Reign of a Billionaire : A Dark Mafia Enemies-to-Lovers Romance

Chapter 37Kingston

My brows pulled together at how enraged she sounded, leading me to one conclusion. Liana truly didn’t remember me. What else had she forgotten? And, more importantly, what secrets was she hiding?

I intended to unravel every single one of them, starting with her absurd desire to be taken back to Perez yesterday.

“I’m waiting,” she spoke again.

“I was your bodyguard once upon a time.”

I heard her sharp inhale. “You’re lying.”

“Your memory can’t be that bad,” I drawled while she scrutinized me.

“I guess you weren’t significant enough to remember.” Ouch. She waved the gun around, and it made my tongue feel like sandpaper. I’d seen firsthand the kind of skilled shooter she was, but like I said, it was a rusty piece. There wasn’t much stopping her from accidentally shooting herself. I decided to keep her distracted.

“You don’t think ten fucking years were significant?”

She winced as my words settled around her. After a few seconds of silence, she spoke again. “The years are. You’re not.”

Double fucking ouch.

“Or maybe someone brainwashed you,” I pointed out calmly. More doubt danced in her eyes. She was doing her best to hide it, but I’d spent years studying her and her sister’s expressions. Being observant was a matter of life and death for some.

“Please stop talking. The sound’s giving me a rash.”

Jesus Christ. I saved her, yet she’d been giving me nothing but grief. I rested my hands on the table and leaned back in my chair.

“Instead of throwing insults, you should be thanking me.”

If looks could kill, I’d have dropped dead on the spot. “I didn’t need a rescue, you… you… svoloch.” Luckily for me, her stuttered “asshole” rolled right off me. She’d called me worse—in English and Russian—though it was starting to appear she didn’t remember that either.

“What would you have liked me to do? Let you be sold in the auction to Cortes?”

She opened her mouth before immediately closing it, her lips thinning.

I placed my elbows over the edge of the table and rested my chin in my palm while I stared down the barrel of the gun. “My turn to ask a question,” I said with a calm I didn’t feel.

She scoffed. “I don’t think so.”

“I thought you knew how to play the game.” I reached for her just as she readied herself to bolt, forcing her back into the chair. My palm engulfed her small one holding the revolver, forcing her finger against the trigger. “Pull it,” I taunted as I spun the cylinder and then clicked it back into place.

“I will when I’m damn well ready,” she shot back, shooting daggers at me. “I have more questions.”

My hand wrapped around hers. Click.

She let out a wheeze, her eyes wide with shock as they darted back and forth between me and the gun. I removed my hand from hers, her glare burning a hole in my chest. So fucking odd. Nobody had ever had such an impact on me.

“My question,” I reminded her. “And I won’t even hold the gun to your head.”

She rolled her eyes, although the light tremor of her bottom lip didn’t escape me. “I’m not even holding it to your head.”

“Not literally,” I agreed, amused.

Her fingers twitched over the trigger, her nerves practically seeping through her pores. I waited several heartbeats before I went for the jugular.

“Where were you?”

She blinked, her expression filled with confusion, and after a second of drawn-out silence, she finally asked in a shaky breath, “Wh-what do you mean?”

“Louisa was going to run,” I said. “The only reason she didn’t follow through with it was because you never came.”

Tense silence filled the air. “You’re wrong,” she whispered. “The Tijuana cartel got her. Perez—” Her voice cracked as she shook her head, staring at me dumbly. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“We had a plan,” I gritted out.

I could feel her carefully built armor cracking, disintegrating into smoke.

“What plan?”

Had guilt gnawed at her to the point of impacting her memory? Was that the reason she willfully forgot the price her twin paid? Or was she play-acting?

“She wouldn’t leave without you. Not even for me.”

Her delicate brows pulled up in confusion.

“For you?” I closed my eyes and pinched the bridge of my nose. Her confusion was grating on me. “What do you mean?”

Reliving this was a bitch. I felt responsible for not saving her. For not protecting her. Our secret love turned into a tragedy.

“She loved me. I loved her.”

I anticipated Liana’s move, but not the savagery in her eyes. She practically flung herself across the table. Pressing the barrel of the revolver against my forehead, her other hand wrapped around my throat, those golden eyes—so fucking familiar—glared at me.

“If you loved her, why didn’t you protect her?” she hissed. “I should kill you.”

The same guilt that had been eating at me for years stared right back at me through her eyes. Liana had been broken and put back together, but deep inside, those cracked pieces were in no better shape than my own.

“You should,” I agreed evenly, my hand on hers, holding the pistol in place. “But you should also question why you have such gaps in your memory.”

“Fuck. You.” Her voice trembled with fury. “I remember everything worth remembering.”

“Except for me and large chunks of your sister’s life.”