Cole (The Leaves) Read Online Free PDF Page B

don’t throw that at me right now.” I shook my head, but still didn’t look at him.
    “Fine, Cole.” He slowly reached up and took the bottle from my hand. “I mean it. She needs you to be strong and the more you drink, the more emotional you’re going to get. Now then, here is what I can tell you. I know you think I’m an opportunist and most of the time, I am. However, in this instance, Cole, I am not. The three Drago brothers wanted to concentrate on the vineyard and sell off everything else. They confided in me that they had sent Giuseppe’s son to Italy some years ago, but he was back. He wanted to keep the hotels, Giuseppe Junior felt it was his birthright. He’d learned more about wine-making, traveled different vineyards and regions to improve the family business. When he came back, doing everything his family had asked, they continued to put him off. They pretended that the vineyard was failing…”
    “I thought it was?” I asked.
    “They lied to him. The financials of the company were never made public, it was industry gossip. Lies perpetuated by myself and the three Drago brothers. They did this Cole, because Giuseppe Junior had been involved with his cousin. More specifically, his underage cousin. She was young, Cole.”
    “Let me guess. He replaced her with Anika?” I felt the bile rise in my throat.
    “That seems to be the assumption, yes.”
    Fuck.
    “Giuseppe Senior had him investigated twelve years ago, but they’d been watching him longer. His father learned that he’d been having a relationship with a single mother and providing her with drugs and money. The family sent him to Sicily the first time because he’d molested his cousin, Serena. Then he came back, apparently found Anika and her mother and, well, you know the rest. I’m not sure when he figured it out, but our guess would be at the charity auction. Giuseppe, or Joe, is the one that paid twenty-five grand for her painting. He could’ve been following you before she was attacked the first time and just gone into that bar on accident, but I doubt that. I think this was a terrible coincidence.”
    “Why now? I’ve been running Trinity for a while… why now? Why not act when the buy-out was fresh? It would have been more vulnerable? The board, everyone who was employed by them, they hated me because in their minds, I was you. That would’ve been the perfect time.” Business wise, this made no sense.
    “He’s desperate. They made sure when he came back into the country, Serena was gone. Hidden from him. They assumed he would just stay in Italy, Cole. They hadn’t planned on him not only coming back, but making it his mission to take back Trinity, strengthen the vineyards and if he succeeded… get Serena.”
    “I brought him back into her life. If he…” It was clear to me that I’d done this to her. This was my fault.
    “He won’t touch her, Cole.” He said evenly.
    “How do you know? Look what he’s already done to her!”
    “He has too much to lose. He thinks she’s the key to getting the company and Serena back.” He paused. “But you understand why we can’t involve the authorities with this?”
    “Yes, I do.” I stared at the chaise lounge directly across from me and closed my eyes, remembering Anika sitting there.
    “For all we know, that could’ve been an ugly trick.”
    I closed my eyes again and remembered watching the skin on her bare back lit by the dim lights inside the house. I could see the outline of the branches and the large script letter, wondering if she was going to add my initial as well. So beautiful. “Her tattoo.”
    “What about it?” He asked.
    “I know you think it’s trashy…”
    “I never said that Cole. That girl has class. Emma had no class at all and there wasn’t a tattoo or a hair out of place on that Gucci-clad gold-digger.”
    “It’s a tree.” I explained the obvious. “She told me she chose a tree because they never really die. They lose their leaves,