‘I’m not addicted!’ There was an ugly expression on David’s face. ‘I just enjoy the thrill...the excitement.’
Addiction.
‘Can’t you see how it’s ruining your life?’ Lia frowned. ‘How it’s turned you into a man who steals from his clients to feed his addiction?’
‘You sound just like your father,’ Da
vid scorned. ‘He said if I returned the money no one else need ever know about it and the two of us could live happily ever after. He withdrew from the de la Cruz negotiations to give me time to make the adjustments.’
Which proved Gregorio had been telling the truth when he’d told Lia her father had been the one to withdraw from the negotiations with De la Cruz Industries, even though the sale of the company would have saved her father and the people who worked for him.
Because he had hoped to resolve the situation of David’s embezzlement from the company without anyone being any the wiser. Certainly without Lia knowing what David had done.
My father confronted David alone that evening for the same reason—because he wanted to avoid hurting me.
And David—thief, liar and manipulator that he undoubtedly was—had no doubt used her in the same way to try and blackmail her father into silence. The strain had finally proved too much for her father and he’d had a heart attack.
Lia hadn’t been in her father’s study that evening, nor had she heard any of the conversation between the two men, but she knew with certainty that that was exactly what had happened.
‘Get out,’ she told David coldly.
His brows rose. ‘We haven’t finished talking yet.’
‘Oh, we’ve finished,’ Lia assured him evenly. ‘We’re way beyond finished,’ she added vehemently. ‘My father acted the way he did out of love for me, and now I’m going to do exactly the same out of my love for him. I am going to ruin you, David, as you ruined and eventually killed my father. I’ll expose you for the cheat and a liar you really are—Take your hand off me!’ she protested as David stood and moved across the room so quickly she was unable to avoid his painful grasp about her wrist.
Instead of releasing her David twisted her arm and held it at a painful level against her back, stepping behind her and bringing himself nauseatingly close to her.
‘I don’t think so,’ he murmured viciously as he bent his head close to her ear. ‘Why don’t you just agree to be a good girl, hmm? Otherwise...’
‘Otherwise?’ she echoed sharply.
He shrugged. ‘Well, you’re grieving for your father... Not adapting well to your change of circumstances. People would understand if you were to take a bottle of pills and just fall asleep...’
‘You’re insane!’ Lia truly believed it at that moment: no man in his right mind would threaten to kill her so cold-bloodedly.
‘Desperate,’ David corrected grimly. ‘And you should know better than to threaten a desperate man, Lia.’
Gregorio had tried to warn her. Had warned her. Lia just hadn’t listened.
Gregorio...
‘You would never get away with killing me,’ she warned him as she struggled and failed to release herself from David’s painful grip. ‘Gregorio would know I hadn’t killed myself, and he would hound you until he caught you.’
‘Wouldn’t change the fact you were dead,’ David reasoned.
There was no arguing with that logic.
Lia let out a scream as David suddenly twisted her arm so viciously she thought she was going to pass out from the pain.
‘Stop fighting me and I’ll stop hurting you,’ he ground out harshly.
Lia ceased her struggles. She slumped weakly forward the moment David reduced that painful pressure.
* * *
Gregorio tensed in the hallway when he heard Lia scream inside the apartment, not hesitating for so much as a second before he raised his booted foot and kicked the apartment door open.
He stepped through the flying wood splinters from where the lock had been detached from the doorframe and carried on down the hallway, his eyes narrowing as he took in the scene in front of him.