Page 24 of The Queen's Game (Ruthless Games 1)

NINETEEN

REBECCA

My heart stayed inmy throat the entire drive to Anthony’s office. I agreed to the invitation to show I could be lenient. Truthfully, I was elated they wanted to talk business. And they allowed Vale and Gil to accompany me which meant they didn’t plan to kill me.

I gave a stiff nod to Anthony’s assistant, a girl who looked barely out of high school wearing a ridiculously short skirt. With a glance around, I noticed all the other women in his office were older. Seasoned. Anthony didn’t like seasoned. He wanted eye candy.

Manwhore.

I spotted Sebastien’s guard Silas lingering near the coffeepot.

The assistant buzzed me in and when Vale and Gil followed me, Anthony sent them a warning look. Gil backed off, but Vale protested. Turning to them, I said, “I’m fine.”

“I hear one sound I don’t like, I’m going in there,” Vale said, opening the door for me.

“Deal.” I glided into the office.

The scent of male aggression overwhelmed me. All six eyes on me at once set me off balance, but I swallowed past the confusing sensations coursing through me. I felt something very different for each man. At the end of every lingering thought though, lie something very visceral. All of our base instincts, who we truly were, were identical.

“Rebecca.” Anthony greeted me with a kiss on the cheek.

That cologne of his teased my brain, a nice change from the horrible smell wafting from the beef slaughter houses a few blocks away. “Is this office new, Anthony?” I chose to play nice for starters, but kept moving further into the office. Centering myself. Making my position as leader known.

“Nope. Always been in this office.” Messina sat down behind his desk with his legs crossed, one ankle resting on the opposite knee. He wore no jacket, just a white shirt and a dark blue tie. His jet-black hair and olive skin made him breathtakingly beautiful. A man that good-looking was trouble.

Sebastien stood in front of the window and after his eye-fucking stare when I walked in, he turned back to the sky.

I’d never gotten over him, no matter how hard I tried. Even though I had Vale protecting me in school, Sebastien had towered over everyone. When he’d put his arm around me, I felt like nothing could ever hurt me. We were so close, dated throughout high school and college. Then he dumped me out of nowhere. Never gave me a reason. I’d been waiting for him to snap out of what had spooked him about us.

These past five years had been so brutal, but they also flew by. Spending every New Year’s Eve at some gala with my father and no one to kiss at midnight had been the only reminder that another year without Sebastien was behind me. All I’d thought during those painfully lonely hours was that I’d be in that exact same place the following year. Alone.

And I’d been right.

Throughout each year, I’d held my breath at parties to see who he’d show up with. I knew socialites were only playthings. A man that handsome fucked a lot of women. I didn’t care what he did with his cock. I cared about his heart and wanted him to love me again.

With our worlds ready to be blown apart, I said, “Hello, Seb.”

His jaw jumped when I called him that, like I was physically dragging us back to the past. When he was a good guy and I was his girl. Before we’d gotten caught in our fathers’ dirty webs.

The full-on view of him, six-four, charcoal gray suit, blue shirt, and gold tie still made my heart pound. That head of dark curly hair had felt so silky in my fingers when I held on as he made love to me. I missed him so much, it hurt to look at him.

“Rebecca,” he said low, and it destroyed me.

That man who loved me was surely gone. Swallowed into his father’s evil world. And I’d sent him away for good with my threat over Sunrise.

I gave only a sidelong glance to Giancarlo which may have been stupid. As far as Anthony and Sebastien knew, I hadn’t seen Gian since our meeting the other day. His reddish-blond hair was extra wavy today and his eyes looked red and exhausted. Our abrupt ending at the club had left me feeling uneasy, and I hadn’t been back.

My heart spiked when I realized Gian looked tired, suggesting he’d been hard at work. The man’s computer skills were enviable on both coasts now that his brother was gone. I used Gil’s help to hide my father. Dad already had an escape plan. Fake passports for him and my mother. I assumed he’d set those up knowing top-notch trackers like Giancarlo and his brother Salvatore could find him.

The non-descript glare in Gian’s eyes though, gave me hope that he’d come up empty. Then again, I could have judged these men all wrong.

My eyes strayed to Anthony’s guards, who wore the vacant stares of ruthless killers. I gave them a nod. Wanted them to see me as a human in case they were ordered to do something violent to me.

I came prepared with my Ruger in my purse and breezed past Anthony’s guards without them patting me down. Anthony always carried knives on him. Sebastien surely had a weapon stashed somewhere. Other than fierce hacking skills and an amazing cock, I wasn’t sure what Gian had adopted as his weapon of choice.

I wasn’t the enemy. Yet.

“Are we prepared to make a presentation to your fathers about ridding yourselves of Sunrise?” I glanced at my ex. “Bastien, we could use your legal skills.” I laid my purse on Anthony’s desk and leaned against it. I gave him my cutest harmless kitten smile and lifted my leg like a schoolgirl in love. “Do you have any idea what kind of hero’s welcome you’ll get in the media? You can even hire a PR firm to put out press releases blaming unnamed greedy middle managers and that Sunrise was buried without any of your knowledge.”

Silence.

Sebastien and Giancarlo however, traded glances. Anthony kept his gray gaze right on me, a smile curling his full lips.

“And won’t coming forward make the US Attorney’s office go lenient on your fathers?” I asked.

“Not necessarily,” Sebastien ground out.

“Then what if—”

“Enough!” Anthony shot to his feet, and I was surprised it took that long.

“We have another idea,” Giancarlo spoke up.

“Really?” I faced him folding my arms. “Tell me.”

“You may want to sit down.” That low tenor of the voice he used while we played our games, the voice that made me wet worried me.

I glanced around. “None of you are sitting. Has it not sunk in yet? I’m in charge now. My father is gone. I run the Domenico empire. That makes me your queen, fellas.”

“Empress,” Sebastien mumbled.

“What?”

“If you run an empire, you’re an emperor. Or an empress.”

“Call me whatever you want, Bastien.” Please call me yours. “I’m in charge. Everyone in my father’s world has been told he’s gone. The guys on the street, the captains, have all sworn their allegiance to me. As far as Sunrise, my general counsel and her staff are standing at the ready to cut away our ties to that mess, and let it wither. I came to you three out of respect.”

Anthony’s eyes were all fury. He reached behind him and took out an elongated alligator-skin case that was clipped to his belt. “Now you listen to me.”

“As we said,” Giancarlo crossed the room and stood behind me. He waved his arm, calling the rabid dog off. “We have another idea.”

“I’d love to hear it.” I spun around and let him see my tongue at the word love. Our eyes met, and it took him a moment to speak. Like me, he was remembering our passionate nights, how dark he got when he fucked me, the heat we created.

He swallowed hard, his Adam’s apple bobbing in his throat. “I gave you the option of sitting,” he finally said. “Our answer to you, Becca, is simply, no.”

“No.” I shook my head. “No, what?”

“No.” Anthony removed his knife. “We’re not terminating anything.”

“Your father is in his eighties. I doubt he’ll do well in prison.”

“He’s not going to prison.” Anthony smiled. “No one’s going to prison.”

I folded my arms. “There’s always the possibility of a sympathetic jury. You want to gamble your lives like that?”

“You realize it’s your word against ours,” Gian said from behind me.

I pivoted, worried that Sebastien had checked out of the conversation. “No, it’s your word against mountains of evidence.”

“You’ll be implicated too,” Anthony said.

“I have complete, plausible deniability.” I knew this because Julian had told me so, but I wasn’t dropping his name into the mix yet. “I have a rock-solid time tracking device that shows once I was made aware, I started the process to divest. My father however, would have been fucked.”

“And you sent him to the Maldives,” Gian said in an even tone.

“Right, because there’s...” I started to shake.

Fucking Giancarlo!He knew where my father was.

“Cat got your tongue, Becca?” Anthony grinned like the fucking Grinch.

“What makes you think he’s in the Maldives?” I worried Gian was tricking me. There weren’t hundreds of countries without extradition.

Giancarlo shook his head and took out his phone. I was more afraid of that thing than Anthony’s knives and Sebastien’s shotgun. “This is your mother, right?”

My hands shook as I reached for his cell. Yup, that was my mother, walking around a crowded Asian market. “How...”

“You trying to hide him insulted me, Becca.” He swiped at his phone. “See this?”

“I don’t want to look.”

“Look at it, Becca,” Sebastien spoke up.

Help me, Seb. Run away with me.

With hazy eyes, I stared at the screen, prepared to see my parents tied up with blindfolds and gags. No, it was still Mom shopping. “Okay.”

“See this guy right here?” Gian widened the shot. A bald man dressed in a white shirt and tan dockers wearing shades stood off to the side, stock still.

I swallowed. “Yeah. I assume that’s your hitman?” Speaking of hitmen, where was Kato?

My brain grinded gears to figure out a way to get my parents off that damn island. Sebastien had a house in Belize. I had to work him separately. I stupidly came to all three of these guys at once. I should have just gone to him. Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.

“Watch this.” From his briefcase, Gian took out an iPad. A few swipes later, a video played. “Here.”

I took the iPad in my hands, watching my mother walk around the market. I destroyed her and my father’s phones. Kato’s too. I gave my father one damn thing to do when he got to that island. Find a courier to deliver messages personally. Worked for freaking Bin Laden for years.

Without their phones, I had no way to quickly warn them. I had to find my own courier to communicate with them.

Gian brought his phone to his mouth. “It’s me. 621. Right now.”

“What the hell is 621?”

“My commands to them are coded,” Gian answered, not looking at me. “Watch the screen, Becca.”

No. Giancarlo wouldn’t kill my mother and make me watch. My eyes strayed to Anthony. That was his game. This was just proof that Gian bested me. I accepted that and now had to fix it.

“Why thank you,” my mother’s voice came out of Gian’s phone.

I stared at the iPad. The bald man was standing right next to her, handing over her purse.

“You have to be careful here, ma’am. Lots of kids try to pickpocket Americans.” The man’s voice sounded so kind and caring. Surely, my mother would be fooled easily by him.

I stared at the screen while the bald man spoke to my mother. The sound of the man’s voice came from Gian’s phone, but the shot I was watching was still far away.

“Who’s filming this?” I asked Gian.

“I’m hanging up. 417,” Gian said.

On the screen, the man walked away from my mother.

Gian pointed to the device in my hand. “Hit the icon on the upper right part of the screen, Becca.”

I saw several layered squares with rounded corners. I tapped it. The screen changed from one black and white video to four. All different angles and shots.

I dropped the iPad and glared at Gian. “How many men did you send to that island?”

“Five,” Gian said, picking up his iPad.

My eyes strayed to Sebastien, who stared out the window, his lips pursed like he couldn’t face me being beaten like this.

Exhaling and setting my shoulders back, I said, “You’re assuming your men can and will just walk into my father’s house there and murder them.”

They also didn’t know my father was dying of cancer. My father was as good as dead. I hated to look at it like that. Now it was my mother’s life against all the women who would be victims of MATOHN. What a freaking choice.

“Go ahead, Gian. Kill them.” I called his bluff. “They’re all you have. Then what?”

“No. We also have you,” Sebastien finally said something.

Me?“You don’t have my evidence. Here are my cards, men. The FBI doesn’t know where the drugs are being made. The bound presentation I showed you is what they want. You don’t know where I’ve hidden it or the disc copy. And I will tell you, they’re not with Nate. Or my sisters.”

“I believe you.” Anthony rounded his desk and got close to me, holding his knife. “You wouldn’t put them at risk. Plus, those are really dumb hiding spots.”

No, the dumber spot was a place I’d have to tear up my house to get. And what if I never made it back there to grab the evidence if I needed to go into hiding? Then Domenico Holdings would be shut down by the FBI.

“What are we doing, men? Is that where we are? I send the evidence to the FBI and you kill my parents? You realize I can testify to that too.”

Anthony grinned. “Try it. See who’ll believe you once we’re done with you.”

“Done with me?” I glanced at each of them. “What do you mean, done with me?”

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