“If you play by my rules, you’ll lose,” he informs me, the smile waning. “You’re my friend, Adrian, but don’t forget your place.” Leaning in just slightly, he says, “I gave you Elise, and I could take her away just as easily.”
“You don’t own her,” I grind out, my jaw locked so tight it’s painful.
“I don’t have to,” he answers silkily.
Slamming the glass down on the edge of his desk, I push away and head for the exit.
I almost walk right out the front door, but then I remember Elise. Storming back to the kitchen, I tap her on the shoulder, grabbing her arm and hauling her toward the door.
“What are you doing?” she asks, confused, glancing back at the bread she was just arranging on the plate. “I wasn’t finished with that.”
“We’re leaving.”
“Why?” she demands, looking more than a little disappointed.
I don’t have an explanation to give her, so I don’t say anything; I just haul her out of Mateo’s house reluctantly one more goddamn time.
Chapter Nine
I’m quiet the whole way home, stewing in a mix of anxious, self-conscious and murderous thoughts. Mateo’s cocksure attitude doesn’t usually get to me, but it does this time because he means it. For someone so goddamn paranoid, he would push me, even knowing what I’m capable of, because he doesn’t believe he can lose. He doesn’t believe he can be toppled.
I’ve never been so goddamn tempted in my life to help topple him.
He thinks he has all the power. He only has what he has because of me.
I glance over at Elise, beautiful, gentle Elise, watching out the window since I won’t talk to her. She’s all dressed up in a navy blue dress Mateo bought for her before we left, her hair pulled back into a neat up-do, little blond tendrils escaping. God, she’s so beautiful. Too beautiful. She sits in this boring-ass car, regal as a queen, and…
And he’d take her from me, just to prove he could. He doesn’t even want her, just like he didn’t want Mia when he first took her from Vince, but Mateo uses sex as a weapon. He uses everything as a weapon, and he knows how long Elise yearned for him. He’s kept it in his back pocket, never acting on it, rarely even encouraging it, but always making sure I knew.
Mere days ago I wanted to believe that was over, that now he has Meg and he’ll stop that shit, but I gave him too much credit.
Vince is right. Once you cross him, Mateo has no loyalty to you. I survived crossing him once, but he doesn’t want to fuck me; I won’t survive a second time.
Or he won’t.
Either way, it ends badly. Either way it’s not the life I want to make for Elise.
Never has regicide sounded so appealing. Maybe I should take over his goddamn family myself. Put in Vince, like Cherie suggested. If I got rid of Dante, I could probably do it. Joey’s older, but Joey loves Vince, he’d pass the torch without a struggle. He doesn’t want that kind of responsibility anyway.
Of course, Vince reminds me a little too much of Matt, and I’m worried what would happen to him if he had Mateo’s power. He’d probably end up being mean to Mia. I might not be able to control him. Our whole operation would be vulnerable, especially with all this shit we have going on with Castellanos right now. We won’t survive a change in management right on the heels of this, not without a major loss of people, at the very least. And he’s so young.
“I wish you’d tell me what happened.”
I glance over at Elise, emerging from the helpless rage that’s threatening to consume me. She looks so sincere, like she really wants to know why I’m upset, but I don’t feel like having another Mateo fight. I don’t feel like tiring her out that way. I don’t feel like adding to my already mounting fears that he could do what he threatened. As hard as she fell for him with no encouragement, I can’t imagine the agony of seeing him exert even a soupçon of effort to turn her head.
I haven’t even done a damn thing to claim her as mine. Aside from their claims that I bought her, anyway. I haven’t kissed her. I never touch her.
It’s like the goddamn car’s closing in on me.
“I don’t know if I want to help Mateo finish this,” I finally say, stealing a glance in her direction.
Her brow furrows with displeasure. “Why?”
“Because it’s not my problem.”
“Someone tried to kill him,” she points out, like I’ve forgotten. “They almost killed Meg.”
“But they didn’t.”
“But won’t they try again, if you don’t take care of it?” she asks.
“Probably. But that’s the life he chose.”
She doesn’t say anything else, but she turns her head back toward the window, watching the scenery fly by as we approach our apartment, instead of looking at me. Her obvious disapproval only makes me feel worse.