SEDUCING MY SISTER'S KILLER

Chapter 5 - Revenge in Red

"He left a knife in my sister's picture," I said, staring at the destruction around me. "I'm done playing games."

My apartment looked like a war zone. Every drawer had been pulled out and overturned, papers scattered across the floor like fallen leaves. The couch cushions were slashed open, stuffing spilling out like guts from a wound. Someone had been thorough, methodical, looking for something specific.

But it was Sarah's photo that made my blood turn to ice.

The knife was buried deep in the center of her face, the blade piercing through her smile and pinning the picture to the wall. Around it, carved in jagged letters that spoke of rage and warning, were the words: "He can't save you."

My hands shook as I pulled out my phone, Carlos's number already highlighted on the screen. It rang once, twice, three times before going to voicemail. His voice, warm and familiar, felt like mockery now.

"Carlos, it's me. Someone broke into my apartment. Call me back."

I tried again. Same result. Again. Nothing.

Panic clawed at my throat. Was this connected to the attack at the gala? Had someone figured out who I was? Or was this just another player in the deadly game that seemed to consume everyone who got too close to the Diego family?

My finger hovered over Antonio's contact. After our fight, after I'd slapped him and told him to get out, calling him felt like admitting defeat. But I was alone, surrounded by the wreckage of my life, and he was the only person I could trust.

He answered on the first ring.

"Marie? What's wrong?"

"Someone broke into my apartment. It's... it's bad, Antonio. Really bad."

"I'm on my way. Don't touch anything, don't go anywhere. Ten minutes."

He was there in eight, taking the stairs three at a time. When he saw the destruction, his face went white. When he saw Sarah's picture with the knife through it, his expression turned murderous.

"This isn't random," he said, his voice tight with controlled fury. "Someone knows who you are. What you're doing."

I nodded, unable to speak past the fear lodged in my throat. This wasn't just about seducing Carlos anymore. Someone had marked me for death, and I had no idea who or why.

"Marie." Antonio's voice was softer now, gentler. He moved toward me slowly, like I was a wounded animal that might bolt. "Look at me."

I raised my eyes to his, seeing all the pain I'd caused reflected back at me. His brown eyes were warm, familiar, safe in a way that Carlos's never could be.

"Come back to the right side," he whispered, his hands framing my face. "Please. Before it's too late."

Then he kissed me.

It was desperate, hungry, full of all the words he'd never been able to say. His lips moved against mine with years of pent-up longing, his hands tangling in my hair like he could anchor me to him through sheer force of will.

I didn't kiss him back.

I stood there, frozen, feeling nothing but the cold weight of guilt in my chest. Antonio was everything I should want,good, honest, devoted. He'd never killed anyone, never built an empire on blood and fear. He was light where Carlos was darkness, safety where Carlos was danger.

But my heart belonged to the monster, not the saint.

When he pulled away, the devastation in his eyes nearly broke me.

"You're already lost," he said, his voice barely above a whisper. "Aren't you?"

I couldn't answer. Couldn't lie to him anymore, couldn't pretend that Carlos hadn't already claimed every piece of me that mattered.

The Diego estate was a fortress of old money and older secrets. I'd never been inside the main house, but I could picture Carlos there now, pacing his father's office like a caged animal. The call I'd been waiting for came two hours after I'd left my destroyed apartment.

"We need to talk," his voice was different,colder, sharper, stripped of the warmth I'd grown used to. "Jardín Libertad. Midnight."

The line went dead before I could respond.

Meanwhile, miles away in that same estate, Carlos stood before his father's massive oak desk, his jaw clenched tight enough to crack teeth. José Diego was everything his son wasn't,crude where Carlos was refined, brutal where Carlos was calculated. The older man's face bore the scars of decades in the business, and his eyes held the kind of cold calculation that came from never losing a war.

"You're distracted," José said, not looking up from the reports spread across his desk. "That girl will be your downfall."

"Her name is Marie."

"I don't care what her name is. She's a liability."

Carlos's hands clenched into fists at his sides. "You always said love makes men weak. But you never loved anyone. And you lost everything because of it."

The slap came so fast Carlos barely saw it coming. His head snapped to the side, the crack of palm against cheek echoing through the office like a gunshot.

"You don't know what I lost," José snarled, rising from his chair with the fluid grace of a predator. "You think you're the first Diego to fall for a pretty face? You think you invented love?"

A photograph fluttered to the ground, knocked loose from the desk by José's violent movement. Carlos bent to retrieve it, and his world shifted on its axis.

The woman in the photo was young, beautiful, with the kind of fierce determination that radiated from her eyes even in a still image. She looked familiar in a way that made his stomach drop, her features echoing someone he knew, someone he'd held in his arms just hours ago.

Sarah Mitchell.

The name was written on the back in his father's careful script, along with a date from three years ago. Carlos stared at the photo, his mind racing through the implications. His father had known Sarah. Had worked with her? Against her? The possibilities made his blood run cold.

He looked up at José, who was watching him with calculating eyes.

"Where did you get this?"

"That's not your concern."

"The hell it isn't." Carlos stood slowly, the photograph clutched in his white-knuckled grip. "This woman is dead. And now I'm sleeping with someone who looks just like her."

José's smile was sharp as a blade. "Coincidences are rare in our business, son. You might want to remember that."

Carlos pocketed the photograph without another word, his mind already racing ahead to midnight, to Marie, to the conversation that would either save them both or destroy everything.

Jardín Libertad was empty at midnight, the central square transformed into a stage for secrets under the cover of darkness. I sat on a bench near the fountain, my hands trembling despite the warm night air. Carlos appeared from the shadows like he'd been born from them, moving with that predatory grace that never failed to make my pulse race.

But tonight was different. Tonight, he looked at me like I was a puzzle he'd finally figured out how to solve.

"You came," he said, settling beside me on the bench. The space between us felt like an ocean.

"You sounded like it was important."

"It is." His voice was flat, emotionless. "Someone ransacked your apartment today."

I nodded, not trusting my voice.

"Any idea who might want to send you a message?"

"No."

The lie felt heavy on my tongue. Carlos studied my profile in the dim light from the street lamps, and I could feel the weight of his suspicion.

"I've been thinking about what you told me," he said finally. "About your sister. About justice."

My heart hammered against my ribs. "What about it?"

"It's funny how life works sometimes. How the past has a way of catching up with us when we least expect it."

Before I could ask what he meant, he was kissing me. But this wasn't the gentle, exploratory kisses we'd shared before. This was desperate, violent, full of hunger and rage and something that felt dangerously close to goodbye.

I kissed him back with equal desperation, pouring all my confusion and guilt and impossible love into the contact. His hands tangled in my hair, his body pressed against mine like he was trying to memorize the feel of me.

When we broke apart, we were both breathing hard.

"What aren't you telling me?" I whispered, searching his face for answers.

Carlos reached into his coat, and my blood turned to ice when I saw what he pulled out. A gun, black metal gleaming in the moonlight, deadly beautiful in its simplicity.

He held it out to me, grip first, his dark eyes never leaving mine.

"If you're here to kill me," he said, his voice steady as stone, "now's your chance."