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I didn’t say anything after that, mostly because I was too busy thinking about the men that had somehow wormed their way inside me. Cade, Luca, Ezekiel… even Damian, somehow. And that said nothing about Zander.
I didn’t know what was between us. I didn’t know how long anything could last, but God, it’d be nice to find out.
So, yeah, maybe I wasn’t okay with dying after all.
“All right,” Shay spoke, causing me to snap back to reality, “say I agree to help. Say I want to take Miguel down with you. How do we do it? What’s the plan to sabotage him?”
“Not just him. Rocco Moretti needs to go down, too.”
“That we can agree on. Any asshole who’d agree to take a girl for the night deserves nothing but pain and suffering in my eyes. But it’s not my pain and suffering we’re talking about—it’s yours, so what do you want to do, Giselle?”
Just like that, Shay was going to help me? For some reason, I had it in my head that I’d have to spend hours convincing her, especially since our past meet-ups weren’t always on the best of terms.
“Frankly, my idea… I don’t think it’s one you’re going to like,” I spoke slowly.
Shay narrowed her eyes at me. “Hit me with it, then. Let me be the judge.”
“You need to put off deciding who will take Piper’s place on the Hand—and the newly vacated position from Nixon,” I told her. “In private, anyway. The best time to strike will be when Rocco and Miguel think they’ve already won.”
The look on Shay’s face told me she already suspected what I meant, and yet she still asked, “What are you saying, exactly?”
“I’m saying put a pin in the real competition and tell Miguel and Rocco that they’re the newest members.” As much as I never wanted Miguel to know what it felt like to be chosen to be on the Hand, at the same time, giving him what he wanted would be the only way.
Give it to him before yanking it out from under him. Let him know triumph only so his defeat was that much sweeter.
“We will need to turn the Palmers against him,” Shay said. “They seem to be pretty close to Miguel. They’ll be all too happy to invite him onto the Hand, but I’ll need evidence that he’s as bad as you say to make them see the truth. They won’t take your word for it.”
“I have a few others on the case, watching, listening. Miguel is planning something else with Rocco, I just don’t know what yet.” I set my arms on the table, staring hard at Shay across from me. “If there are any other secrets the Black Hand is trying to hide… I wouldn’t trust them to stay hidden.”
Something changed on Shay’s face. It was like a switch got flipped inside her. Her back straightened, and her jaw locked. She got this far-off look I couldn’t read—and that’s when I knew: there was something else.
Something big.
Shay got up. “I need to go.” She didn’t say a single word more as she left the dining room, heading to the front vestibule of the house. Within twenty seconds, she was gone, the door slamming shut behind her as I was left to wonder just what kind of secret could make her act like that.
The Black Hand wasn’t supposed to have secrets, not from each other. They were supposed to be equals, have each other’s backs, and rule Cypress together. The police, politics, businesses—both legal and otherwise—they had a hand in all of it.
What could they be hiding now?
A minute passed, and Damian walked in. He tossed a glance at me as he asked, “What’s got her panties in a twist?”
“I don’t know,” I admitted. “But I need to find out.”
Chapter Eight – Giselle
It was time. I’d put it off long enough. While Shay was MIA, worried about whatever other secret the Black Hand was hiding, there was one more person I needed to see. One more person who needed to know I was alive…
And I needed to let him know I wasn’t too happy with him.
I had Damian’s guys grab me some box dye from the store, and Damian was the set of eyes on the back of my head as I dyed my hair. No more blonde Giselle; at least, not for a while. My yellow turned to a black.
I didn’t want to meet Zander at the house. Damian would drive me to a park, and we’d wait for Zander together. I… I didn’t know how the meeting would go, what would be said, whether or not emotions would override logic.
I’d fallen for Zander, so to find out that he was the one who shot me—he shot me and never told me—made me feel some kind of way. Conflicted, hurt, betrayed; take your pick. Any and all. There was a time when I’d started to think Zander was better than that, that he wasn’t just a man who worked for Miguel, but now I knew I was wrong.
I dressed in all black and threw on some dark sunglasses for the occasion. My stomach was in knots during the drive to the park, and Damian kept giving me the side-eye as he drove. I tried my best to ignore him, but eventually I couldn’t, and I found myself asking, “What?” I sounded a bit snippier than I intended. Oh, well.
“Nothing, nothing. I just can’t get over how different you look with black hair, baby girl. Don’t take this the wrong way, but you really do look like Miguel Santos’s daughter now.”
