The Midnight Hour - Brenda Jackson [4]
"My informants tell me he's close to death. He was shot up pretty bad during some special operation in Iraq. I thought the news might please you."
Cross began eating again. Moments later when he became tired of Miguel's nervous breathing, he lifted his head and pinned him with a look of pure hatred and said, "Had I wanted Warren dead, I would have killed him years ago. I'd rather enjoy seeing him live and suffer. Dying is too easy and I resent being forced to bring an end to my game." He sighed deeply. "Oh, well."
He then returned to his meal. Moments later he said, "You can leave, Miguel."
The man quickly left the room and as soon as the door closed behind him, Cross stood and threw his wineglass across the room, watching it shatter and the blood-red liquid splatter on the wall. "Damn." He had enjoyed seeing Drake suffer the same way Drake had forced him to suffer.
Taking a deep breath he glanced at the huge portrait hanging on the wall. Maria. His beautiful Maria.
She had been the only thing that had ever been right in his life. She'd been the only person he could completely trust. Her father had been a high-ranking government official who had been appointed to the South American Antidrug Commission; a commission that was working with the United States government to increase their war on illegal drugs. Unknown to her father, he and Maria had been involved in a secret affair and had planned to marry. One night she had overheard her father and other government officials' plan to raid the drug lord's stronghold. That night she had turned her back on the pampered life she had always lived to come to him and tell him of her father's plan which had saved Cross's life, although she'd known he would retaliate by finding her father and slitting the man's throat.
And they had loved each other with a passion that no other woman could match or replace. Even now after seven years he still ached for her. The young women his men would often bring to him were of no use. After screwing their eyeballs out, he would usually turn them over to his men to do with as they pleased. He laughed whenever he thought about how many girls his men had kidnapped and brought to him. More than anything he enjoyed the pain he would put them through when he thrust over and over into their young, virginal bodies; bodies that would wash up on shore days later.
He walked over to the window and looked out at the Atlantic Ocean. He was a man who strongly believed in the principle of "an eye for an eye." Since Warren had taken Maria away from him, he had executed a bombing in Haiti five years ago that had taken the woman Warren had loved away from him. Marine Captain Sandy Carroll's fate had been sealed the moment he had learned that she was Warren's love interest. After losing her, Warren had become a demented and tortured man, living life precariously and on I the edge. Cross enjoyed the reports he would periodically ' receive on how Warren had barely missed death on some mission or another.
But no matter what, there was one thing that had remained constant over the last five years. Warren had never become interested in another woman. Oh, Cross knew about the times he would bed women to take care of his sexual needs. He wouldn't be much of a man if he didn't and Cross would at least give him that much. But the one thing he would not tolerate or accept was Warren falling in love again. The man was doomed to live a loveless life like him. And just like Sandy Carroll, the fate of any woman whom Warren showed more than a sexual interest in, was sealed.
Feeling agitated, Cross walked across the room to ring the bell for service. Miguel came quickly.
"Yes, sir."
"Bring me a woman," he snapped. "On second thought, bring me two."
He saw Miguel's smile before he quickly nodded. "Right away, sir." Then the man left.
Cross had understood