Carlton ✔

21| The Truthful Lies

"You can't kill me, Jo," I breathed, warning him, "Put the gun down."

In acceptance, he did, a grin tugging on the sides of his lips.

He knew that if he hurt me, my Father would go after his entire family.

But I could kill him if I wanted to, so I didn't put my pistol away. "Let her go."

One of the guys had locked Breanna's arms behind her back, and the other had a gun pointing to her head.

She was crying.

Fuck.

He completely ignored me. "Your Father's orders. He wants you to return."

"So he thinks that kidnapping her would make me listen to you?! If he wants me home, ask him to come here himself!" I was screaming now, glaring at the weapon of death pointing towards her. "Put the gun down!"

"I'm just doing as I'm told, son." His face softened a little bit when I put the gun down myself.

When he said "son", it stripped away my power to threaten him. Jovan wasn't a bad person. He worked for my father, but he never supported him in his dirty world of illegal arms dealing.

He was more like a friend to him than an employee.

And to me, he used to be a role model. He had always been the big, bad guy that everyone in the neighborhood stayed ten meters away from.

A diamond, hawk-shaped brooch, pinned on his suit, shined under the rays penetrating from the thin curtains in the small apartment.

He fixed it before looking at me apologetically. "I don't have a choice."

"Jo...I can't come home." I glared at the men holding Breanna, with disgust. "I said, put the fucking gun down, you rats!"

They finally listened to me, letting her go.

Tears streamed down her face and my heart broke into a million pieces.

"I understand, but there's nothing I can-"

"Please. I'm helping her with something." I begged him. "I ran away from home for a reason."

He looked back at Breanna. "She killed one of my men yesterday."

"Y-You sent him?" Damien gasped and I contained myself and my emotions after hearing that.

"We killed him," I said, "He broke into her house. He deserved it."

As I spoke, a knot formed in my stomach.

How pathetic. My Father sent Jo and his guys to kidnap Breanna so he could blackmail me to come home.

What a paternal thing to do!

I was almost impressed.

Jovan was not pleased to hear this, judging from the way his eyebrows shot up. He probably didn't think that young Hargrave would ever kill a guy.

But guess what, Jo? It's in my fucking blood.

Deal with it.

"You're still a kid, Carl. There's so much left for you to understand about this world."

Here we go with the philosophical lectures again.

I wondered how he got caught up in this crap. He was certainly one of the top three people in my Father's trust list.

Did he really want me to come home so urgently that he sent his best warrior?

But I knew for a fact that Jo couldn't possibly do anything about it. When it involved Theodore Hargrave — an order, was a fucking order.