Bow Down(32)

I nodded. “Thank you.”

We shook hands and then he left. His goons followed him.

I shut the door softly, releasing a breath.

That was fucking close. I knew playing both sides would be difficult, but I didn’t fucking think Arturo and Louisa would come to my fucking room at the same damn time. That shit was god damn stressful, and I was so glad that Arturo was gone.

I moved toward the bedroom, but the door flew open. Louisa stepped out.

“You two sound very friendly,” she said.

“Of course we do. I need him to believe that we’re on the same side.”

She scowled at me before walking to the door. “I’m leaving.”

“We didn’t finish talking.”

“We’re done for now. You talked enough with my father.”

“Okay then,” I said, sighing. “If that’s what you want.”

She glared at me. “Don’t be stupid enough to listen to him.” She said. “He’s a snake. A liar. He’ll stab you in the back sooner than help you.”

“Not if we stab him first,” I said softly.

She nodded, expression hard. “Goodbye, Wyatt.”

She left, slamming the door behind her.

I stared at the door, sighing. I had expected to get a taste of Louisa again, and found myself extremely frustrated that I wasn’t getting what I wanted.

These damn fucking Barones. They were causing me a lot of problems and for very different reasons.





18





Louisa





I couldn’t believe that asshole had me hiding in his bedroom like I was some teenager. I understood why I needed to, since we couldn’t be caught together if he wanted to continue watching my father, but still.

I didn’t get involved with men just to make sure I was never pushed aside like that. I hated being shoved into a closet while the men talked their business, and nothing was more frustrating to me than that.

I climbed the stoop of our safe house and opened the front door, my brain still reeling from what had happened. I headed into my room, got changed, and sat down at my computer.

Nothing made me feel better than scrolling through cyberspace, breaking into networks, and dominating everything I saw. I wasn’t a man or a woman online and could be whoever I wanted to be. Nobody questioned my authority or my power, because nobody could question me. The only thing that mattered was how good I was, and nothing more.

Wyatt represented everything that I thought I hated. He was a rich, powerful man moving up through politics and doing things that I could never do just because I was a woman. He was the sort of man I never imagined that I’d get involved with, not in a million years.

I’d met so many men just like him. They all hung around my father, hoping for his favor, practically kissing his ass to try and get a piece of his money.

They were all cocky and privileged and assholes. They were all absolutely alike.

But Wyatt wasn’t that guy, not really. He didn’t come from wealth and power like all of those men did. He didn’t have a trust fund that his daddy earned for him. Wyatt built everything he had from the ground up, just like I did.

That was what attracted me to him so intensely. He wasn’t a phony like all of those other men. Everything he said and did, all the power he wielded, everything was genuinely him.

As the hours slipped past and it became closer to morning than night, I began to calm down and realize that Wyatt hadn’t done anything wrong. I knew that deep down inside of me, but when he made me wait and hide in the bedroom, it made me remember everything that had happened with my father.

I remembered when I told him that I wanted to join the mafia. I was eighteen years old and already I knew I was smarter than the average guy in the mob. One night when I was deciding on which colleges to apply to, I walked down to my father’s study and knocked on the door.

I went inside. “Father,” I said.

“Daughter.”

I sat down in front of his desk.

“I want to ask you something.”

“What’s that?”

“It’s about your job.”

He frowned. “Don’t ask about my job.”

“I want to join. I want to be a part of your business.”

He looked at me then laughed. The bastard laughed at me.

I’d never forget that laughter. He refused to take me seriously back then, and he refused to take me seriously now.

That was his fatal mistake. He thought I was just some woman that he could steamroll and destroy, but he was so, so wrong.

Suddenly, there was a loud racket outside my door. It sounded like people grunting, doors slamming. I heard the elevator slide open.

I quickly got up and opened my bedroom door.

“Lou!”

Kasia was standing in the hall, one of our fighters on her arm. The elevator was open, and a few other girls were in there. All of them were bloodied.