You will receive the goods once I receive the cash.
And I expect her to be released once you get what you paid for.
Signed,
Supplier
I gasp, my hands shaking as I read the words over and over again. This is an email from the man who sold me to Lucien.
It's simply signedSupplier. But who could that be? Who was close enough to my father to get to me, to plan this all out?
I read further, and I see where Lucien asks him to attach a picture. Hurriedly, I flip to the next page. In my haste, a photo flies out of the file and cascades to the floor by my feet.
My eyes go as wide as saucers as I stare at my face in the picture against the dark hardwood.
I look happy as I smile up at the camera. My long, dark hair is tousled from the wind as I sit with my feet in the sand at the beach.
I remember the exact moment when that picture was taken…and there is only one person who could have taken it.
And that means I know exactly who sold me.
A man who my father trusted more than anyone in the world.
A man who I trusted to keep me safe and to…love me.
"Giovanni," I gasp in horror.
CHAPTER 19
LUCIEN
THE PLANE RIDE home seemed to take forever; and by the time we land, I'm practically going crazy with the need to get home and see Adeline.
"Hurry!" I tell Wraith once I'm inside the car. It's a short drive from the runway to the mansion, but I want to make sure he knows to be quick about it.
"Yes, sir," Wraith says in a Russian-accented voice, his blue eyes meeting mine only once in the rearview mirror before turning his attention to the task at hand.
My fingertips anxiously drum along the leather seat until the moment the car stops and we're in the driveway. Climbing out before Wraith can even attempt to open my door for me, I rush up the cement stairs and into the front door.
Immediately, my eyes assess the scene before me, and I frown when I realize this is going to be a distraction that's going to keep me from seeing Adeline.
Maria stands off to the side, clearly pissed off and a little disheveled, while Jackson and an older woman mouth battle in the foyer. The woman's hands are flailing all over the place. She's crying and on the verge of being hysterical, and I only catch bits and pieces of what she's screaming in Spanish.
Her husband is dead.
"What the fuck is going on?" I roar, my booming voice echoing off the walls and causing everyone to fall silent and turn to me.
Jax frowns and says, "This is the gardener's wife."
The gardener. The man I killed with my own bare fucking hands.
I grit my teeth, not wanting to be reminded of taking a life, but I know deep down it had to be done.
Rafael took what's mine.
And he hurt Adeline.
His wife should be grateful that I gave her husband a merciful death instead of all the horrible, disturbing things I thought of in my head later on that I wanted to do to Rafael to make him suffer and prolong his agony.
