Delusive (56 page)

I pressed the red button on the screen of my cell phone, having gotten what I needed for a contingency plan, if necessary. Cocking my head to the side, I grinned broadly. “That’s just it, Mr. Cari. Neither you nor your wife raised your son. You don’t know who he is, or what he’s capable of. He’s a complete and total stranger to you. Believe me when I tell you he’s going to show you what he can do.”

He stood angrily as the wail of police sirens resounded distantly in the background, becoming louder and louder as they neared our location.

I closed my eyes for a moment, stilling my racing heart, thankful Elias had come through with his part.

Natanael gesticulated to one of his men who hurriedly came over, removing a gun from his holster. “I won’t be in jail but for a day before I’m released. You, on the other hand…”

It happened in a matter of moments. The second one of his men was able to put a gun to my head, Mateus took five long strides toward Natanael and held a gun to the back of his skull. He wasn’t alone, three of Natanael’s men removed their guns from the various places where they were holstered and held them up to Natanael. The fourth man held his gun to the back of Natanael's lone loyal employee.

Natanael put his hands up in defense, discreetly looking over his shoulder at the man closest to him—Mateus. “You traitorous cock-sucker.”

“Elias sends his regards,” Mateus said with a grin. “I would tell Antin to remove his gun from Hanley’s temple before he loses a boss sooner rather than later.”

Natanael’s eyes widened in alarm. “My son would never let you do this.”

“Your son would. He also wants me to tell you that your men are his. Your businesses are his. The drug business you had, you will go down for. Your services at Cari Properties and Cari Enterprises are no longer needed. There is hope for you.” Mateus grinned in a sinister way. “I heard the Cartel has plans for you once you’re inside.”

“All this over…over her?” Natanael jerked his hand toward me. “I don’t believe this.”

“You have a choice,” Mateus said, pushing the barrel of the gun tightly against Natanael’s temple. “I can put one in your brain or you can leave, turning yourself over to the authorities who are less than a minute from the parking lot.”

“You wouldn’t risk it and go to prison,” Natanael called his bluff.

“I would,” Mateus replied, “because I would die for Elias Cari. Prison means nothing.”

Natanael nodded his head at Antin, who quickly holstered his gun. Straightening his suit, he laughed to himself. “Tell my son…” Pausing, he restrained his grin. His mood transformed drastically; he looked solemn, and yet his smile was one of quiet contentment. “Tell my son I always knew he’d make me proud someday. Today is finally that day.” He buttoned one button of his suit jacket and strode out of the restaurant straight into police custody.

I finally unleashed the breath I held. My eyes began to water, thankful the worst of it was over.

THIRTY-SIX

ELIAS SUCCEEDED IN FINDING out the truth about my past from his mother. The pieces I had missing in the puzzle were now in my hand, and the puzzle was complete. What I knew wasn’t easy to digest. I spent the entire night tossing and turning. When I looked to my left, Elias wasn’t there. I slipped out of bed and padded down the hallway. From the top of the stairs, I could hear Elias arguing with someone. The angry pounding of stilettos in the den and the shouts in a foreign language indicated the guest was Kirsten.
 

I crept down the stairs to listen in, but the rapid fire Portuguese exchange made sure I couldn’t understand what was being said, but I did know one thing…Elias was just as furious as his mother was. I heard the crashing and banging of objects I could only assume she threw at him.
 

I slipped into the doorway and announced my presence by loudly clearing my throat.

They both paused to stare at me. Kirsten’s eyes were like embers of fire when they zeroed in on me. She looked haggard and unlike her usual self in her black jogging suit—worn with mismatched stilettos—and windswept hair. “You.” She pointed at me, her voice throaty and deep. “It’s time you helped me the way I’ve helped you,” she said, her breath escaping her in loud pants. “He has gone fucking mad and overextended his reach. He wants to take Cari Properties. He wants to take everything!”

“I thought you wanted to retire anyhow,” I stated casually and began to walk toward her.

Elias was immediately at my side, picking me up and moving me to the corner of the room. He remained partially in front of me, protecting me from Kirsten.
 

She laughed manically and bent sideways to see me from behind Elias’s body. “You, my girl, are very fucking trusting. I tell you I’m not the maternal type and somehow you believed me when I said I wanted to retire and have grandchildren. Tsk. Tsk. There can only be one Queen in this empire and you’re not fit to take over my spot. You never were.”

“Don’t address her,” Elias said to me, glancing over his shoulder at me. “You don’t owe her anything.” His head snapped around to regard his mother. “Now would be a good time for you to do what I asked you to do, before I ask you again, and this time I won’t be so nice about it.”

I clutched his arm and stood at his side. “It’s okay, Elias. It’s time we made things clear to her, don’t you think?”

His face was frozen on anger until it suddenly lightened into a smile. “I think that’s a great idea,
minha amada
,” he replied with a wink.

Addressing Kirsten with a smirk, I began to bait her. “Was everything you said a lie?” I questioned, not bothering to feign surprise at her reaction. I never believed Kirsten had fully disclosed all she knew to me. Nor did I believe she was being honest when she professed her desire to be a family. Regardless of what I knew, a small part of me craved a family and hoped she meant it when she said we would have a relationship. Gullible of me to think it. Idiotic to want it. When the puzzle was put together, I saw Kirsten Cari for the woman she really was.

“It was not,” she replied in a shrill manner, stomping toward Elias and me. “I had hopes to build a relationship with you and give you a job fitting your talent at Cari Properties. With my husband likely going to prison, and”—her eyes flashed at Elias before narrowing back on me—“he has been greenlit once he makes it to prison, I will be the CEO once the Feds get their grubby hands off my company. I can make many things possible for you. But my goddamn son”—she paused, trembling in anger—“had plans of his own that I wasn’t made aware of because the fucking people I hired to spy on him are worthless. You have to stop him.”

Laughing low and quietly, Elias leaned back on the wall and crossed his arms.

“And…why would I do that?” I asked her, fighting against succumbing to Elias’s contagious behavior.

“Because you fucking owe me, Hanley! I could’ve handed you to Natanael on a platter the second you came here. I protected you from him. You are alive because I protected you. And I protected that deranged dull-witted half-brother of yours. Talk some sense into my son and make him get rid of this crazy idea of taking over the businesses his father and I slaved to make a name of. The town is not his. It never will be.”

“You’re very, very wrong,” Elias countered. “The second I met Hanley, I knew I would never let anyone hurt her. So while you may have tried to tell my father, he would never have gotten a chance to touch her. Not because she became off limits to everyone else the second I laid eyes on her, but because my father always has, and always will, trust me over you. He gave me a call while he was in holding to tell me he was proud of me. That wasn’t all. If you’re still breathing before he dies, he’s going make sure the men—who now own you—kill you before you get a chance to fuck up my plans. He’d rather burn his entire life’s work to the ground than let you take the reins.

“I know my wife…tells me I have you to thank for the reason we met, but I’m not going to thank you.” Elias looked over at me with an amorous smile. “I would’ve found her in the pitch black darkness if I had to. Nothing would’ve kept me from her.”

I reached up and touched his face, completely taken by the way he professed his feelings for me to his mother. His words and my touch seemed to make her anger drive her into the pit of madness. She wanted to hurt me, I could see it in the way her fist balled and in the fire of rage that draped over her entire demeanor.

“I think it’s time you told her the story, don’t you?” Elias asked me.
 

“I have another, as you put it, imaginative tale to tell you,” I stated with a newfound energy, my attention darting from Elias to Kirsten. “It’s about two ambitious women. One named Kirsten, one named Francesca. See, Kirsten and Francesca lusted after the same man; he was going places with a promising racing career and lineage of wealth and power. While Kirsten wanted beyond the limit of the sky, Francesca wanted one thing—a prospering career.
 

“Kirsten was a little more ambitious and used everything she had to win Natanael over. She fixed DNA results to make it seem as though Francesca had cheated on Natanael. Natanael, having an issue with women who didn’t make him their first and last, promised to destroy Francesca. He did. He divorced her, blackballed her, making it difficult for her to obtain her dream of a cabinet full of racing trophies, endorsements, and a bank account filled to the brim with prize money. She tried to get around being blackballed by becoming intimate with his right hand, Marcus Williams. When she found out that Marcus was penniless thanks to money management issues, she began to take the gold-digger route, marrying men with enough cash to help her fulfill her dream. But, oops, she had two children to care for that put a kink in her plans. To fix the problem, she made Marcus become the caretaker for their children, and gave him money to make sure they were financially stable.

“One problem… While Marcus had fallen in love with Francesca, he still held an allegiance to Natanael. When Natanael told Marcus to kill her husbands one after one—because he wanted to stop Francesca from having what she wanted—Marcus thought he’d be sneaky by using his daughter to do it. Frankie caught on and wanted to reveal Marcus and Natanael as the monsters they were. She thought she still had a friend in her competitor Kirsten because while Francesca hated to lose, it didn’t kill her ambition.
 

“Her friend Kirsten turned on her. She told on her, but she did it in a very smart way. She went to Marcus and convinced him Francesca was going to tell on their daughter Leina and on him. To protect himself and his daughter, he went to Natanael with a plan to kill Francesca.
 

“This is where everything begins to fall apart. The murder, the way Natanael prevented Marcus from being able to protect his daughters…Marcus realized he had been played by both sides. He found out he was just a puppet to Natanael and Kirsten, because they were only out for themselves.

“I had the pieces of the puzzle before you gave them to me, Kirsten. Some pieces were missing, and I had some of the wrong pieces added to the puzzle. It wasn’t until I had a short interaction with Roth that things began to make complete sense. And of course, while I was meeting with your husband, you met with Elias. He reported back to me with everything you two spoke about.

“What I’ve done to you and your husband was never just about my father. It was for Frankie, too. I loved my parents, despite the fact they never really felt the same for me. The target was always your son. The tool was
always
your son. Can I admit something to you?” I asked without intending to wait for her answer. “I never planned on falling in love with him, but it works this way. Not only am I going to take over everything you own and replace your title as queen of this empire, I have the love of your son. Something you never had. Something, if you were smart, you would’ve tried your hardest to gain. Elias is the man Natanael could only wish to be, because he’s going to take the both of you down and be more powerful than you ever dreamed you could be.

“You underestimated me, Kirsten.”

She began to babble, having trouble getting out her words. She decided words weren’t enough and charged after me, muttering something about putting me in the hospital—or having me killed—like all the other bitches who crossed her.
 

Elias stood in front of me so swiftly he body-checked his mother while standing still. She flew back and landed down hard on the floor.

“You don’t deserve it,” Elias snarled, “but I’m giving it to you anyway—my respect. Don’t push it. Because if you try to come after Hanley again, I will forget the fact you were the woman who gave birth to me. You don’t, and never did, deserve the title of mother.”

Storming up, she balled her fists and slowly stepped toward Elias. “
Eu deveria ter-me poupado da mágoa e estrangular-te com o cordão umbilical no segundo em que nasceste
.” The words I couldn’t understand fell from her mouth with such a dark, menacing inflection, I knew it wasn’t anything nice.

I could feel the way it changed Elias even when he remained unflinching in response to Kirsten’s bitter words. Whatever she said, I could sense it hurt him in spite of his iron façade. “
E se tivesse
,” he bitterly replied, using the same tone she did when hurling her insult at him, “
o meu pai ter-se-ia divorciado de si a tinha-a matado. Eu sou a única razão pela qual ele lidou consigo durante tantos anos. Você devia-me agradecer. Especialmente porque a única razão pela qual você será capaz de sair desta casa depois de falar comigo dessa maneira é porque você me deu à luz
.”