Page 6 of Sweetest Sin (Tempting Love #1)

Dominick

“Is Brielle coming?” I ask when I walk into the kitchen on Sunday afternoon, fresh out of the shower after my workout session in our private gym.

I’d rather spend my afternoon doing anything but hanging out with my father, but Sunday dinners make Mom happy—and she deserves whatever happiness she can find, being married to the Devil himself. And it also means seeing my sister, who rarely comes home from college unless she’s forced to do so.

Mom and Brielle always cook a delicious meal and dessert. We have drinks and talk over dinner, and even though I can’t stand being in the same room as my father, I get a bit of satisfaction from watching his health rapidly decline.

Only Brielle hasn’t shown up for the past three Sundays, and I’m starting to worry. After she missed the first dinner, feigning illness, I offered to visit her, but she insisted I stay away, claiming to be contagious.

The following Sunday, she used the excuse that she was behind on her studies due to being sick and couldn’t make the drive home.

Last Sunday, she didn’t even bother with a decent excuse.

When she didn’t show up, I called, and she said she forgot but promised she would see me this Sunday.

Something sounded off in her tone, but she hung up before I could question her.

I know she’s having a hard time with the thought of having to marry Anthony, but she knows that Matteo and I are working on it.

“She’s not coming,” Mom chokes out.

When she turns around, I notice the tears in her eyes.

“What’s wrong?” I ask, walking over to her to make sure she’s not hurt.

The only time I’ve seen her cry is when Dad’s hurt her, and it’s clear from her splotchy face and puffy eyes that she’s been crying for some time.

“Your sister and father had a falling-out. She turned off her phone, which led him to believe she was going to run away, so he had his men go to her apartment to bring her home.”

“Do they have her?” Matteo asks, walking in and joining the conversation.

As much as we’d prefer to have our own places, in order to keep Mom safe from our asshole father, we still live at home, knowing he won’t touch her while we’re here now that we’re capable of knocking him on his ass if he lays a finger on her.

“No,” she whispers. “I don’t know the details since your father doesn’t feel the need to keep me informed, but I heard him yelling about her not being at her apartment, and then he took off to go after her himself.

I’m worried,” she says, her gaze flitting from Matteo to me.

“I’ve never seen him this mad before. And he knows about her boyfriend. ”

“What the hell do you mean, her boyfriend?” Matteo yells, then turns to me. “Did you know about this?” he accuses.

“I had my suspicions, but she never confirmed,” I say sharply. “And I didn’t think she’d be dumb enough to flaunt it in public, where our father could find out.”

“Can you locate her?” Mom asks Matteo, who’s already typing away on his phone.

“Fuck, her location is off.” He glances up at me. “We can’t let Dad get to her. You know he’ll stop at nothing to see his fucking plan through.”

“We’ll find her first,” I tell him. “Mom, let us know if you hear anything.”

“I will,” she says, wrapping her arms around me.

“Please find her first,” she pleads, hugging Matteo next.

“If your father does, I don’t know what the outcome will be.

He was so mad. When Anthony told him that he saw her with another man, your dad lost it.

His violent tendencies have been getting worse, and I’m scared he might hurt her. ”

Fucking Anthony.

This is worse than I thought. Brielle being seen with another man is the equivalent of Dad going back on his word, which is viewed as the highest disrespect in our world.

If he finds her first, he’s not only going to drag her back here and lock her up until it’s time for her to marry Anthony, but he’ll also find a way to punish her. And with his health at an all-time low, who knows what state of mind he’ll be in or how badly he’ll hurt her?

“Don’t think the worst,” Matteo says, reading my thoughts.

“We’ll find her. I’ve already spread the word on the streets that if anyone sees her, they’re to grab her quietly and bring her to us.

And, Mom”—he looks at her, his features filled with remorse and anger—“once we get her back, we’re going to take care of Andrey once and for all. Enough with this bullshit.”

“Any news?” I ask Matteo when he walks into my office.

“No. None of her friends or my contacts have seen or heard from her.”

It’s been a little over a week since Brielle went missing.

We’ve pulled our resources in search of her, but we haven’t had any luck in locating her.

Thankfully, our father hasn’t had any either, so at this point, it’s a race to see who will find her first. Matteo and I hope she’ll reach out to one of us so we can help her before our father gets ahold of her.

“We’ll find her,” he says, dropping into the visitor seat on the other side of my desk.

“I know. I just hate the thought of her being out there alone.”

“It’s a shitty situation,” he says. “But our sister is tough.”

“What if she’s …” I begin, unable to finish my thought because imagining a world without Brielle in it makes me sick to my stomach.

“She’s okay,” Matteo says, his tone brooking no argument.

We’re both silent for several minutes—the only sound in the room is from him typing away on his phone and me finishing an email I need to send out—until Matteo speaks again, moving on to another subject.

“So, you’re leaving for Coral Bay … and flying commercial again?”

“What?” I glance up from my computer, trying to stall and think of an excuse my observant brother will buy.

“Your assistant emailed your agenda and copied me since she had to move a meeting we had to another day. It said you’re flying commercial, which is strange since I know for a fact that our plane is available. Care to share why?”

“Saving gas,” I mutter, going back to typing up my email and hoping he’ll drop it.

As much as I don’t want to leave Harbor Point until our sister is found, I also have a business to run, which means flying to Coral Bay to finalize the contracts for the real estate development deal with Jaimie.

Only, instead of having my assistant, Janet, secure the private plane, I told her I would handle it—and then found myself booking a flight with the same company Peyton worked for, telling myself that I was only doing it to make sure that cheating fucking pilot had heeded my warning.

It’s been a month since I met Peyton, and I’d be lying if I said I haven’t thought about her damn near every day. I wanted to find a way to reach out and make sure that fucker was no longer working directly with her, but I told myself it was for the best that I kept my distance.

But now that I need to go to Coral Bay … two birds, one stone, and all that shit.

“So, now, you’re all about the environment?” Matteo barks out a laugh. “Stop with the bullshit and try again.”

He leans back, crossing his arms over his chest, and I sigh, knowing he’s not going to stop until I throw him a bone.

Our dad thinks Matteo is dumb because he struggled in school.

He constantly got in trouble for not paying attention and for failing assignments, and when he got older, he barely showed up until he eventually dropped out.

Once, a teacher tried to tell our parents that she thought Matteo had some kind of learning disability, and Dad beat the hell out of him for “being stupid and lazy.”

But he never took the time to see Matteo’s strengths. Instead, our father wrote him off and threw him onto the streets, thinking he wasn’t capable of anything more than slinging drugs and enforcing our protection payments.

While Dad was grooming me to take over the company, Matteo was running the streets and creating a name for himself, making deals that fattened his pockets and establishing connections with men who wouldn’t give Dad the time of day.

He has natural gut instincts and street smarts. He’s intuitive, and he picks up on people’s nuances that most wouldn’t notice. You give him a problem, and he’ll solve it—you just might not like how it’s solved.

While I make sure our mom and sister are cared for, he protects them.

Because that’s what Matteo does. He protects.

On the outside, it looks like he’s a ruthless bastard, and while that’s true when it comes to business, when it comes to our family, Matteo cares enough that he’ll stop at nothing to ensure our mom, Brielle, and me are safe—which is why I know that Brielle missing is eating away at him and he’s using my situation to distract himself.

Matteo’s not only my brother and best friend, but he’s my business partner in everything that doesn’t involve our father. And the day I get complete control of the company, I’ll make our business partnership official in every aspect.

“If you must know, I finally met someone who could hold my interest for longer than thirty seconds,” I admit, shutting my laptop and giving Matteo my attention.

“And she’d rather fly commercial than private?

” He chuckles. “Damn, bro. I need to find someone like that. The woman I took out a few weeks ago wanted dinner before she let me take her back to her place to fuck her.” He shakes his head, actually looking put out over the fact that a woman wanted to be treated like a lady.

“And she bitched when I took her to Pasquale’s,” he adds, referring to his favorite hole-in-the-wall Italian restaurant in South Harbor Point. “Insisted we leave and I take her to the country club instead. She wouldn’t know what a good meal looked like if it smacked her in the head.”

“Did you take her to the country club?” I ask, curiosity getting the better of me.