Chapter 115: The Truth
Chapter 115: The Truth
Domenico
Adriano and I simply watch in silence as Gregorio walks up to Camilla, looking at her even if she doesn't do the same. While Gregorio now has a set of keys and when he gets to her, he grabs both of her shaking hands, clasping them in his.
His thumb brushes against the top of her fingers, willing them to steady and wanting to take away every unhappy emotion going through her. Only when her hands stopped shaking and Gregorio flips her hand over, studying her palm before placing the keys into her hold.
That single action seems to flip a switch on her, she instantly takes a step back before lifting her head. She makes a point of looking each of us over individually, starting and ending with our eyes. While Gregorio stopped her shaking, it was herself that willed the distant look in her gaze come to life and it was one that kept me from breathing.
She didn't say a word as she pivoted on her heels, pressing the button on the keys in her hands and allowing that to indicate where the car was. I couldn't breath, move or even blink as our girl walked into one of our easier to drive cars, backing out and waiting as Gregorio reluctantly entered in a code that had the garage door opening.
No one dared to speak as she left, a part of us all breaking along with the disappearing sight of the car. Only once she was gone and the door closed did I allow myself to think but I couldn't. Instead, my only thought was on Adriano and the way my fist was now hurtling towards his face.
The familiar pain of the impact shocked across my knuckles but I paid no attention to it as my brother didn't even fight back. Gregorio ran over from the garage door to stop me but he didn't have to. Although I was partially responding to Camilla's now noticeable absence, Adriano told Raphael about her.
This past few weeks, I tried to get him to open up by showing support, but I am done with that. Grabbing Adriano by the shoulders, I watched as he wiped away the trickle of his blood smeared across his bottom lip before looking at me with watery eyes, it wasn't from the pain of the punch I gave him though.
He knew what I was asking, he knew that Gregorio was just as angry and insisted to know as I was but he stayed quiet as his muscles shook. I knew my brother well enough to know he needed to either punch or kill somebody right now but I have been too nice for too long.
"Why!"
That is the only word I was able to force through the raging shield of my anger, though his response was something I never wanted to hear. Something I never wanted to believe.
"Camilla's father is Lucas Brown!"
What?
Adriano POV.
The truth is out and now I must face the consequences of my actions. I deserve everything I am getting but I was well aware of the repercussions that came along with my choices and I will never apologize for them though.
My lies are the only reason my Camilla is still breathing right now, even if she is using her breaths to run as far away from me as possible. The emotion in my brother's eyes looks as though they wish to do the same but I know they won't. I hold the answers to all of this but at same time, I don't know a goddamn thing.
"What?" Gregorio flinched, taking a step back from me.
I didn't repeat myself because I knew he heard me clearly and they were words I didn't wish to say again. None of us wanted to accept the fact that the man who killed our mother and threatened to take everything away from us was the same person who raised our girl. But it was a harsh reality.
Is she still ours, though? It was a thought I couldn't bear so I simply refused to think about it. I could feel my lip throb from the split cutting through the bottom but I knew I deserved it.
As I looked into the eyes of my two precious brothers, a second blow but this time, it was from Gregorio. He was displaying his anger but I knew on the inside they were mostly scared and confused. Scared seems to be the only thing I am capable of feeling right now, and it is a feeling that makes it hard to breathe.
I barely even winced as Gregorio's fist connected with my stomach but I took it. When I forced myself to stop being a coward, I looked to see the tears in their eyes matching mine but we never let them fall.
For a moment, all we did was stand there, taking in the harsh truth none of us wanted to accept. It was silent but the words in their questioning eyes said everything.
"On the night we signed the contract with Camilla, I got a phone call." I began.
My heart pounded against my chest as if trying to break free, to avoid the truth that was about to come out but I couldn't.
"I waited for her to fall asleep before going back to my room to take care of some things." I swallowed nervously but forced myself to continue.
"About an hour later, I received a phone call from Raphael saying that he had found Lucas's weakness."
It was the idea we ourselves pitched to him that same day we met Camilla. I didn't have to say what that weakness was because it was the same one all three of us now shared.
"Raphael told me that he would send some of our men out the next morning to retrieve the girl, unaware that she was already in our bed."
I saw the confusion and pain in their eyes as I spoke but the words spilling out of my mouth wouldn't stop now that they had started.
"I was given the order to have her drugged, kidnapped and held captive back at the base until we could…"
"A ransom?" Domenico interrupted with an angry whisper, his fist clenching at his side as the pieces began to connect with one another.
That was always my role after all. I was the hunter and I had been told after one of the best moments of my life that everything I loathed in this world was the father of my girlfriend.
"I did what I had to do to keep her safe, I pitched Raphael a new idea."
I forced my need to hit something down as that familiar darkness began to bubble deep down inside of me.
"He wants us to torture and slowly kill Camilla over a month period, the month we had off. He instructed us to strip every one of her emotions bare and video tape it so we could send it to Lucas as leverage."
Just the thought of doing that made me feel sick and nauseous and entirely lethal.
"He believes Lucas's love for his daughter would be enough to trade his life for hers with the ultimate plan to just kill them both in the end. I couldn't let that happen so I created a lie that would only feed into my new proposition."
Maybe it made me a coward but my gaze averted to the line of cars behind Gregorio and Domenico, not being able to look them in the eyes at my next word.
"I told him that I will make her fall in love with me."
I felt like all of the air was punched from my lungs, despite the fact that I hadn't been bit.
"I convinced Raphael that Lucas didn't care for his daughter and merely viewed her as a liability along with Camilla's mother, his ex-wife. I told her Lucas left his child with her alcoholic mother, abusive stepfather and the deadbeat town she grew up in. You see, Raphael believed love would drive Lucas into our hands but I had to weave a new story."
I wanted to breathe before I spoke again but Gregorio, for the first time in minutes cut in.
"Camilla is abused?" He asked, his voice cracking and my own confirming what we all feared since we first met her.
Although Gregorio could have more than easily pulled up Camila's hospital records, he was better than to ever invade her privacy like that.
"Her records are filled with monthly hospital visits and the odd call from schools but nothing ever came from it. Not in a shitty place like that."
There was a lot of information Raphael shared with me thanks night that led me to trashing everything in sight but the news of her stepfather pained and angered me more than I have ever felt. I promised myself that night that no matter where our relationship went, her stepfather would die by my hands and I would spend weeks dragging him to death's doorstep just to yank him back and do it all over again.
I will kill him mercilessly.
Log in with Google Account
Chapters
Favorite
Settings
