Page 94 of Blind Devotion
He sighed, probably debating how much to say in case the line was tapped. He was probably scratching at his eyebrow, a signature tick for him. “Police found him riddled with bullets.”
I nodded. “Good.” I just wished I’d been the one to pull the trigger.
“You’re safe now. You can come home.”
“I’m happy he’s dead, and I’m grateful you never gave up on me. But I’m not coming home.”
I told him about my upcoming audition. He argued I could do the same at Juilliard. He didn’t get it. He didn’t want to. I was staying, and that was final. We spoke about everything and nothing, about his new responsibilities as the mafia don, about my eyes, about time lost. He was one of the toughest people I knew. You had to be to survive our father. In the end, he said he wouldn’t interfere and take me back to California but that he wanted it known he disagreed with my decision to stay with Adrien.
I wanted to give Adrien a chance to explain. Whether I stayed with him afterward was undecided, but if I told Renzo that, he’d be on a plane to come get me within the hour.
“Renzo, wait,” I called out before he could hang up. “About what happened with Yannick. How were you in the hospital with me instead of…you know?”
“Adrien.”
It matched the clue Alizé gave, but I was still swimming in the dark. “Then why do you hate him?”
“Because I didn’t need protecting. You did. Take care, sis. I love you. Make sure that fucker treats you exactly like you deserve, and you call me the second he doesn’t.”
Chapter 37
Icouldn’tletherleave me. I wouldn’t.
Restlessness itched beneath my skin. I felt myself spiraling, losing control. The need to act, protect, and dominate drove me hard. I had to do something to manage the urges, which was why I was here, in Germany, dealing with this crap, instead of Erel or another one of my men.
I spun my pocketknife around and around on the end table next to the sofa chair I sat in. It was the only sound in the FinTech CEO’s home in Munich, other than his wife’s soft snoring from their bedroom down the hall.
A door shut downstairs, and I smacked my palm onto my knife handle to stop its rotation.
“Heidi,” my prey called out, followed by inane chatter in German. Bottles clanked. Liquid gurgled, and ice clinked. As predicted by the Endgame research files we kept, he made himself a drink and emptied it in one go. The man was a creature of habit. It took him a while to realize his wife gave no answer.
“Heidi?”
I smirked as he headed upstairs just as anticipated. He repeated her name louder, cresting the last step to his upstairs lounge area.
“Shh, she’s sleeping,” I told him.
He froze. Even in the dark with nothing but moonlight to track his path, the widening of his eyes was comical.
“You.”
“Me.”
Two shadows blocked his retreat from behind—my team—but he hadn’t seen them yet. Two more waited in the hallway if needed. I flicked my pocketknife open to keep his attention. The blade gleamed in a ray of moonlight shining through the window wall.
“What have you done to my wife?”
“Nothing but slipping her a sleeping pill. She looked like she needed it after her latest bout of chemo.” His throat bobbed. Good, I wanted him nervous. He’d be downright jittery if he realized my men drove her home after her session because this slimy fuck was too busy sticking it to his secretary. “I imagine she’ll be out peacefully for hours. It’ll let us finally finish our business.”
Karl Bauer was a skinny man with a long, rectangular face and droopy eyes. He looked like he probably had not seen the inside of a gym for decades. Online and over the phone, he might have had the guts to defy me, but in person, he was just another overwrought, skittish businessman with very little holding him together.
He darted to his left to the console where he kept a particularly sharp letter opener. One of my men from down the hall stepped in front of the furniture piece, blocking his path. Karl veered about and flipped the nearest light switch on.
A smart move with the floor-to-ceiling windows if I hadn’t turned off the light breaker to this portion of the house. Nolights, no cameras, no trace. No one to see what happened in this room.
I leaned my chin on my clasped hands. “Tonight, you’re going to sign your company over to me.”
The man nearest the console slammed a contract and pen in front of Bauer. He jumped like a flighty little mouse, and we hadn’t even done any damage yet.
