𝐁𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐢𝐭 𝐋𝐢𝐤𝐞 𝐌𝐞

5|| Paradise

Dante / January 14
•••

"Dante?" Adriana's voice whispers through the slightly opened door of my office.

"What?"

Instantly my two black Great Dane's run through the crook of the door to my desk. Waggling their tails as I pet their heads.

"Ehm, well, someone put this in my locker at school."

I don't look away from my dogs as I speak, "What does that have to do with me?"

"Oh, I don't know," she says, her voice already sounding pissed off. "Considering it's your name written in blood on the envelope I thought I might just deliver it to you."

My head snaps up towards her. She was still in that god awful preppy uniform of the exclusive private school I'd send her to as she held out a white envelope to me – and sure enough my full name was written on it in blood.

I grab the thing out of her hands and gesture for her to sit down.

Her eyes weren't puffy or red and she also didn't seem like she was about to faint, yet I still welcome that familiar ring of anger in my ear at the thought that some stronzo put this in her locker just to get to me.

"Did you open this?"

She gives me one of those bratty looks and that's when I know that the situation hadn't freaked her out too much. "Can't you see that it's sealed?"

My sister was clueless and oblivious when it came to a lot of things, but she could play games and tricks even in her sleep – so I wouldn't put opening mail that wasn't directed to her and perfectly closing it after reading its information above her.

"Don't make me repeat myself, Adriana," I say as I open the envelope.

"No," she mumbles. "I didn't open it."

I look inside the envelope, only to find a simple letter. My hands fist the paper, crumbling the words when I see the sender.

Lester fucking Finley.

Ever since the day we disrupted Charles Richardson's honeymoon, word had gotten out that I'd captured Celeste Costelle – because for a moment, I thought I did.

One of my men had beaten a description of her out of Charles and finally we'd found a 5'9 white woman with red hair, green eyes and a white dress. I'd taken her to the basement along with Charles and it was only after an hour of torturing the both of them that I realized that she wasn't Celeste.

It's safe to assume she'd have a little bit more dignity when facing death.

But the news about me having her locked up had already spread and reached the Irish mafia. Apparently wherever the widowed Mrs. Richardson is now she isn't with Lester either, because he's been going absolutely nuts thinking I'd hurt his precious little devil.

And considering he pissed me off every time I had to sit through the recordings of his meetings, it only seemed fair that I did the same to him.

So no, I didn't tell Lester that I had in fact kidnapped and killed the wrong woman. Instead, I'd told him she was chained to the walls of my house, begging for food and water. I'd told him she was sleeping on cold stones in nothing but her underwear. And I'd told him about all the ways I'd tortured her.

But now my big mouth had caught up with me, because he'd touched the one thing that was off limits to everyone: my little sister.

I crumble the rest of the paper and tossed it aside, my dogs instantly running towards it to start playing with that stronzo's letter.