The sound grew louder, no longer a whistle but a rushing hiss. I glanced up, my gaze meeting Julian’s, Dino’s muffled voice in my ear.
The next few seconds happened in slow motion.
Julian looked past me, his eyes widening, filling with a distinctive panic I’d never seen before. I frowned as the hiss morphed into an ear-piercing shrill, and I slowly turned to look behind me. “Mr. Salvatore!” he yelled the same time I noticed the burning blob of black hurtling through the air toward me, growing in proportion. By the time I realized what it was, Julian’s body careened into mine, sending us both over the curb and down the embankment as the thundering roar of the car exploding followed us.
My body cursed its agony from being tossed and knocked against jutting rocks. When we stopped rolling, I sat up. My ears buzzed, my head pounded, and my vision hazed for a second. I blinked a couple of times before it cleared and glanced behind me. My car was now a ball of orange flames and black smoke. Consumed by rage, I ignored the aches and stood. Someone was going to fucking die.
“You all right, sir?”
I turned to find Julian sitting up, blood covered one arm, his clothes ripped and soiled just like mine. “I’m good. You?” I pointed to his wound.
“I’ll live.” He grinned.
The man just saved my life and I felt like an ass thinking he’d shared something more than a caring bond with my wife. “Thank you.” With Gianna gone, I wondered why he’d stayed behind. Waiting for her return perhaps. But I’d fucked that up it seemed. Lessons in fucking love. Sarcasm tainted that word because in my world, it didn’t exist, fucking a cunt did.
“No need to thank me, sir. Just doing my job.” He got to his feet and flexed his fingers. “I’m going to guess you don’t know who did this?”
My laugh was caustic. “I know a lot more than people think, Julian. Trust no one and live longer. My motto in life. We need to call a cab.” I searched around for my phone and when I found it the screen was shattered.
“Here, we can use mine.” Julian held out his phone. “Cab or Marco?”
“Marco,” I smirked, knowing he was going to be pissed about me leaving him behind.
Like Rosana, Marco was one of the few staff I could rely on to watch my back. They’d proven their loyalty over time. When I’d left home this morning, it was to return with Gianna and why I’d taken Julian with me. I figured if she saw a familiar face, it might make her feel better after the month she’d probably endured and more likely to return home with me. Only, my fucking plan backfired. Gianna had never made it back home as I’d arranged and Dino, the man who was supposed to have ensured she’d done so in Japan couldn’t give me a fucking straight answer. The long-distance call to him kept disconnecting due to the signal and why I was standing on the side of the road and nearly killed by a fucking missile.
Julian followed me up to the road. The heat from the flames prevented us from nearing the car. I moved to sit with my back against a tree which offered some protection if my killers planned to come check if they’d missed. They’ll be fucking sorry if they did.
“Can I say something, sir?”
I looked up at Julian. He ripped the hem of his shirt and secured it around his arm. “Sure.”
Since Gianna’s arrival at my home and besides greeting me, Julian and I hadn’t shared many conversations. Now, he eyed me with uncertainty. Something I’d never expect from a man like him. He held immense power over Gianna and I wasn’t sure if he knew it or not, an ability I wanted for myself.
“There’s more to Gianna and you than meets the eye.”
Frowning, I swabbed the blood oozing from my forefinger with my shirt. “I don’t understand?”
“Her mother didn’t just send her away because her father promised her hand in marriage to you.” He moved to sit on the curb, his gaze on the horizon. I waited for him to elaborate. “Gianna remembers names and numbers.” He looked at me.
“Which means what?” I asked, not sure where he was going with this.
“She was five when she first read out her father’s bank account number and a second later, repeated it without looking at the numbers. Intrigued, her father began testing her with other long sequenced numbers. Once he realized his daughter had a gift, he began using her ability.”
“Using her? How?”
“He would take her to business meetings and parties. Get her into the host’s dens or bedrooms and hack into their computers, or look for important papers, anything that would give him access to their bank account social security numbers. If anyone walked in on him, he would use Gianna as an excuse, that he was looking for her. Since nobody would suspect an innocent child, they bought into his story.” Julian rubbed his jaw and glanced away.
Well, I’ll be fucking damned. “Is that how he made his money?”
Julian nodded. “Once he got Gianna to memorize all the important details, he’d siphon funds out of their accounts. He started small then he got greedy. He went at it alone for almost two years until just before her seventh birthday. He secured himself a spot on the roundtable of some nefarious characters and began selling Gianna’s abilities to them. Your...” he paused.
I got the feeling he didn’t know how to explain the next part. “You might as well finish the story, Julian.”
He dragged in a deep breath. “Your father was one of those men that knew and used Gianna’s skills. He signed an agreement with Cassius that on her eighteen birthday she was to marry you. In return they’d be business partners,” he said, his eyes on me, waiting for my reaction.
Leaning forward with my arms hanging around my knees, I studied the other man trying to figure out why he was telling me all this. “Say I believe this story and they were business partners, why did my father loan Cassius fifty million.”
“He didn’t.”
