If anyone knew what I’d done all those years ago, I was finished. My world would be over. I’d never become a doctor to atone for all the pain I’d caused. I’d never help heal people and save those that could be saved.
Like Vidal. If only I’d known how to help him. It wouldn’t have ended with a bullet in his head.
“Good.” Oscar released his grip as the elevator reached the penthouse apartment. The doors slid open and he smiled, gesturing for me to go first.
I took staggering, limping steps. He followed slowly, watching carefully. Measuring me. Trying to see if I’d fight back.
But I wouldn’t. The fight was gone. It’d been sucked out of me a long, long time ago.
I limped away. I reached the back hallway and threw myself into my room. Oscar didn’t follow. I slammed my door and locked it before ripping open my bag. I found a pill and practically shoved it down my raw throat.
I leaned my head back and squeezed my eyes shut. Tears rolled down my cheeks, fat and ugly.
He owned me all over again. I was back to where I started.
But this time, I’d gotten a taste of freedom. I was a normal person for a while there.
Oscar would never let me be normal.
Not after what I’d done for him over the years.
It wasn’t just the recording. That was bad enough. Back when he first began blackmailing me, that’d been enough to keep me compliant. That recording would get me killed and it would bring shame on my father’s name.
But there was so much more.
I stole for him. Ripped off my own father. Took cash, drugs, whatever Oscar wanted. I broke the rules to keep him quiet. To keep him from releasing that recording, and then later, to keep him from telling my father that I was a rat and a thief. I double-crossed my own family for Oscar, because once it started, it was much too late to turn back.
He controlled me, through and through.
I was ten years old in that recording. I was a little girl. A stupid child. I didn’t understand that when I told Oscar the truth of what happened, he’d use it to control me for eight long, horrible years.
I didn’t understand that I was signing my soul away and handing it to a demon.
I thought I’d gotten away.
But now I was right back to where I started.
Rotting in a constant, perpetual hell.
Soon the pill hit, and the pain faded away.
Chapter 4
Carmine
On the short private plane trip from San Antonio to Dallas, I kept thinking about the look on Jules’s face when I told her the name of the guard her father had sent.
It was like I’d stabbed her in the guts. Like I’d ripped her intestines out and wrapped them around her throat. She paled and I thought she might try to run away.
I couldn’t get it out of my head, even when the plane landed and a car took me into downtown, to a small coffee shop tucked into the lobby floor of a high-end business skyscraper.
Men and women in suits hustled past. Most of them had phones glued to their faces. I sat at a small, round table, and ordered an espresso. The guy two tables over loudly berated someone for forgetting to update a pivot table, whatever the hell that was. I didn’t regret going into my family’s business. These people seemed like their fancy shoes and flashy cars were chains around their ankles. I didn’t envy their empty, orderly little lives.
I had control. That was all I’d ever wanted. Control over myself and my surroundings. That’d been taken away for a while, after Balestra murdered my parents and stole my crime family. But I was taking it back, one body at a time.
I spotted Maxim. He stepped off the elevators, went through security, and came toward me. He was a tall guy with husky-blue eyes and dark brown hair. He looked like a Russian, like he was born to skinny dip in frozen lakes. Tattoos edged at his cuffs and collar, and he held a hand out.
I stood and shook. “Hello, Maxim,” I said. “It’s nice to finally meet you.”
“You as well, Carmine. Please, sit. You got a drink already? Good, very good. Let me grab something.” He went to the counter, asked for an espresso, and returned a moment later.
I watched him carefully. Maxim Novikov was the oldest son of Damir Novikov, the head of the Novikov Bratva. Maxim had one hell of a reputation, and his family was not to be trifled with. However, they stuck to their city and had very few dealings outside of Dallas. We weren’t direct competitors, and I saw no reason why we couldn’t be allies.
But Maxim frowned at me as he drank his coffee.