Page 212 of Plunge into Obsession

She was an older, more cynical version of the girl I had grown up with. Her hair was no longer long but cut short into a bob, and there was something hard about her.

As if the years weren’t too kind… or that she hadn’t been.

I was seeing a ghost.

That was the only explanation.

I opened my mouth and screamed.

Noise came from down the stairs, but Lucinda and Melinda moved before I could react. They climbed onto the bed, Lucinda sliding behind me and holding the knife up to my neck while Melinda held my arms down, her eyes set in a hard glint.

I let out another noise of disbelief as movements came from the doorway.

Gabriel cautiously moved into the room, his dark eyes taking in the situation and pausing from where the women were holding me.

I pleaded with Gabriel with wide eyes, but he wasn’t looking at me.

He was looking at the woman I had spent years searching for. The woman who was pressing the knife closer to my skin—so much so it was starting to hurt.

There was no emotion in Gabriel’s eyes.

No surprise.

He paused in his step when Lucinda pressed the knife closer to my skin.

“Lucinda. I don’t think we have been formally introduced,” Gabriel said casually as if we were running into Lucinda at some social event.

I blinked back the tears threatening to fall.

I could not allow myself to fall apart.

Not until I understood what the fuck was going on.

Lucinda laughed, the sound empty and ugly. “No. But I know all about you. Why, you’re Gabriel Mendez. The capo of the Michoacán Cartel. An empire you took by killing your brother.”

I might have been mistaken, but Lucinda almost sounded angry about it. Almost as if she…

“Ah. Now I see,” Gabriel said smoothly. “The puzzle pieces are falling into place, are they not? You loved my little brother.”

She didn’t confirm or deny it, though she shook slightly.

“But did Luis love you?” Gabriel continued.

She pressed the knife further against my skin. I whimpered, and Gabriel tensed slightly, his eyes moving to mine. For the briefest moment, he didn’t look unemotional or level-headed.

He looked tormented.

I shifted slightly on the mattress, and Melinda tightened her grip on me as if she thought there was a chance I could escape.

I knew why Melinda was doing this. She wanted Gabriel for herself, and she hated me, and perhaps him as well, for kicking her out of his life.

“He loved me,” Lucinda said. “We were going to spend the rest of our lives together and rule the Michoacán Cartel. And you fucking took that away from me. Tookhimaway from me!”

Her voice vibrated with her anger.

Gabriel shook his head.

“No,” he said, his voice apathetic. “Luis was too greedy to ever share his power with anyone, especially a woman.”

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