Jackie's face blanched. It was a practiced move, though, as if she was forcing the show of emotion but didn't want to interrupt the beauty of her looks. "There's been no mistake, Gaven. The blood on the blade is my father's … and my sister's."
"She's not dead," I growled before gesturing to papers I'd thrown to the floor. "She left a note." And there was no body.
For a moment, surprise skittered across Jackie's face. Then it slowly morphed into careful consideration as she bent down and retrieved the short letter my fucking wife had left me the morning after I'd put a ring on her finger and taken her as mine. I knew, in that moment, there would be no other like her. Just as there would be no other man for her. She had, however, chosen the worst of times to get cold feet and run away.
It was too late. We were married, and I'd meant what I'd said—there was no place she could run that I would not find her. She belonged to me. She was my property. No amount of distance could change that fact.
"Gaven..." Jackie's voice was careful as she held up the note and looked from it back to me. "I'm not saying that she could be dead."
I frowned. "Then Isuggestyou tell me what it is that youaresaying," I bit out. "I am not a patient man." Especially when I had a wife to track down.
Jackie inhaled and lowered the letter to her side. She stepped up and flicked a finger along the top of the file in my grasp. "There was blood on the knife—hers and his," she said. "She left you a note—Gaven, you're a fine man. Handsome. Skilled.Powerful." As she emphasized that last word, I narrowed my eyes on her. "My sister never wanted to marry you." I'd known that. I hadn't cared. "She wanted anormallife … is it really difficult to understand what happened?"
"Why don't you spell it out for me?" I offered in a cold voice.
Jackie's hand lifted from the file and moved to my chest. I willed myself not to fling her away. "She must have been quite distraught by the events of last night," Jackie surmised. "I assume she came in here and found our father. She might have thought he could do something about ... well, she might have regretted..."
“Spit. It. Out.” I gritted my own words out.
Jackie tilted her head to the side. “The knife found was yours, Gaven,” she said. “Who else had access to your things?”
I scowled. No one. “If you’re implying that Angel had access to my weapons, you’re mistaken.”
Jackie sighed, her chest rising and falling with the exaggerated movement. “Angel was trapped,” she said. “Trapped women do awful things when they feel pinned down. Even if she loved our father, maybe she loved the idea of being free more."
It suddenly hit me what she was saying. I glanced back at the carpet in the office as two men began to cut the edges of the room and roll up the space where Raffaello had bled out and died, removing the stain of his life as if it had never been there.
"You think your sister did this?" I asked, stunned. She couldn’t be serious. It just wasn’t possible. “You think she killed Raff?”
Jackie's lips turned down. "I don't want to. Whatever you may think of me, Gaven, I don't like thinking of my sister as a killer, but … people do insane things when they feel like they've been backed into a corner. Did she tell you she wanted to go to college?"
"She couldn't very well go if she's on the run for murder," I snapped, stepping away from her. "Angel would never have harmed your father. She wasn't capable of it. I know her."
Jackie lifted her chin and met my gaze—something few men could even do, especially when I was this close to rage. "You met and married my sister in less than a month, Gaven," she stated plainly. "You didn't know her at all. She was a tool for you to use in order to join our family."
"She wasnota killer," I repeated.No, not a killer, but shewasa liar, I thought. She'd lied to me. Perhaps she hadn't meant to, but that pathetic excuse for an apology written on the note she’d left behind was just another one of her lies. She ran for a reason, but I doubted very much that it had anything to do with fear or cold feet.
"My sister was a woman trapped," Jackie continued. The sound of her voice was quickly becoming one of the most unpleasant things I'd ever encountered. And as a man who'd been held in a Beijing prison for a few months, there were quite a number of unpleasant things I'd been introduced to in my life. "Trapped women will do what they must if it means their freedom."
Freedom?I thought.No. Evangeline Price had no more freedom. Evangeline Price was my fucking wife. I owned her. Body and soul.
But to remind her of that, I would need to track her down.
Carefully, to not confuse Jackie, I lifted the file she'd handed me, and then, meeting her gaze, I ripped it down the middle. "I will get to the bottom of this," I told her. "When I find Angel—and make no mistake, Jackie, I will find mywife—I'll know if she murdered Raffaello and why."
A smirk appeared on the corner of Jackie's lips. Finally, an actual emotion from this woman who called herself a Price. "I think you'll find, Mr. Belmonte, that my sister—though seemingly sweet—can be just as conniving as any woman. I don't believe it will be easy to track her down. I've already got men on it."
"Mymen," I reminded her. "I'm the new head of this empire."
Jackie's smirk turned into a full grin. "No," she said. "Mine. My father meant to induct you into the family officially today. Alas," she paused and waved her hand towards the office, "now that he's dead, he can no longer sign over the Price properties. With Angel missing, I'm the last Price Heir. The Price Empire is mine."
My jaw loosened. There were very few instances in my life I'd been taken by surprise. Now was one of them. She was right. Raffaello and I had meant to sign the papers today, before Angel and I left for our honeymoon. Few people had known that, but she was one of them. Suspicion burned through me. I’d met many conniving women in my life, but I must have been an idiot not to have noticed the one before me until now.
"Now," Jackie continued, "I'm going to ask my men to escort you off the premises,Mr. Belmonte.” Belmonte, not Price. “If I find out any information regarding my sister, I'll inform you." Her eyes met mine as two men appeared and moved toward me. "I hope you'll do the same."
Angel, I realized as the two guards Jackie had apparently called stopped on either side of me, wasn't the only liar in thisfamily. I found myself leaning back on my heels as I tilted my head to the side and examined this new foe before me.
Tall. Elegant. Manipulative. Jacquelina Price was a careful person. Feminine but dangerous. Like a beautiful serpent. I felt the mask that had fallen away in the last few weeks with Angel settle back into place. It was one that I knew well. The mask of a killer, of a criminal, and whether she knew it or not, Jacquelina Price was now on my list. Whether she was a client or a target had yet to be determined.
