Page 43 of Claimed By the Silver Fox

He shoves me aside, sending me falling back into the bed, and I try to steady myself as the tears threaten to fall. I bite them back, willing myself to fight it, to hold off, not to give him the satisfaction of seeing that I’m hurt by this. I keep my face turned away from him as he moves to the door, the choice clearly made, whatever protests I might put up nothing more than a distraction to him.

“Glad we’ve figured that out,” he tells me coldly.

And with that, I hear the door slam, and I dissolve into tears, pressing my face into the pillow to try and muffle the sound. I can’t let him hear me like this. I can’t let him see how easy it is for him to break me, to reach into my heart and squeeze it to a pulp at the mere mention of what he might inflict on my child.

I manage to drag myself back up onto the bed, pulling the covers over myself, hiding beneath them as best I can. All I can think about is how I’ve already failed my child without even giving them a chance.

I swore that, when the time came for me to have kids, I would make sure that they didn’t endure anything like what I went through when I was growing up. That they wouldn’t suffer like I suffered, that I wouldn’t leave them to go through the same hell I did.

But this? This might even be worse than what I went through. Growing up with a man like Andreo? A violent, controlling man, connected to the darker parts of this city’s underworld, who can leverage that power to get what he wants? I don’t know if I will ever be able to escape, let alone get my child out of this mess.

Or worse…what if my child doesn’t want to leave? What if, when they see the kind of life he lives, they decide that they want nothing more than to stick it out with him? If they’re seduced by the power and the money and the influence that comes with it, and they shed any attempt to be decent in pursuit of more, more, more?

I can barely let myself think about it, mind rushing in a hopeless mess. My thoughts drift to Antonio. For all his faults, all his uncertainty about this child, he at least cares about me. Enough to try and protect me. Enough that he kept me safe. And I know he would have done the same for this kid, as hard as it might have been for me to see that. But now?

Now, I don’t know what I might be staring down the barrel of. And frankly, I’m just praying that I never have to find out.

23

ANTONIO

“Where is he?”

I grit the words out as soon as I step out of the car, voice boiling with a fury that even I can hear. My fists are clenched, gun pressing into my hip, and right now, the only thing I can think about is revenge.

“In there,” Cesc tells me as he strides up to the car, intercepting me before I can go barging into the large office building where he’s holding Salamanca. “He’s in a bad way, but he’s awake. Hasn’t spoken to any of us, but…”

“Trust me,” I mutter as I stride past him. “He’ll talk to me.”

And with that, I shoulder past Cesc, and make my way toward the door. My arm is throbbing with every movement, a reminder of what Salamanca allowed his new protégé to do—and that fucker is going to pay, I’m going to make certain of it. No matter what it takes, by the time I’m done with him, he will wish that he had never tried to make a move against me.

Just like everyone else who has dared try.

My men have been tracking him for days, and eventually intercepted him when he tried to make a return to the city a few hours ago. With no information on Andreo, we need to squeeze Salamanca for anything we can get—like safe houses where Andreo could be keeping Julia locked up.

It has already been far, far too long for my liking. It makes me sick to think of what he might be doing to her, especially because he has no doubt convinced himself that he’s not going to face pushback from me, probably thinking that he executed me back at the house.

The idea is surreal, even to consider. My own son, pulling the trigger on me with the intention of snuffing me out of existence. I’d call him ungrateful, but that doesn’t even begin to cover what he did to me.

But now, I have Salamanca in my grasp, and I intend to make him pay for what he has done. I storm through the building and up the stairs, where two guards are waiting on the door. I roll my shoulder before I step in, gripping the gun tight, reminding myself that, as tempting as it will be to blow this fucker’s head off his shoulders, I need information more than anything else right now.

I push the door open. Inside, Salamanca is looking rough, just as Cesc warned me. Blood drips from one side of his mouth, and his head lolls dangerously to one side, his lips parted and his vision unfocused like he can barely stand to keep himself upright. His hands are bound behind him, thinning hair matted with blood and sweat, and a black eye is already forming around one side of his face. But when he looks up at me, I swear I can still see his skin turn pale.

“Antonio,” he greets me, his tone placating, as though there’s anything he can do to soften the upcoming blows. “I⁠—”

Before he can finish, I lift a hand and backhand him across the face, sending him nearly tipping out of his chair. I catch him before he can crash to the ground, pulling him up in front of me.

“You turned my son against me,” I hiss to him, suddenly overwhelmed with a blinding rage that pushes out every logical thought from my mind. “Don’t talk to me unless I talk to you, you hear me?”

He gazes up at me again, and I can see the fight in him—good. I want him to think that there’s a chance he’ll get out of this alive. It’s the only way I’m going to be able to coax all the information I need from him. Even if I have no intention of letting him get away with the shit he pulled on me.

“There’s something I want to know,” I tell him, pacing before him, letting the sound of my footsteps fill the room. “About your safe house locations.”

He shakes his head, spraying blood this way and that. “I can’t⁠—”

I turn, letting him see the gun resting on my hip. His eyes widen. Did he really think I wouldn’t do something like that? Think that we were equals, after what he did to me? It’s almost funny, or would be, if it wasn’t for everything he had done.

“List them,” I order him firmly. “And you might walk out of here alive.”