Page 51 of The Diávolos: Part Two
Placing my hand on his fist, I assure him, “I’m fine now. It was only a momentary emotional lapse. Either way, I don’t know what I was hoping for, my father will never just offer up information.”
“We’ll get to the bottom of it, I promise,” Evan says, calming down with my touch. My heart warms at his reassurance, but I try to tamp it down. Once I see his jaw unlock, I remove my hand and look back out of the window, thinking the conversation is over.
“From what I’ve been able to gather, the Sisterhood was created by your great-grandfather and passed down generations,” Evan continues after a few moments, and I turn back round. “They’ve been kidnapping girls in Greece and bringing them here,” he adds. My stomach churns, and I nod. It lines up with what I already knew about the tyrannical establishment. It’srevolting.
“They have counterparts overseas doing the dirty work for them. Some girls are sold to perverted pedophiles who marry or use them as sex toys,” Evan explains, the distaste clear in his voice.
A wave of repulsion sweeps over me. In my year of research, I was only able to find surface details about the Sisterhood, added to the information Evan gave me over a year ago when he first told me about them. Gianis offered to help me with his resources, but I refused, determined to untangle the threads of my own history without involving my friends too much. It wasn’t that I didn’t value his input or support; rather, I craved the sense of empowerment I'd get from unraveling my own past.
Unfortunately, everything about the Sisterhood is buried deep.
“What about the others?”
“They’re turned into sex workers in bordellos.”
The disgust intensifies.
“We have to stop them, Evan,” I say, my voice carrying a hint of desperation. “How can we speed things up?”
“The first step is to get your father to fess up,” he replies. “I’ve been trying to discover who else is behind the Sisterhood ever since I found out about it,angeloúdi mou. We’re close. I’ve uncovered as much as I could without finding and infiltrating the establishment.”
“You’ve been investigating the Sisterhood?” I ask with a sudden intake of breath.
“Of course,moró mou. This entire year. As soon as I discovered that your mom was a sister and that you were taken there, I vowed to bring them down.”
The world around me seems to fade into the background.
Evander chose to focus on taking down the Sisterhood because ofmymother—because ofme.
“Thank you,” I whisper, the gentle pressure in my chest growing. “I want to believe that my mother was a good person, but how could she have been if she fell in love with mybaba?”
Evander’s eyes soften, his gaze gentle and understanding. “We can’t help who we fall in love with, angel. And I doubt your mother was anything but an honorable person. She was confronted by an unfortunate situation.”
I face the window, absorbing his words. Hopefully, getting married to Evander will give me access to more information, give me more power to dosomething. To protect other girls from suffering the same fate as my mom—asme. Though it won’t be easy to convince Evan otherwise, I want to find a way to stop my father without killing him. Or maybe I should accept the fact thathe deserves to die, as horrible as it sounds. I love him as the man who helped bring me into this world, but I hate the person that he is now.
15
EVANDER
“We try to hide our feelings, but we forget that
our eyes speak.” —Unknown
We head up to my penthouse and Angelica looks around as if she’s never seen the place. Granted, she only saw it once for a few minutes.
The last time she was here, she was blindfolded almost the entire time.
Flashbacks of the day Angelica finally found out I was her stalker come to mind. When I admitted to her thatIwas her ‘guardian angel,’ she hadn’t taken the news lightly. But I wanted to own Angelica and make her mine for good, despite her being my enemy’s daughter.
She had stood in this very kitchen, cheeks stained with tears and mascara running down her face. She was the most delectable thing I’d ever seen, with messy hair and grass marks all over her dress from our little chase in the forest.
I almost groan at the memory, my dick spasming in my pants.
I wonder if that’s what she’s thinking about now as her eyes travel around the space.
It’s going to be hard getting her comfortable here. I can practically feel the tension in her body.
I take a deep breath. “Make yourself at home. Xan will come up with your stuff soon.”
