The Foiled Plan (War of Sins Book 2)

Just as I close the door to the room, though, it’s to bump into Greta, who lets me know Cisco is expecting me in his study.

Opening the door to his study, I find him lounging behind his desk, a glass of whiskey in his hand.

He raises an eyebrow as he sees me come in, and there is the barest hint of a smirk as the corner of his mouth pulls up.

‘Honeymoon cut short?’ He asks, his tone amused.

Striding to the desk, I take a seat opposite him.

For a second, all I can do is stare at him as I try to imagine why he’d treat his sister like that.

‘We encountered a bump in the road,’ I say noncommittally.

‘Oh, I’m sad to hear that,’ he offers a fake platitude, that cunning smile still on his lips.

‘Noelle had to be hospitalized,’ I add, watching his expression closely.

But he doesn’t slip.

There’s not a hint of guilt, not even curiosity as he merely lifts his brows in question.

‘Abdominal pain,’ I continue. ‘But you must already know that, no?’

‘And why would I know that?’ he asks innocently, taking out a cigarette and lighting it.

‘Because of her history,’ I grit my teeth.

It takes everything in me to not punch him—or worse, fucking kill him on the spot. Especially as it is clear that he doesn’t give a fuck about Noelle.

‘Hmm,’ he intones, and my fists clench in frustration.

‘Let’s cut the crap, Cisco. I read through her medical file. I know everything that happened to her.’

There’s a pause as his eyes flash. But he’s still sporting the same relaxed look as before.

‘So?’ He asks languidly.

‘So?’ I repeat. ‘Is that all you have to say?’

‘What do you want me to say, Raf? You’ve already read through her list of injuries, so you know the bulk of it,’ he shrugs. ‘There’s not much more I can add to that,’ he says with a feline smile.

‘How about the fact that you lied to me?’

‘Lie? Me?’ He feigns a look of surprise.

‘You and everyone else in the family have been suggesting that she’s a pathological liar and that I shouldn’t believe anything that comes out of her mouth.’

Entirely unbothered, he takes a deep drag of his cigarette.

‘You see, that right there is the problem,’ he smiles. ‘Suggestion. That means you reached that conclusion on your own.’

‘Cisco,’ I shake my head at him, barely in control of myself. ‘You’ve been treating Noelle like a madwoman from the beginning,’ I cut to the chase. ‘Why? She’s your sister for God’s sake.’

‘There are some things you don’t understand, Raf,’ his expression turns serious. ‘And will likely never understand. So do yourself a favor and stay out of it.’

‘Stay out of it? She’s my wife, damn it,’ I bang my hand over the desk, the sound reverberating in the study.

Cisco’s eyes darken, but he doesn’t move an inch. He continues to watch me with those mismatched eyes of his.

‘So she is,’ he agrees after a moment.

‘That means I’m entitled to know everything about her.’

‘Are you sure you want to know, Raf?’ He tilts his head to the side, looking at me through narrowed eyes. ‘The truth can be a dangerous thing.’

‘Yes,’ I reply firmly. ‘I want to know the truth. I want to know why her family’s been treating her like a lunatic. I want to know why you think everything she does is for attention. I want to know how the hell it got here, because from where I’m sitting, she’s never been anything but a victim.’

I’m breathing hard by the time I say the last word, my blood boiling inside of me the more I think of a defenseless Noelle withstanding so much violence and hate—even from her own family.

‘Are you done?’ Cisco asks in a bored tone as he takes a sip of his drink.

‘Tell me,’ I ignore his previous question as I demand he give me the truth.

Or at least his version of the truth, since we’ve concluded how misleading the truth can be.

‘If you’ve read through her file then you must already know she gave birth sometime before the fire,’ he starts, looking at me intently.

I nod.

‘She doesn’t know that. She doesn’t know anything about the day of the fire, and I’d appreciate it if it stayed like that.’

‘Why?’ I frown. ‘Isn’t it in her best interest to recover her memory? Isn’t that why you’re sending her to therapy?’

He gives a dry laugh.

‘Oh, how simple that would be. But no. She’s going to therapy for one reason and one reason only,’ he pauses. ‘To make sure she doesn’t kill herself.’

‘What…’ My eyes widen.

‘Her condition is complicated, Raf. And to deal with her I’ve made some allowances—some rather unorthodox allowances if you will.’

‘What are you talking about?’

‘After she awoke in the hospital, she was hysterical. She remembered everything about the baby and she was inconsolable,’ he takes a deep drag from his cigarette, releasing a cloud of smoke in the air. ‘She went through three different suicide attempts. All within the first month,’ there’s a rueful smile on his face as he admits it.

My breath hitches in my throat as I listen to his words, a deep chasm of pain opening inside of me.

‘Her last attempt was almost successful. Almost. The doctors resuscitated her right in time. After that… her memory was gone. To survive, I think she forgot everything that was too painful for her.’

‘That doesn’t explain your attitude towards her,’ I fire back, even more annoyed she’d have gone through something like that and her own family would treat her like shit.

‘Patience, Raf, patience,’ he shakes his head. ‘If before she’d been hysterical, then after the last suicide attempt she became almost catatonic. There was nothing we could do to get her out of it.’ He takes a deep breath. ‘She had no will to live left, and yet she was still living.’

I frown at his description.

‘So I did something a little…controversial,’ his mouth pulls up.

‘What?’

‘I became her enemy,’ he simply shrugs. ‘I gave her a reason to keep living—if anything, to prove me wrong. I antagonized her at every turn. I taunted her and I made her hate me until she stopped being a fucking statue. It wasn’t the best course of action, I admit. Yuyu was against it from the beginning. But I couldn’t just sit by and watch my sister fade away. Not after I knew I had a hand in her becoming like that.’

‘Why would you resort to that?’

I can’t wrap my head around what he’s telling me. Though to a certain degree it does sound logical, I simply can’t understand how he would so easily vilify his own sister—and claim it’s for her own good.

‘Noelle has always been a stubborn person. Tell her she can’t do something and she’ll try that much harder to get it done. That is the core of who she is, so I merely took advantage of that. I knew that if I pushed the right buttons, I’d manage to get a reaction out of her. And I did. That she still lives… She needed someone to blame. Someone to hate. And I gave her just that.’

‘That’s…’ I trail off, taken aback by his confession. ‘That’s rather extreme, wouldn’t you say?’ I ask, genuinely confused.

‘You didn’t see her back then. We tried everything, and nothing worked. She was just wasting away.’ He purses his lips and a flash of emotion crosses his face—one of the few ones I’ve seen of him. ‘You can’t be a hero if you don’t have a villain. Humans work around opposites. There’s always good and bad, black and white. But without the latter, the former wouldn’t exist. I gave her the bad, so she could nurture the good. It’s that simple.’

I’m stunned to the spot as I digest his words. I’ve never heard someone take that approach, especially since he’s her brother.

To realize that they’ve been all playing a role…

‘But how long do you intend to keep this up? It’s been two years already, and from where I’m standing, she’s not doing well.’

‘She’s doing as well as expected, all things considered. Why do you think I’ve been forcing her to go to therapy? Because memory is a tricky thing. And I don’t think the past will stay hidden forever. She needs a backup plan in case she remembers. In case all the safety mechanisms I put in place are broken,’ he adds grimly.

I grunt at his assessment.

There is, indeed, a logic to what he’s saying. Cisco’s been manipulating his sister from the beginning, playing psychological games with her that logically make sense. But what about ethically?

Although I understand the gist of his reasoning, there is a line you just don’t cross—especially with family.

This new information shines a new light on Cisco, and it serves to make me even more wary about him.

Because if he’s capable of doing this, then what else is he capable of?

‘What happened to her baby?’ I ask the question that’s been plaguing me all day.

His lips stretch into a thin line.

‘Dead,’ he replies. ‘We found it at the scene,’ he frowns, blinking twice. ‘We did an autopsy, and though he was born prematurely, he was alive at birth. He died later,’ his voice drops a notch.

‘Of natural causes?’

‘No,’ the sound is hollow as it escapes his lips. ‘He had his skull crushed.’

I can’t move as I stare at Cisco dumbfounded, that one piece of information hitting me in the chest with the force of a bullet.

‘His skull was crushed?’ I repeat bleakly. Goosebumps spread all over my skin, my heart beating wildly in my chest as it dawns on me what type of horrors Noelle had been through.

And the fact that I’m only getting a snapshot of it.

‘Yes. The baby was killed. So you see why Noelle would go off the rails. Why she would lose herself to her grief? If I didn’t act in any way…’ he trails off, ‘I wouldn’t have a sister right now. I’d have a shell, or none at all.’

‘I understand,’ I nod, a painful lump forming in my throat.

‘Good. I hope that means you won’t breathe a word to her about what you found out,’ Cisco raises a brow, which only makes me narrow my eyes at him.

‘With all due respect, Cisco. You did your duty as her brother. I am her husband now, and I will do my duty as her husband,’ I tell him clearly, my voice stern.

The slight twitch in his jaw tells me he understands exactly what I’m saying. That from now on he will not have a say in anything that happens with Noelle.

‘And on that note,’ I continue. ‘From now on I don’t want anyone to question her sanity, or tell her she’s doing things for attention.’

‘You’re getting bolder, Raf.’

‘No,’ I quickly reply. ‘This is not me getting bolder, Cisco. This is me enforcing boundaries and making sure she gets the best treatment, including from her family.’

‘I see,’ he murmurs, his eyes on me as he brings his cigarette to his lips.

‘And that means our plan is off too,’ I bring up the other elephant in the room.

I’d outlined this particular plan when I’d wanted to kill two birds with one stone—Noelle still being the number one target for my resentment.

But as it stands now, I could never in good conscience allow the plan to move further.

‘I didn’t expect you to be so sentimental, Raf,’ Cisco chuckles.

‘I’m not being sentimental. I’m being fair. And it’s not right to involve her in things that do not concern her.’ I stand up, ready to leave.

‘You sure weren’t so considerate when you married her,’ he calls out, stopping me.

‘What are you talking about?’ I frown.

‘You think I didn’t know why you were so keen on her?’ the hint of a smile appears on his face. ‘Do you really think I would give my only sister away again without having all the information?’

‘What do you think you know?’

‘That you spent a good amount of time at the hacienda under Sergio. Isn’t that right?’ His eyes glint dangerously as he looks at me, daring me to deny.

‘So?’

‘So I assume you had a hidden agenda when you decided to pursue my sister. Which,’ he pauses, ‘well done. It took me a while to get to the bottom of your objective.’

‘Then why still authorize the marriage?’

‘Because,’ he grins wolfishly, ‘some things are more important than others,’ he shrugs.

‘What are you talking about?’

‘My sister is important to me, of course,’ he continues, ‘but some things go beyond familiar bonds. I always act for the greatest good,‘ he says in a dead voice. ‘And that may, occasionally, call for a sacrifice or two.’

What…

The more I listen to him, the more I realize I’m talking to a madman. Because there’s absolutely no way Cisco is right in the head.

‘What are you talking about?’ I snap, a little tired of his circular talk.

‘Ah, Raf. That does not concern you,’ he gives me a tight smile. ‘But the deal remains on. My sister is and will be part of the plan as we’ve talked.’

‘And if not?’ I raise a brow.

‘If not…’ he gives a dry laugh. ‘Do you really want to find out? I told you. My sister is important. But there are things far more important…’ he trails off, the meaning clear. In order to achieve whatever goals he has in mind, he would sacrifice Noelle in the blink of an eye.

‘Is this how it’s going to be between us now? Threats?’

‘See, Raf. That’s the difference between the two of us. You care about people.’ His eyes turn cold. ‘I don’t. And that means I will always have the upper hand.’

‘Really?’ I drawl. The air is growing tense as the stakes rise. And though we have not raised our voices at each other yet, or resorted to violence, the intent is there. ‘What about your wife, then? What about your children?’

There’s a pause where he doesn’t answer. He merely looks at me, that intense stare boring a hole through me. His shoulders are tense, his entire countenance deadly.

Then, in the blink of an eye he’s relaxed again, leaning back and regarding me through hooded eyes.

‘They are the reason for everything,’ he states cryptically. ‘Don’t forget the deal we made. You want your revenge. I want… Well, I want what I want.’

‘This was your plan for the beginning, wasn’t it? That’s why you kept encouraging my relationship with Noelle.’

‘You could say that. You and Noelle have a lot in common. And I knew you would eventually find out about her medical history and you would put two and two together. So you see, I wasn’t risking much. I’ve done an in-depth analysis of your character and you’re one of the good guys,’ he smiles in satisfaction, ‘which made my decision infinitely easier.’

‘You’re insane,’ I shake my head at him.

‘Maybe,’ he shrugs. ‘My methods may not be fully orthodox,’ he chuckles. ‘But I’m a rather good matchmaker. Just ask your sister.’

I merely raise a brow, surprised he’d go there.

‘I may come across as heartless, Raf, and to a degree I probably am,’ he shrugs, leaning back in his seat and looking entirely at ease. ‘But I never do something without planning at least ten more movements in advance. I care about my sister. But in the big scheme of things…’ he trails off, a cunning smile on his face.

‘But that doesn’t matter anymore. She has you now. And that deserves a toast,’ he grins as he lifts his glass in the air.

‘Indeed,’ I drawl dangerously, looking at him in disgust. ‘To our women. May they forgive all our faults.’

Because I pity Yuyu for the man she calls her husband.

‘Amen to that,’ he smirks.