“We always have choices, Ethan,” Antonio stated, abruptly coming to his feet.
“They would have killed me if they knew—I was there to save her, I never wanted to hurt her. I tried to talk them out of it, I tried to convince them to just—just ransom her if they needed—”
“You chose your life over my daughter’s,” Antonio state, raising his voice. “Makes sense, anyone would have done the same. Too bad for you, Willow isn’t just anyone, and as it happens, her life is worth much more than yours.”
“Please, Mr. Castellanos, I swear to God, I didn’t want to hurt your daughter. For what it’s worth, I protected her afterward. I didn’t let anyone else hurt her and I made sure she was returned home safely—”
The man cut him off. “Now, the most appropriate payback, obviously, would be to steal your daughter’s innocence like you stole mine.”
Ethan’s whole body went rigid, his blood running cold.
Antonio’s lips tilted up just slightly. “However, I don’t make a habit of keeping pedophiles on my payroll. So tell me how this sounds. Instead of your daughter, one of the guys here will rape your wife—I’d do it myself, but I prefer blondes. While that’s going on, you can have a front row seat as they ransack your house to make it look like a break in, and then put a bullet in each one of their pretty little heads. But don’t worry, you won’t be suffering long—I have a third bullet with your name on it.”
Behind him, Amanda moaned—a gut-wrenching sound of grief, emanating from her and attacking him more effectively than a physical blow.
As his world crumbled around him, Ethan said the worst and only thing he could possibly think to say.
“Your daughter’s in love with me.”
That wiped the smirk right off of Antonio’s face, and gave Ethan a shred of hope.
“Excuse me?” Antonio replied, bushy brows shooting halfway up his forehead.
“Call Willow—please, she wouldn’t want this. She’ll never forgive you if you do this. I understand why you feel this way, I would, too, but I’m telling you, if you do this, Willow will never have anything to do with you again. She may not be returning your phone calls right now, but she still cares, she still… loves you, but if you do this, if you hurt my family, if you kill me—she’ll never forgive you for that.”
For a moment, he said nothing, then very slowly, he ground out, “Am I to understand that your reasoning… for me not to kill you… is that you have been fucking my daughter—who you raped when she was helpless and in captivity?”
Ethan swallowed, second guessing the logic of such a move, but all out of other moves. It wasn’t like his world could implode more.
“Call her. Or I can,” he pleaded. “I wasn’t—I only wanted to help her, I wanted her to know that I was sorry for what happened, but she needed someone to talk to, and…she didn’t feel like anyone who wasn’t there with her could understand. She’s—she’s completely forgiven me, this vengeance—it’s wasted on her at this point. She doesn’t hate me anymore, she understands the position I was in and she knows how sorry I am for hurting her. As much as she’s already lost, would you really want to take something else from her? Please… call her, she’ll tell you exactly what I’m telling you.”
At least he fucking hoped she would.
“If I call my daughter right now, she’ll tell me how in love with you she is and how she’ll hate me forever if I take out her rapist?” the older man asked skeptically.
That sounded much less likely, but since he had already made the claim, Ethan could only nod, his stomach twisting up in knots.
Antonio nodded his head at one of the men standing behind Ethan, and the man approached the chair Alison was tied to. Ethan didn’t immediately understand what was happening until he saw the gun moving toward his daughter’s head, heard Amanda’s muffled wailing. His whole body tensed and then, without regard for anything else, he prepared to lunge at the man, as useless as that would be in the long run.
“Ethan,” Antonio snapped.
The blood was rushing everywhere, surging in his brain, his ears, he could barely concentrate, even as he realized the man with the gun had stopped moving and the gun wasn’t aimed at Alison.
The threat was there though.
He stood guard by her chair, gun in one hand, the other hand resting on the back of the chair.
Alison’s face was so red, her eyes crinkled up as she cried.
Ethan wanted to die.
Tears of helplessness and regret burned behind his eyes and he didn’t even want to defend himself anymore. He deserved Antonio’s wrath, he deserved a fucking bullet between his eyes—but his family didn’t.
Sinking back to his knees, a million different thoughts flashed through his mind—the first time he had ever held Alison in his arms, her little face all red, her tiny hand wrapped around his finger while she slept. Her first day of kindergarten, going into the building nervous, and coming home with a big grin on her face. When she met her little brother for the first time and she was so excited—then in mere days, a little jealous. Amanda, so miserably pregnant with Caleb, but forcing herself to walk through the whole zoo because it was what Alison wanted to do for her birthday. Jackson stealing Alison’s Christmas presents from under the tree when he was barely crawling. Amanda cuddling with him on the couch before they were married, wearing his favorite black dress with her hair all around his face. Seeing Willow for the first time, trussed up and terrified… and then in front of him, with his hands on her.
Bringing his gaze back to Antonio, he saw the man’s lip curl up as the video briefly began playing again before he quickly cleared it from the screen and brought up the keypad.
“You better hope you’re right about my daughter’s affection for you.”