“Don’t let them take me! Please! Vin, save me—help me! You can’t do this!”
Vincenzo turned his face away, jaw locked, unable to meet her eyes.
“Vincenzo! Please! Don’t let them—Vin!”
“Vin!!”
“Vincenzo!!” Her cries grew more frantic, breaking into sobs as they forced her toward the sleek black car Rafael had arrived in.
“Big brother, please—don’t do this! I’m begging you! Save me!”
Her voice cracked one final time before the heavy car door slammed shut, muffling her screams.
The sound of her desperate cries faded slowly as they locked her inside.
Vincenzo let out a low, painful grunt, his fists clenched so tightly his knuckles turned white.
He turned to Rafael, eyes burning.
“You will not hurt my sister, Rafael. She is innocent in all of this.”
Rafael’s expression darkened with contempt.
“Look who’s talking.”
“We all heard the stories of what you did to the woman standing beside you — all because of what her father did to you years ago.”
“No one stopped you then.” He stepped closer, voice low and venomous.
“And no one will stop me now.”
“Though unlike you, I’m not as heartless. I won’t throw my wife into an industrial cold room or make her kneel on a ridge until her knees bleed for weeks and scar forever. No. I have my own ways of reminding her—every single day—of her parents’ crimes.”
He smiled thinly.
“And you... you will hear every detail of her pain, her sorrow, her agony. And you won’t be able to do a damn thing about it.”
Vincenzo swallowed hard, his voice dropping to a raw plea.
“Rafael, listen to me.”
“Loretta is fragile. She was violated repeatedly by my father and his clients for almost her entire life before I saved her.”
“The pregnancy you overheard us talking about — it was the result of that violation. That’s why she’s so attached to your daughter. She has suffered enough. Please... don’t—”
“I will decide what I do with my own wife,” Rafael cut him off coldly. “I guess I’ll be seeing you in Spain sometime soon, no?”
He bent the corner of his mouth in a faint, knowing smile, gave a gesture, and his men fell into formation behind him.
He walked to his car approaching the same space Loretta had been confined to.
His men moved as if choreographed—falling in behind him, flanking him, opening the doors like attendants for a king.
The doors closed around him with soft, final thuds.
Engines purred to life in low, synchronized hums.
Tires rolled smoothly over the concrete in perfect, disciplined formation.
