60
Tristan Fuck… I can’t even bother to ask myself what the hell is wrong with me.
There’s no point.
Maybe I’ve lost my mind with worry over Dominic, or I really am consumed with lust.
Nah… even I can admit it’s neither of those.
Yes, I’m worried as fuck about Dominic, but I won’t use that as an excuse for my actions. Neither will I say I was consumed with lust and couldn’t think straight. That makes me sound like I’m no better than an animal.
The answer is simple: I want her again. I want to fuck her again. That’s why I was able to tell her as much.
I’m not supposed to cross that line again and I keep taunting my fucking self.
Hearing those moans fall from her lips and her willingness for me to eat out her pussy drove me crazy. I had to do it. I needed to do it like I needed oxygen.
I did it knowing my mouth won’t be enough.
I wanted Isabella from the first time we met. Maybe well before that when I first looked at that picture of her. I was so focused on the plan to take her that I wasn’t really thinking of my internal desires until I was.
It was the day in the park when we spoke. That was the defining moment for me when things changed. It was when I realized there was something about her that drew me in.
That look in her eyes I recognized got me good. Now I’m like a fucking schmuck who’s struggling to focus.
I walk to my room and head to the shower. I throw off my clothes and turn on the cold stream.
Once I get in, I let the water run over me while I jerk off like a fucking teenage boy. I can’t remember the last time I had to do something like that, but I can’t walk around pitching a fucking tent with Candace around.
Even if she weren’t here, and it was just me and Dominic I wouldn’t do it either because he’d know exactly what was up with me. I don’t want to explain any of the feelings I shouldn’t have for Isabella, and I doubt he’d understand.
My attraction to Isabella is completely different to Massimo and Emelia’s relationship.
Emelia is Ricardo Balesteri’s daughter. Before we knew what Riccardo was up to, Massimo played his cards right in a plot to destroy him to get him back for what he did to our family.
We knew the bastard was broke and he had to borrow from us. Massimo took Emelia as payment for the debt and made the man sign over his assets to him.
When I could see he had feelings for Emelia well before any arrangement was made it was me who encouraged him to love her. I encouraged him to see her for who she was and not the enemy’s daughter.
It would not be the same thing for me because Riccardo is not Mortimer Viggo. Mortimer is guilty of too much and many have suffered and are still suffering because of him.
I really do need to get back my control over the situation. That is what I need to do and that’s why I decide to stay away from Isabella the next day.
While I do some company work, I watch her through the camera on my phone and see that she takes sips of the water we bring her but doesn’t touch the food.
I wondered if she thought it might be poison but then I realize it wasn’t that. She literally doesn’t want to eat. Candace and Dominic alternate taking her food, each to no avail.
I have a meeting with Massimo after breakfast and then I’ll go in and see Isabella again. It’s pissing me off that she’s not eating. She won’t be able to keep it up. The days are passing and the clock’s ticking. We’re nowhere close to where we need to be, and we don’t know where to begin to find Mortimer.
I carry in the laptop we’ll be using for the conference call.
I make my way inside the kitchen and meet Candace’s disapproving glare.
“Good morning to you too,” I say sarcastically.
She rolls her eyes at me and pops a slice of bread in the toaster.
“Tristan, this is getting out of hand,” she states coming over to me.
I set my hands down on the table and regard her. She knows not to question anything yet here she is.
“Please hear me out,” she pleads. “What if she’s telling the truth?”
I glare at her. “Candace, principessa. The only truth Isabella is telling us is that she won’t eat the food.”
“Tristan, I don’t think so. Think about it. What if she really doesn’t know where her father is.”
Candace doesn’t know how these people operate so she’s just thinking logically like any normal person would.
“No. It’s not that and we have to keep trying to find out what she knows.”
She looks disappointed in my answer. “Okay… I guess you know best.”
Dominic comes in and sits down across from me.
“You were missing yesterday,” he says raising his brows.
“I needed a break.” So did my cock.
“I can’t blame you.” Although as he says that he’s eyeing me like he suspects something is amiss.
We have breakfast and Candace leaves us so we can talk with Massimo.
The second he comes online I know he’s not happy, and I also know I don’t have to guess the reason for that. It’s because we’re taking too long.
“Morning guys,” he begins.
“Hey,” we both say.
“I’m afraid things are slowly beginning to unveil themselves,” Massimo states and the unease in his expression intensifies. “Intel has told us Dmitri has a CCTV image of Isabella in her car heading into town. Well before the alert was made that she’d gone missing, Sacha got her car back to the house. But they’re suspicious because of the conflicting information. His word against the image and no footage from the house. It makes him look suspect.”
We had one of our guys wipe the footage at the house, so they had no recording of her leaving.
Hard evidence against someone’s word is definitely going to be suspicious. This is all taking too long.
“What have they done to him? Dmitri would have definitely pulled him up on that.”
“Haven’t seen any sighting of him since yesterday,” Massimo answers. “So, he could be dead, or being tortured. It’s what I would do. There are whispers of Mortimer but he hasn’t shown his face.
Even if he has, I have no idea what the fucker looks like. I hoped we could move faster than we are.
Guys, it’s been a few days since Isabella was taken. What’s happening? Why don’t I have a location for Mortimer Viggo yet?”
“She’s not talking,” I answer.
“Then fucking make her talk, Tristan. She must know where her old man is.”
If he were here, he’d see what I meant.
“She says she doesn’t know. She insists that’s how he keeps himself safe. I don’t believe it.”
“Neither do I. Guys, don’t feel sorry for these people. They will use all sorts of mental acrobatics and chances you give them to manipulate you.”
Mental acrobatics? That’s a good one. I wonder if I could use that to explain my attraction to Isabella and the need to taste her. It’s not manipulation in the least though if I’m the bastard who can’t stop thinking with his dick.
“We’re thinking of ways to make her talk,” Dominic says. “We need ideas and right now in my honest opinion we’re running out of time and tactics.”
“There must be some way of getting to her, so she coughs up the info we want,” Massimo insists.
I can’t think of a way that doesn’t include losing a limb or issuing some damage to her.
“You manipulate her. Find a fucking way. Do what you must because the longer this festers the worse it will get. If Mortimer thinks his daughter was taken, he’s going to naturally start looking at the people strong and powerful enough to infiltrate him.”
That’s a given. Although I think the key word is powerful. I look at Dominic. People will know the type of things he can do. We’ve done the impossible by not only finding out Mortimer has a daughter but taking her too. Something like that can only be achieved by having a man like Dominic around. I don’t doubt Mortimer will know that.
“He’ll consider that we took her,” Dominic says and releases a sigh. “He’ll think of the people in the underground with the type of skill it would take to discover his secrets.”
“Exactly,” Massimo agrees. “That points to us. I won’t be idiot enough to think the man hasn’t been watching us in some way and there is the issue of trust to consider. Things are happening around us and people who are supposed to be trustworthy are proving they can’t be trusted.”Property © of NôvelDrama.Org.
He sounds like he’s found out more shit in regard to the Syndicate, but now’s not the time to worry about them. One thing at a time.
“Right now, it still looks like Isabella escaped,” Massimo adds. “The picture of her in her car and the time the image was picked up makes it looked like she was given a pass to get gone. That’s good for us at the moment. The guards think Sacha helped her because he’s the only person who could have allowed it. The relationship between them is strong enough to fully believe he would help her.”
As he says that an idea hits me hard and I straighten up. One of the first things Isabella worried about was her bodyguard. She thought her father would kill him when he realized she’d been taken. It was Sacha she was talking about.
She thought of him first before she even started pleading for herself.
I look back to Massimo. “I think I have an idea. The guard Sacha. He’s important to her. I think he might prove more useful to us than we anticipated.”
“What are you thinking?” Massimo asks.
“Use him to make her talk or get him to talk. Whichever. She maintains that no one knows where her father is. One of them must know something. Or I’m sure they can be persuaded.”
I can’t torture her but someone else can be tortured to get answers. One of them will talk. Isabella thinks of Sacha as a father figure. When I was listening in on the last conversation she had with him she told him that. That seemed to be the sentiment that made him give in to her request to leave the house. There was something sad in his voice too when she mentioned Eric. They share a bond I can use to my advantage. I’m sure she won’t like to see him in pain.
Massimo nods at that. “Good idea.”
“That is a good idea,” Dominic agrees. “You’re not going to bring him here though are you?”
“No,” I answer. “We can sort something out, so he stays in Rhode Island. I’ll get Nick and the boys to get him.”
“I’ll send back up,” Massimo says with a nod of approval.
He likes the idea. It’s just, however, one more thing I’ll feel like a bastard for when it’s done. One more thing for Isabella to hate me for.