Instead of showing loyalty to the family, he’d betrayed us. And worst of all, he’d used Isa as a way to get to me.
I clutched Isa’s hand as she lay in the makeshift clinic Ana and Adrian had created for us in one wing of their Vegas desert mansion.
They, along with the Lykaios brothers, had given us the cover we needed to escape the chaos that ensued on the strip following the shooting. Police had swarmed the area as had the media. But thankfully Adrian had used his tech skills to wipe all video surveillance for the vicinity and had gone as far as to wash any evidence of Isa’s blood from the concrete where we’d fallen.
“She’s going to be okay, Weber,” Adrian said as he entered the room. “The bullet went through clean. This is normal after major blood loss. Plus, she has a head injury from the impact of the fall.”
I glared at him. “Did it make any difference to you when Ana was hurt? Tell me you didn’t want to resurrect the fucker even though Ana had already killed him so you could do it yourself.”
I couldn’t hide the rage coursing through my blood.
“I won’t say that. I’d end the bastard again for touching her. You have to understand Isa is strong, just like Ana.”
“Did you get anything out of the asshole?” I clenched the fist of my other hand.
After my soldiers had hustled Isa and me from the very visible walkway around Ida, my time was lost in making sure Isa would live. I knew Adrian would use any means necessary to get the information out of Mancheski.
“You’re not going to like this.”
“As if anything about this whole situation is something I’m going to like.”
“Jonas and Malkovich are behind this.”
“That’s not news to me.”
“No, this was a setup from the beginning. Mancheski’s mother is Malkovich’s distant cousin. He targeted Isa’s friend Lilly before Jonas forced the marriage on you.”
“Why would the fucker do that?”
“I’m going to tell you the story Mancheski told us and you tell me if it makes sense.”
Fine. I stared at Isa, who hadn’t budged an inch since I’d laid her on the bed yesterday.
Over the next twenty minutes, Adrian relayed a history of my family I knew but not in detail.
I was well aware my mother and Jonas’s marriage was forced upon them but I hadn’t realized Mama had done it out of desperation. Her wedding to Andrew was supposed to be the week he was killed, and then shortly afterward, she found out she was pregnant.
With me.
According to the story Adrian told, Jonas had assumed I was his child until my sister Hannah was born. She looked exactly like him, whereas I looked like the spitting image of my uncle Andrew.
This bit of information should have felt like a blow to everything I knew, but seemed to only give weight to the reason I knew a man who was supposed to be my father hated me.
Jonas had treated me like some unwanted burden. The only time he ever handled me as more than garbage had been when Opa was around. Opa, on the other hand, had treated me like his heir from my earliest childhood memory, even going as far as putting my training in the business before that of Jonas’s.
“What does any of this have to do with the hit on Isa? I know Jonas had plans to hand her over to Malkovich.”
Adrian shook his head. “The hit wasn’t on Isa. It was on you. In fact, as of an hour ago, we found at least ten contracts out in the market.”
“Then what does Isa have to do with this?”
“Isa was the reward for carrying out the hit. Malkovich wanted Isa from the time her family made her debut into society. She was just as stunning at sixteen as she is now. Apparently, Benz took offense to Malkovich wanting to negotiate a marriage for his teenage daughter, especially with the reputation Malkovich had for his treatment of his mistresses. Benz may be a ruthless bastard, but he would never sell his only child to a fucker like Malkovich, no matter the reward. Isa is the reason for the Benz-Malkovich rivalry.”
The thought of Malkovich even touching a hair on Isa’s head was unfathomable.
“What does that have to do with our current situation? This makes no sense.”
“Man, you can’t be this dense. I get you’re fucked up with Isa getting shot, but come on. You are the best strategist I know.”
“Don’t make me punch you, asshole. Just spit it out.”
“Jonas gets shit as your uncle. You’ve been the Weber heir since your birth. Your grandfather knew it and your mother knew it. The marriage contract between you and Isa was to protect Isa from Malkovich and you from Jonas. Don’t for one minute believe Jonas wasn’t aware of the marriage contract until recently. This whole thing was too cleverly orchestrated.”
I tried to process everything Adrian had said. Under the marriage contract, Jonas inherited millions. Without it, he got nothing outside of the trust fund Opa had created for each of his sons. He would remain the spare son. And Jonas wasn’t the type of man to make way for himself without trading on the family name as Uncle Fredrik had done.
As my father, even if it was on paper, he would get what was due to him as a retired family head. By putting a hit out on me, he would get the money free and clear and return to the helm of the family structure.
Jonas wasn’t the type to do the dirty work himself. He knew any link to him and my death would cause him more harm than good and open him up to retaliation from inside the Weber organization.
Money was the motivation for everything in Jonas’s
