Banana I
Alejandro's POV
A half empty glass of rum and a headache is all I have as I lean back into the sofa and click through the pictures and videos on the laptop.
Pictures and videos of Laura from a few months ago. Most of them are regular surveillance videos of her doing errands, walking about, nothing new.
But there was a slight change. Three days before she went missing, one singular black car began to appear in the surveillance videos.
A blacked out Camaro with New York plates.
I don't know if Laura was aware that she was being watched but the car was always in the corner of the frame, hiding from obvious sight.
But this entire debacle was strictly for my eyes only. Giving my men any lead into who was to blame would only end up making things worse. They were far too emotionally invested, and when my men were emotional, they grew violent and didn't think things through.
I wasn't confident that any of them wouldn't lash out and act on emotionally driven impulses.
She was family, considered a sister to may of my men.
Then there was Marco.
He was the strongest, most rational and loyal of all my men. But there was one key factor stopping me from getting him involved and it had everything to do with his involvement with Laura.
He'd fallen in love with Laura.
And I wasn't certain until her death, where he'd dissipated for two entire weeks, only returning when Camila had come into the manor.
He never talked about it, nor showed any emotion, and I didn't dare ask. A part of me is still shocked that someone as closed off as Marco could fall victim to the notion of love. But I guess everyone was fair game now.
All this means for me however, is that I'm left to dig through hundreds of hours of surveillance to get a solid lead.
That's what my day had consisted of. It's been so long that I'd shifted from my desk, to the sofa, in desperate need for a change in scenery.
From this spot I didn't get to see a lot of my office. The couch was positioned facing away from the door, but the large mirror on the wall in front of me gave me a view of the entire space behind me.
Rubbing at my eyes tiredly, I push the laptop aside and stare at my reflection as I loosen my tie.
I wasn't always like this. I use to have fun, go out and do things for myself.
But that was before I'd kept myself up to work on all the shit I had on my plate, before I needed to please Arnold and convince him Greta and I were a good match.
But according to her, her father still wasn't convinced.
I thought our arrangement would be easy. We entertain the idea of us as a couple to please Arnold. We both got something out of it.
I gain her fathers approval to push the deal forward for a place high in the ranks of his company and Greta got to use me to keep up public appearances.
And so I had allowed her to use my name and the title of my 'first official girlfriend' to get us both places.
It was a simple trade off, really. To the public we were an item but behind closed doors we had no obligations to each other.
Only I hadn't considered just how much of a head case Greta could be. I was growing sick of her.
Whether it was her high pitched laugh, her need to shriek out at almost anything unexpected or her all out disrespectful behaviour, I always found myself debating if it was all worth it.
It needs to be done.
There was a bigger picture to this all, I needed to push through, lives were at stake.
I needed to hold off until the contracts were signed, declaring me majority owner in Arnold's company. Then it'd be over and the head case would be out of our lives for good.
But until then I was stuck with headaches and shitty days. Like today.
My day didn't start out horrible. I'd tasked my security team with making sure Camila's digital footprint was safe enough.
Only when my cursory had gotten the best of me and I'd logged online to take a look for myself, my mood had gone to shit.
Those harmless outfit pictures she'd been talking about weren't harmless. But I didn't have an issue with the way her clothes did little to hide the curves and dips of her body. I had an issue with the engagement she was receiving.
There were hundreds of saves on her posts. Most of which came from profiles of middle aged men. And the knowledge that random men had pictures of Camila and her body saved to their phones didn't sit right with me.
In fact it made me more upset than I'd thought it would because it was yet another fact that proved how much I cared.
Lines had blurred, temptation was getting stronger and I couldn't control it anymore. I told myself that it was just the circumstances we were put in. My muscles were tense the last time I spoke to her days ago, and she was just that good at giving a massage.
When in reality it was just an excuse to feel her hands on me and have her in my lap.
My control was hanging by a loose thread and I was going to snap. Give into her.
But then that little voice in my head, the one that knew the truth, knew that there were secrets to unpack, and things that'd break us washed over me like a cold shower and I did the only thing I could.
I pushed the blame.
It was easier to hone in on the fact that she was behind all my mixed emotions. A mass manipulator, trying to seduce me, and it was working but only because she was conniving.
My feelings weren't real, nothing but a byproduct of the way she'd played with them.
Even after she'd stormed out, I'd convinced myself that everything she did was to get a reaction out of me.
She made me possessive over her.
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