AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Sit down,” Lorenzo barked out. “Both of you.”
Neither of us wanted to do as he said, but we both adhered to his command, knowing that his words were law here.
“Then what happened?”
I slowly sat on the sofa, my back now to the door. However much I wanted to see if Bailey was okay, I couldn’t face looking at her right then, not after what I’d confessed.
“I went there more and more,” I continued, thinking about the night we’d had a room to ourselves. It had been so different that time, so much…more. It hadn’t felt like anything but two people who were into each other, even though deep down I knew that wasn’t what it was. “He had me followed, so I confronted him.” I cracked my neck to the side, following it up with cracking each of my knuckles. “His apology was gifting me Bailey in a private room.”
“Fuck’s sake,” Dante grunted, his face bright red with rage.
“It was then that I knew I couldn’t leave her in there any longer. So…me and Raf kidnapped one of the guards.”
Silence. Utter silence, and then, “You did fuckin’ what?”
Footsteps neared and I had no doubt whose they were. The only other person here who knew exactly what had happened. “He brought him to my house,” my father told Lorenzo. He didn’t need to be here helping me explain, but part of me was grateful. Lorenzo wouldn’t go as hard on my father, not just because he was an elder, but because he knew what he was capable of too.
“You were in on this, Uncle Antonio?” Lorenzo asked, a brow raised.
“I was.” He cleared his throat, standing taller. “I would have taken the same steps that Romeo has, and so would your father.”
“You wouldn’t have taken them without his consent,” Lorenzo reminded him.
My gaze switched to my father, noting how his expression changed. “I would have, and I did.” He paused, glancing at each of us in turn. “There are many things about the past that you are not aware of—that we didn’t want you to be aware of—but what Romeo did was the right thing.”
“Are you fuckin’ kidding me, Uncle Antonio?” Dante growled out, standing from the sofa. “What he did to her was the right thing?”
My father shook his head, disappointment clear in his eyes. “No. I don’t agree with what he did, but everything he did afterward was to redeem himself, to save her from the evil she was trapped in.” Dad stopped, his gaze landing on me. “I’ve been standing out there for ten minutes and I can already see the devastation that she has been put through. We don’t do that to women. Never to the women.”
“And it was all at his hands too,” I growled, slowly standing. “The man we tortured”—I turned to face Lorenzo who was standing now too—“he said that Gio tortured her after I went because she didn’t get any intel out of me. I may have hurt her, but what he’s done is destroying her.”
Silence fell over everyone in the room as they all processed what I was saying. I knew I’d done something that I would never be able to repent for, but fuck, Ihadto do it. If I didn’t, then she would still have been trapped there—no, she would have been sold to someone else.
“He told us there was an auction tonight. So I got Remy to hack into Gio’s cell—”
“Remy knew about this?” Dante asked, his tone downright dangerous.
“Yes,” my father replied. “I told him to keep quiet until tonight.”
“Then I bought her.” My stomach dipped. I had no intention of telling them how much it had cost me to get her out of there.
“You…bought her?” Lorenzo asked, trying to keep his tone even, but we all heard the dip of disbelief in it.
A door slammed against a wall in the distance followed by a shouted, “Where is she?”
I snapped my head toward the panicked voice, my body already making for the open office door where Bailey was now standing, her eyes wide.
She took a step toward the voice, then choked out, “Uncle Caden?”
CHAPTER 11
BAILEY
“Uncle Caden?” My heart pounded in my chest. I couldn’t believe he was here. His disheveled appearance was so unlike the uncle who had raised me. But it was him, the man who had no doubt been searching for me all of this time. The man who had sent Romeo in to help me.
“Bailey,” he croaked out, his footsteps getting quicker until he was running toward me. I couldn’t move though; I couldn’t get my feet to work properly. His arms enveloped me the moment he was close enough, and I took a deep lungful of air, closing my eyes as the sensation of home washed over me.
I hadn’t realized how much I’d missed that feeling until that very moment.
