Chapter 29

Despite his words, I kept going, knowing if I stopped, I'd never be able to get it all out. "I was distracted, Rene. I let down my guard." I didn't tell him that I had lost focus because I was too eager to see her. Or what we were doing when it happened. Although he could probably guess if he knew she was found naked in the back room. "This was my fault," I repeated. "But I will make it right."

Rene stood stiffly beside me, and I thought for a moment he was going to take me up on my offer and pull out his gun after all. And if that's what he felt needed to be done, I would respect his decision. I wouldn't run. Or defend myself. It was his right as her brother.

Finally, he said quietly, "You find the pendejo that killed my little sister, and you make him suffer as you have suffered, Luca. As I have suffered. You take away the thing he loves most in the world. And then I will forgive you."

There was only one problem with this demand. Up until a week ago, I thought I was the thing her murderer loved the most.

Yet, I gave him a nod, walked up to the casket, and kissed my Maria one last time. Her lips were cold and hard. The passion that had burned within her and set fire to everyone lucky enough to be in the vicinity extinguished forever. "I will see you again, amore," I whispered in her ear, and then I turned and walked out of the house.

THREE YEARS Later

"LUCA. TURN ON THE TV."

I glanced up from my book to see Enzo, my best friend since grade school —now my right-hand man—entering my study. He hadn't even taken his coat off yet. "You're dripping all over my floor."

Removing his ever-present sunglasses, even with the storm raging outside, his mouth twisted with impatience. He found the remote near the television and turned it on, flipping through channels until he found a blonde woman in a revealing blue dress being interviewed by a daytime talk show host. She had a pretty, slightly heart-shaped face with wide-set blue eyes, a straight nose, and lips like Scarlett Johansson.

"Who is this?" I asked. "And why do I care?"

"Shhh. Listen." He turned up the volume.

"So," the interviewer said. "I heard from a little bird that you recently got engaged."

The blonde smiled, tilting her face away with a fake show of shyness that anyone with half a brain would see right through. "I did," she whispered in a conspiring tone as the camera zoomed in on her. I noticed her pupils were enlarged. From too many prescription drugs, would be my guess.

"Can we get a name for this mystery man?" The interviewer leaned in closer, like they were a couple of best girlfriends telling each other secrets.

"Well, I'm not supposed to say. But I'm just so excited!"

"I promise I won't tell anyone," the interviewer told her, her eyes bright with curiosity.

The blonde gave her a coy look. Her name flashed across the bottom of the screen—Nicole Calbert, actress. I'd never seen her in any films, but that didn't mean anything. Perhaps she was in television or on the stage. I didn't watch much television or frequent the theaters. "His name is Mario. Mario

Morel—”

The screen went black for a few seconds. And when the show came back on, Nicole was gone from the chair and the interviewer was apologizing for the disruption, her eyes wide and her shoulders tense, claiming her guest had suffered from a sudden illness. The show cut off, and a news anchor recapped the clip we’d just watched, ending with the question, “Was it really a nauseous stomach? Or a case of diarrhea of the mouth that ended this interview so quickly?”

My man Enzo turned off the television.

I steepled my fingers, my mind racing as fast as my heart. “So, where has my brother been all of this time?”

“Witness protection,” Enzo said.

It was what we had assumed after what had gone down at the warehouse when Maria was killed. What I’d seen with my own two eyes. But I didn’t understand. “Why is he back? He has to know I’ve been looking for him. The entire family has. He has a target on his back a mile wide.”

He just shrugged. “We don’t know.”

My brother was a rat. I had no idea why he was risking his life by coming back here, and I decided I didn’t really give a fuck. The fact was he was here, and I needed to get to him before anyone else did. This was my game. "Find that woman," I told him, a plan already forming. "Now."

"Tristan is already on it. Mark’s wife saw the interview happen in real time and told him about it as soon as she realized what that actress had been about to say. He told Tristan and Tristan told me."

And this was why they were my guys.

Three days later, my car was parked in a lot across the street from a brand new, seventeen-story building in the Market District of downtown Austin. The condos here were said to run upward of five thousand a month for a studio. An amount I—or a successful actress—wouldn't blink at, but something told me she hadn't chosen this location as much as been placed in it. Mario and his men frequented this area of the city. Or, at least, he had before he went into witness protection. And before I began to hunt him like the fucking traitor he was.

"Are you sure this is the correct location?" I asked from the backseat of the SUV. This whole thing made me nervous. Mario had been gone for years. Why the hell would he come back here? And why now? He had to know that I would find out the moment he stepped foot in my city again.

"This is the last known address of Nicole Calbert. Her rent was paid in full for an entire year just last month," Tristan said.

"It looks like the kind of place Mario would set up one of his women," Enzo commented.

"But you haven't actually seen her yet?"

"No," he told me. "Tris and I have been camped out here for the last two days while you've been dealing with that delivery issue, and nothing yet." I took a sip of my coffee, my eyes on the door of the building.