Pull The Trigger; Trouble with Lies. (PTT Book 2)

Chapter Eight

With each step up the stairs, Snake felt herself quiver with guilt. She kept her grasp tight around the stair railing as she felt her steps heavy with each move. She felt her heart race as she stepped onto the second floor, she felt her heart stab with heartbreak as she stopped in front of the locked door.

She noticed light seep under the doorway, she was surprised he managed to find a light switch.

Snake unlocked the door, carefully pushing the door open.

She stood proud and tall in the doorway as she noticed Antonio sitting on the floor by the window, he looked quite pathetic.

His usually neat slicked back hair, sagged around his face. His jacket had been thrown over the dusty mahogany desk, his tie had been loosened. His face looked swollen with mistrust as Snake stared him down.

She knew this was going to be a challenge to not only for Antonio but also for herself.

"Why do you have this?" Antonio's pained voice darted towards her as he turned a photo frame in his hands.

Snake studied the photo frame he was holding; she had kept her past tucked in this room for way too long that she had almost forgot she had a life before she forced herself to lock it all away.

"Do you know who they are?" Snake tried to sound tough but there was a hint of curiosity mixed with heartbreak in her tone.

"I want you to answer me!"

"Don't." Snake gritted "Don't." She watched as he rose to his feet.

"Why do you have a photo of me!" Antonio snapped.

Snake dropped her eyes to the photo frame Antonio was forcing in her eyeline as he kept his back to the window, she noticed he was afraid to move closer to her.

Her eyes felt the burn of the photo in the frame, a photo of a sweet little baby no older than one laying on a picnic blanket with a young woman by his side and a red head child no older then three years old in the arms of a young woman who looked like younger Snake.

"She's been old my whole life, but I know that's Marie sitting by me." Antonio heard his tone change "That looks like..."

"Me." Snake breathed.

Antonio felt his chest heave "What has my father done?" He wasn't curious anymore about the photo, instead curious what had lead Snake to hold Antonio in her home.

"I can't tell you. Not yet."

Antonio slammed the photo frame down on the desk, dust specks jumped. He waved his hand in front of his face, attempting to force the dust particulars from getting in his face "My father has done nothing but raise me. I'm here because of him. Whatever his done, is it truly enough to lie to me?"

Snake lowered her head as thoughts lingered through her mind.

"I'm supposed to be preparing for my wedding."

Snake quickly darted her eyes to Antonio's face "To who?"

"What does that matter to you!?" Antonio tried to sound like his father, but he just didn't have the fear of it.

"WHO IS SHE!" Snake screamed.

Antonio felt himself jump with fear "Vera Melana."

Snake smirked "Your father has been lying to you for your whole life, you naïve little boy. Your in my house, disrespecting my privacy. Calling me a liar, yet your father. Oh, you don't know what your father's truly put you in."

"TELL ME!" His hands slammed on the dusty desk.

Snake stood poker face, she wanted to slam the door shut and lock him back in the room, but something was stopping her as she stared at the confused young man standing in front of her. She could see he was trying so hard to be just as arrogant, vile and disgusting as his father; Antonio II but Antonio III was nothing like his father, the two men were so far removed from each other that Antonio III hadn't realised that everything his father was doing was done with a plan rather than with a care.

"You've got a price on your head, thanks to your father. Are you sure you want to support a man like him when all his done is trick you into believing you had no other choice?"

Antonio looked up at Snake, all he wanted was to go back to his father. All he wanted was to go back to the sheltered life under his father's control, he didn't know anything else. He only knew of his father's truths, never anything else.

"Was it your choice to propose to Ms Melana?"

"It's contracted."

"By who?"

Antonio didn't understand.

"Antonio. Who contracted the marriage?"

"'Father."

"When is it?"

Antonio stopped. He had to think.

"Does she know?"

Antonio stopped. He had to think "She does. Father told her when he told everyone I was taking control."

Snake smirked; she understood the game Mr Tonio was playing.

"She will be my wife."

"You don't know, do you?"

"You grip me from my father's lunch and now you stand across from me, playing friendly. You don't think I know what your doing." Antonio managed to hide the fear in his voice.

"What am I doing, Antonio?"

"Your baiting me. Your trying to gather any piece of information from me to use against my father."

"Sweetheart. I've known your father a lot longer than you've been born. If I wanted to use anything against your father, I'd use my own experience not something from you." There was a hint of judgment with cruelty and truth in her tone as she stood across from the young man, she hadn't entered the room. She feared if she moved closer to him, she wouldn't want him to escape from her arms.

"That's why you have a photo of me." There was a hint of softness in Antonio's voice "Why are you in it?"

Snake felt her throat clench with tightness as she refused to say anything.

"You said you had experience with my father."

Snake needed to keep her walls up.

"What has he done to you?"

"What do you know of your mother?"

Antonio shrugged than quickly realised what he had done "Sorry." His father hated Antonio shrugging "She died when I was born. My father's raised me alone until Marie became my nanny, she's been by my side for..." He dropped his gaze to the photo frame.

"I'm not surprised he told you she died." She should've been but she knew deep down that Mr Tonio could be quite cruel.

"Did you know her?"

"Did he tell you anything else about her?"

Antonio shook his head "I don't even know what she looked like. I remember asking about her when I was younger, father..." he swallowed hard "Said that my mother was dead and needed to be forgotten."

Snake felt her eyes water as the words stung her heart. She had spent twenty-seven years without her son, twenty-seven years having to lie that she wasn't a mother, twenty-seven years of lying to keep her sanity for the sake of a cruel man.

She couldn't bear it anymore. She couldn't bear his question, she couldn't bear his piercing gaze, she couldn't stand seeing him stand across from her in a room that held painful memories, she couldn't stand it.

She felt tears roll down her cheeks.

Snake swiftly turned her back, slamming the door shut behind her.

Antonio listened to the lock of the door; he lowered his head as he didn't understand anything that had just happened.

His eyes lingered on the photo frame, he needed to learn the truth behind it.