I Choose You (The Billionaire Brothers Series) (32 page)

Alive?

Trevillo skidded to a halt in the middle of the driveway when he saw all four of his car doors opened and all four tires slashed.

The hell?

In a sudden panic, he bolted towards the car hoping,
hoping
, Krissan was still there. And breathing.

His bones turned to dust, the edges of his vision blackened, his heart imploded at three second intervals, and his head pounded like a kettledrum when he saw the note on the car seat where his angel’s feather should have been.

You had my heart in your hands, and what did you do?
You fucked it up.
Now, I have your heart in my hands, and what am I gonna do?
Fuck.It.Up.
I’m not going to give you an ‘it’s either her or me’ ultimatum.
I’m just going to wipe her out of the picture and leave myself as the only offer on the table.
That way, you won’t get to choose. You’ll just have to take what’s left.
Don’t worry, I’ll make her death as pleasurable as possible. I promise, I’ll even make her come.
Not even Johnson got that kind of luxury. So you might wanna thank me when you see me.

Your only choice,
Sarah NELSON.

Trevillo stared at note until the words on the paper started blurring.

She took her.

She was going to kill her.

The lunatic murdered her husband?

Shit. Shit. Shit. She was going to murder Krissan!

Inertia seized him, and he read the words on the paper over and over again. It couldn’t end like this. It couldn’t. This couldn’t be his life. He’d done good on more than one occasions. He hadn’t always been a bad person. Didn’t that count? Didn’t he get a reward for being good some-fucking-times?

Fuck you, Life! Fuck you!

Trevillo tried to move one of his hands. It worked. So he reached inside his pocket and withdrew his cellphone, dialed, and listened numbly as the phone rang.

“Speak,” answered the one person he knew who could possibly get his woman back. Alive.

“Natalio, I need you,” he managed to get out, his own voice sounded strange to his ears. Weak and helpless. “Krissy … she’s gone … s-she’s … taken … ”

“Where are you?”

“I’m … I’m … ” Fuck, he couldn’t even remember where he stood. He needed to snap out of this shock if he wanted to find his woman alive.

“Jesus, Trev,” Natalio muttered in a pained voice. “I’ll track your phone. Stay where you are. Don’t move.”

At that moment, Trevillo didn’t think he could move even if he wanted to, seeing he was temporarily suffering from paralysis.

He’d found the love his life. Lost her. Got her back. And now he lost her again. This time, it might be forever.

Crumpling the piece of paper in his hand, he turned his face up to the sky, then opened his mouth and shouted so loud he could feel his lungs vibrate. “KRISSAN!!!”

Natalio shook his head at the creased up note Trevillo crumpled earlier. He sucked air through his teeth and pinched the bridge of his nose before shifting his gaze to him. “So, you think if you’d listened to me and hired a security team that something like this could’ve happened?”

Trevillo rubbed his forehead. He wasn’t in the mood for a tongue-lashing on safety from his brother. He was just recovering from his shock, the reality of what happened was starting to sink in, and he wasn’t feeling like a person who was alive, to be honest. He felt as if he was out of his body, looking at his brother talking to a replica of himself.

“I’m not like you, brother. I can’t stand having people following me around wherever I go. I’ve tried it, and it lasted all of two weeks before I told everyone to fuck off. If I wanted that shit, I would’ve turned into some kind of celebrity instead.”

Natalio made an irritated sound. “Guess what, Trev? You
are
like a goddamn celebrity! You’re a frickin’ billionaire who’s King of Real Estate in this hemisphere. You’re Marcello’s son. You’re a goddamn Nelson. You are
not
safe walking around without protection, Trev!”

Trevillo folded his arms like an intractable teenager. “Love’s richer than all of us, and I don’t see him with security tailing him.”

“No, but Love rolls his ass out of bed and prays for an hour each morning. So I’m sure he’s more than protected. He also walks like he’s wearing Jesus’ sandals. Do you?” Natalio shifted on his feet, getting ticked. “And he’s not the one going around screwing other men’s
wives
.”

Despite the situation, Trevillo managed a chuckle. “Okay, I get it. The fact I have a missing — possibly dead — Krissan Kingston proves you’re right. Now, what do I do?”

Trevillo wouldn’t even bother telling his pissed-off brother Sarah had threatened him more than once, and he’d ignored it. He would go ballistic. His brother was a stickler for safety and protection.

Natalio clapped his shoulder and leaned back against the car beside him. They were still outside Krissan’s house. The night was eerily quiet and chilly, but the coldness in Trevillo’s body had nothing to do with the atmosphere.

Trevillo was the oldest of all his siblings, but they all felt like he was the youngest, because he was as stubborn and rebellious as a last child. Natalio, who was the middle child, acted the oldest, because he’d inherited this gift of natural dominance, control and intimidation, just like Marcello, their father: focused, precise, calculated and everything done with purpose. When he spoke, people shut the hell up and listened.

Even though it should’ve been the other way around, Trevillo looked up to Natalio like he was the big brother. His opinion mattered to him like no one else’s.

“Now,” Natalio started, “you need to shake off this … look of hopelessness. It’s scaring the shit out of me. You’re normally the toughest and most impenetrable out of all of us, and at the moment, I don’t like the way you look. It’s a bit … frightening.”

Trevillo looked at his brother as if he had a log for a brain. “That’s because my girlfriend might be lying somewhere right now with a bullet in her head!”

With a crooked smiled, Natalio said, “Still can’t believe you have a girlfriend, man. And by the looks of it, you’re nose deep in love.”

Trevillo could only shake his head as he glared at his brother. Only Natalio could make the most serious situations seem like child’s play. Natalio was accustomed to shit like this. Trevillo wasn’t. If his brother didn’t have securities sitting in tinted vehicles on the curb, he’d punch him straight in the face right now.

“Chill, Trev, chill,” Natalio said, laughing. “I’m just tryna get you to calm your nerves so you can think clearly. You can’t get through situations like these until your mind is in order. Freaking out won’t help. Calmness is key.” He turned and stretched an arm out on the roof of the car, as if they had all the time in the world. “Now, close your eyes. Count to ten. Breathe, and
calm your nerves
.”

Normally, he wouldn’t have done jack-shit, but this was Natalio here. So he’d go with whatever he said if it meant he would find Krissan.

He counted past ten and was reaching twenty-five when his mind instantly relaxed and journeyed directly to Monday afternoon. The afternoon he hadn’t really given much thought to, due to being tied up with work in the BVI.

Now that his mind was clear, he was beginning to see how odd the afternoon was. The fact that Sarah had known without looking it was Krissan who’d walked in on them. The fact that Milo had allowed Krissan to enter his office without notification, even though he knew Sarah was there. The fact Milo had, out of the blue, given notice he was leaving TDR …

“Milo … ” he absently whispered. His eyes popped open and saw Natalio grinning at him.

“See? Works like a charm.”

All business now, Natalio turned and opened the door to his Bentley, slid in the back, then told his driver, “Moore, signal TA5. Girl abducted.”

Trevillo hopped into the vehicle and leaned back with a heavy sigh, as Natalio flicked open a razor-thin laptop and began tapping furiously on the keyboard. “Now, tell me, where do we find this Milo fucker?”

Trevillo rang the doorbell to Milo’s picket-fenced bungalow house. As soon as the door so much as cracked opened, he didn’t wait, he gave it a hard shove so the impact would bust the asshole’s face.

“Ah shit!” the male behind the door groaned in pain, staggering backwards with one hand holding his nose that squirted blood.

The recipient wasn’t Milo, and that made him even more pissed-off. Before he could step inside to turn out the intestines of all the occupants in the house, his brother grabbed his arm and pulled him back.

“Trev, don’t let your anger control you, man. Or you won’t get through this quickly. Time’s limited. Clear head, brother. Keep calm.”

Ruddy, Natalio’s main man, snorted and pushed his big muscled body past them and into the house. “Don’ needa clear head t’pull de’ fuckin’ trigga’.”

At that, Trevillo smirked, and Natalio glowered at Ruddy. “Hey, soul-taker, no killing unless it’s necessary.” Then he looked back to him. “Ruddy’s a murderer who gets a rush out of killing for no damn reason.
Don’t
encourage him.”

Trevillo sniffed and looked out into the yard where Natalio’s team of men were inconspicuously circling the house. He turned back to his brother who was starting to get on his last nerve with his ‘keep calm’ bullshit.

“Really? Unless it’s
necessary
? You know what, you better not put a fucking gun in my hand tonight, because this time I’ll validate my nicknames. ‘Cause if my girl is still alive, whoever is standing in the way between her and me, it’s fucking night night. Fuck calm.”

Striding off into the house, he went straight into a dingy living room swirling with smoke and the strong scent of marijuana. Natalio’s men were already in from the back and were holding down four naked men, Milo in the mix, who was looking up at him from the ground, wide-eyed with dread etched on his face.

“Sorry for disrupting your orgy,” he sneered contemptuously at the cohort of shriveled-cock, ass-fucking assholes. Latching his eyes on Milo, he said, “I suggest you start telling me what the fuck I need to know if you wanna live to continue sticking your dick in shitholes.”

“W-what, boss? What’re you here to know? Why are you doing this?”

Boss?

In a millisecond, he was across the room and his fist connected with Milo’s jaw over and over again. “Don’t fucking ‘boss’ me you disloyal fucking faggot! I trusted you. Valued you. Took care of you. This is how you fucking repay me?”

Natalio was soon there dragging him off Milo, while Ruddy grinned at the sight of blood flowing.

“I’m sorry, okay? I’m sorry I sent Krissy K in,” Milo cried. “If I had known it would be such a big deal, I wouldn’t have done it. I thought you and Sarah were legit since her husband’s dead. She said so. She asked me to do it.”

Trevillo paced the room, hands on his hips, face to the ceiling. He was trying the ‘calm the nerves’ thing, and it wasn’t goddamn working.

Natalio took a calm, quiet step towards Milo and asked, “Where’s Krissy?”

“W-w-what?” Milo stammered.

“We hacked into your mail and messages on the way here. You’ve been giving Sarah information on Krissy and Trev’s whereabouts for the past couple of weeks. You’re quitting your job as an assistant with Trev because Sarah bribed you, by promising you partnership in her husband’s company — which is now hers, of course. A husband she murdered. Now, she’s taken Krissy and plans on murdering her, too. But I’m sure you already knew that. Now tell me,
where is she
?”

“She murdered her husband? Taken Krissy?” Milo’s eyes bulged from his head. “Jesus Christ … I swear to you, I
swear,
I didn’t know she was going to do that! I-I don’t know where she is.”

Natalio nodded slowly and took another step forward. “Yeah, I believe you. But that isn’t gonna help us in no way, shape or form now, is it?” Moving his jacket aside, he pulled his gun from his waist, stooped down and tapped the attached silencer with his index finger as he told Milo, “You see, taking your life won’t benefit us in any way. But some valuable info will. You’ve been out and about running errands for Sarah in the last four days since Trev’s been out of the country. So, I’m gonna give you sixty seconds to jog your memory and give me something — anything — that’ll help. If you can’t,” he shrugged, “then it’s bye-bye. Show me your brain’s worth more than being splattered all over the walls, Milo.”