“I think you'd better do that yourself,” says Kat.
“I do not wish to see her face,” I say.
“She’ll be gone fast. I have been away so long, Rose. While I keep a tap on them all, I am not that deep into family business anymore.”
I scoff.
“Also, the missing persons report on her has been sent to Interpol,” says Kat.
“They won’t know for long where she went,” I say, thinking. “It also might play in our cards. She could have escaped and now searches for shelter with him.”
“She shows traces of what we did,” says Kat. “Therefore, none of it is a lie. You go plan with her, I’ll clean up here. No need for cleaners.”
“You might also need to clean her up afterwards," I say as I pour myself another drink. Dealing with Antonio’s daughter is certainly not among my preferred activities.
Kat cocks an eyebrow.
“Do not come for me after all those years you searched for revenge with that Sutton. You would have been pissed if it was snatched right under your nose.”
“You forget that it did happen to me, too. But I found other creative ways. I could track down her mother now that we have her; I will find that John and his wife. You’ll get your vengeance.”
I growl and get upstairs to one of the rooms on the left, the first one closest to the stairs. I enter without knocking.
The girl is sitting in the middle of the bed, legs crossed, and has already eaten half the fruit bowl. The rest of the apples, banana peels, and peach kernels are next to her on a towel. She looks at me with eyes as slits.
“You believe it is a great idea to eat that much when you have an order to fulfil?” I ask as I walk in and sit down on the armchair.
“Oh, I am not doing anything until I have your reassurance that Luisa and anyone else I know stays unharmed if I do what you say. Including my own life.”
“You are quite daring for a girl with no leverage,” I say with a scoff.
“First, I am not a girl,” she says, peeling another banana. “I am a woman. And apparently, you have been waiting for me for a very long time. Whatever Giuseppe did or had on you, it must be very valuable, something you couldn’t get to until I came. In other words, you want something from me.”
I chuckle darkly. Kat was most certainly right about her.
“You seem awfully confident and unbothered for a woman we just abducted,” I say, watching her bite and chew a banana. The chewing noises enrage me, and anger boils in me.
“I am very bothered,” she says. “But I studied psychology and criminology.”
“And what does that tell me?”
“You tell me,” she says.
“Well,” I say, and get up and walk over to her. “I think you know nothing and just try to play games with me. But I am not someone you play games with, you should know that by now.”
“And I think you have a big mouth and a lot of ego,” she says.
I am so fast that she cannot react. I kneel with one leg on the bed and grasp her by the throat. Her hand snaps to mine, but I push her down, backwards onto the bed. She opens her legs because I took her balance, and I pull my other leg with me and land with my knee on her pubic—exactly where I intended it to be, because it’s painful.
She gasps out, and her red lips part slightly. She is a beautiful woman—one who has done abhorrent things.
I push my entire weight on her throat. I might look like I have no force, but I do. Especially because I know the right points to push.
Her face turns red and swells slightly. I know exactly where to press to suffocate someone with one hand alone. My lips purse dangerously.
Kat might need to clean upstairs after all.
“You were saying?” I ask her as she begins to struggle, slapping my arms and trying to scratch me as I choke her. I push extra weight on my knee. She mumbles a scream of pain that dies in her choked throat.
