I love this more than I should.” He kicks me in the thigh, missing my balls, which I’m sure his little ass was going for.
“You need to die,” he croaks out.
I slam my fist into his face. “You first.”
He flails his good arm at me, but it’s too weak, so he reaches for the gun. His fingers just touch the grip when I wrench it from him. I lean in and say, “I have her and I’m fucking her every damn night.”
“You son of a bitch.” He grabs my arm, trying to wrestle the gun out of my hand, but I’m stronger and pull the trigger, shooting him in the chest. My security team arrives as the shot goes off. I fall backward, leaning against my desk as I catch my breath.
“Are you okay, boss?” Joey asks.
“Yeah.” Joey offers his hand and I stand up, setting the gun on the desk. “Call the police.” I look at my brother and know that a medic is useless. His eyes are wide open and his expression is vacant.
The ambulance and the police arrive right after each other. The medics work on Rafael for two minutes, but they know it’s too late. He wasn’t worth saving anyway. He killed the only woman he claimed to love.
The lead officer approaches me and says, “I’m Detective Randall. Mr. Marchetti—”
I cut him off. “Actually, the last name is Benedetti. I had it changed legally yesterday.”
“You’re arguing over a name, and I have a dead body in the middle of your office,” he scolds me, narrowing his brows at me as if I’m supposed to be intimidated.
“And? I killed the bastard in self-defense.” I step away from my desk so they can retrieve the weapon. “You can see he’s been shot with his own gun, and if you look closely you’ll see the nice damage to my window over there.” I point to the giant crack in the window with the bullet hole at the center of it. “If that’s not enough, I recorded Rafael’s conversation with me before I did the world a service.”
“I just can’t believe you don’t have any remorse for killing your own brother.”
“You know about the poisoning, right? The threats, my lawyer in the hospital fighting for his life, and to top it off, this bastard sent me to prison.”
“He was involved?” he questions as if it comes as a surprise. Most really are under the impression that we were a cohesive unit, but we were the furthest thing from a family. The police and the Marchetti family have managed to keep it out of the papers for everyone to see, but there has always been strife between us all. They load my brother on the gurney, zipping up the body bag.
“Yes, but then again, I can’t expect you all to do your job. If it’s not enough, you can view security cameras that show this asshole bypassing my security with this.” I toss the badge at him.
The guy turns white as a ghost, looking up at me with a new sadness and chokes out, “Do you know this detective has been missing for nearly a week?”
Shit. Not that I put it past Rafael at all. “Well, sorry. I don’t even know who’s badge that is.”
“It’s Detective Morel.”
“What? Detective Morel? Shit. Those sons of bitches. They killed him because he told me about my real father. I look over at what remains of my brother in the body bag. “Sorry that you can’t question him now, but if I were you, I’d contact his father; he might know about
