Finding Forgiveness

I put my head in my hands, taking deep breaths to try and calm down and clear my mind to think logically about this.

“Do we even know that we can trust him to keep his word?” he asked.

“We need a plan. And fast,” I replied.

There were a few moments of silence before I spoke again.

“I know a few packs down here,” I said. “They’ve been fighting with Martinez’s cartel for years. We should contact the Alphas. They might have some idea about where we should even start and if nothing else, lend us the money.”

“Good idea,” Luca agreed.

“There is no way he’ll get 800 thousand in cash in less than 24 hours,” Andrea said to me an hour later.

He’d tied me to a chair and had been sat a few metres opposite with his feet up on the table, staring relentlessly.

“Don’t underestimate him,” I warned.

Andrea let out a short laugh, “You’ve got girlfriend goggles on. He’s not all you think he is, sweetheart.”

“You don’t know him,” I spat.

“True but I know what I’ve heard. And did he really kill your brother?” he asked with a raised eyebrow.

I paused for a moment and swallowed, “Yes.”

“Oooh!” he exclaimed taking his feet off the table and sitting forward with a tantalising? expression. “Awkward!”

“Must you torment me?” I asked wearily.

I was just about through the pain of Connor’s death. The last thing I needed was for a psychotic Mexican drug dealer to drag it back up and smear it all over my face.

“I agreed not to touch you. Nobody said anything about emotional torture,” He replied. “Now tell me, when, where, how and why?”Nôvel(D)ra/ma.Org exclusive © material.

“I don’t really want to talk about it,” I said.

“Do you have a choice?” he asked picking up the gun. “Don’t think that I won’t shoot you because I don’t always keep my promises. So let me break it down for you, when?”

“Just over a week ago,” I said quietly.

“Oooh, nice and fresh and double awkward. How?” Andrea replied as if this was the best entertainment he’d had all year.

I looked down trying not to remember the image of my brother’s death.

“Please stop-” I began.

“Uh, uh, Blanca,” he said waggling the gun at me. “You don’t get to choose what we talk about. Now tell me, how did you mate kill your brother?”

“He snapped his neck,” I replied.

“Ehh, boring and lacking creativity,” Andrea articulated. “If it were me, I would have made a game out of it… or a show at the very least,” he added with a sadistic grin. “Of course, the end result is the same but why not have some fun out of it?… Did you know that I have a lion?”

The guy is fucking insane. I’m in the company of an absolute nutcase.

And a nutcase that sure knew how to pick at a person’s weakness.

“Why did he do it?” he asked. “Why would he bring such grief and sadness upon his own mate. Is it that he is no better than me? A cruel, ruthless creature?”

“He isn’t cruel nor ruthless but vindictive, impulsive and protective over his pack. He and my brother never got along and there was antagony? between them since day one.”

“Why’s that?”

“Not that it’s any of your business but our families have a history of not getting along. Leonardo’s father had mine exiled and when he gave his Alphaship? to his son, he tried, unsuccessfully, to kill my father,” I explained.

“So not only did your? mate kill your brother but he tried to kill your father too?”

“That was six years before we even knew we were mates,” I replied.

“Even still, how can you forgive him for that?” Andrea said. “And for your brother. That was only a week ago.”

I stayed quiet.

“And what ticked him over? What made him finally do the deed after all these years?”

“My brother had me kidnapped and then used as bate to start a war against his pack,” I stated straightly.

“I heard about a war involving the oh so famous Stella pack but I didn’t really care enough to find out the details but wow! Your brother waged war against your mate? I’m not surprised he killed him. I would have done the same… in a much less painless way of course but we don’t need to get into that again,” Andrea said.

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath and tried to settle my murderous thoughts.

“You poor baby. Constantly caught up in all this war and violence. I heard the Alpha of what was once the Ayas pack kidnapped you and held you hostage too, yes?”

“That was years ago,” I mumbled.

“And what about your encounter with the Italian Mafia?” he asked. “I wonder how much they’d pay for Luna Ella Loren…”

“How do you know so much about me?” I asked.

“I like to know a little about my enemies and your Alpha is pretty high up the list,” he said.

“I asked you how not why,” I replied fighting at the ropes around my wrists once again.

Andrea lifted his arm and pulled the trigger on the gun. The bullet streaked past me and hit the box I was leant again just a few inches from my head.

“Stop trying to escape,” he hissed. “It is futile and boring to watch.”

I sat wide-eyed absolutely unable to move. Now I knew he wasn’t fucking around at least.

“Anyway, back to your life. So you have eight kids: five boys, three girls. Eldest, Cato Leonardo Loren, is only seven years old, then the rest of their names and ages escape me. The heir is the only one really on my radar,” Andrea said as if he hadn’t just almost shot me in the head. “How does it feel to be the mother of the most wanted seven-year-old in the world?”

“I haven’t really had the chance to be his mother recently so I wouldn’t know,” I replied quietly.

“Well if Leonardo turns up with $800, 000 in the next…” he began looking at his watch. “21 and a half hours, you can go home. I highly doubt he will though. Getting that much in cash in such a short amount of time would be a struggle for me and I’m the owner of a drug cartel that deals purely with cash.”

“What does a nineteen-year-old do with eight hundred thousand anyway?” “What sort of baggage?”