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“He raped me,” I forced myself to finish the story. “He wanted me to know I had no power, that I never would. He wanted to hurt me one last time before washing his hands of me. I didn’t cry. I didn’t beg him to stop. I refused to give him the satisfaction.”
I couldn’t look at Shay. I stared at the car in front of us instead. “No one else knows. I… couldn’t tell them. I don’t want any of them to look at me differently or try to make Miguel pay. Miguel should be mine.”
Shay nodded once. “He will be, I can promise you that. I might not have been able to kill my personal demon, but I’m going to help you with yours. Anything you need, I’m here for you, Giselle.”
“Thank you.”
“Don’t thank me. That’s what friends are for. And for the record, I don’t think they’ll look at you differently.”
“I don’t know if I’ll ever tell them,” I whispered, and then it hit me, what Shay had said. That’s what friends are for. Did that mean we were friends? I’d never really had a friend before. Not a true friend. Being a Santos, my whole life meant never being able to trust anyone who tried to get close to me.
“It’s your decision,” Shay said. “Speaking of mine… I guess I have to come clean to the others. We’ll have to move Tristan somewhere else, find the one who sold us out—” AKA put a bullet in him. I knew how things worked when it came to betrayal like that.
“I,” I was slow to say, now perfectly aware of how sore a subject this was with her, so I was a little nervous to tell her my idea, “think I have a plan, but it’s going to require some cooperation and a little bit more lying.”
Shay could tell the others the truth about the Cobra and Tristan, but where Miguel was concerned, let’s just say we needed an easy way in, and what better way than by using the Cobra, a man who kept his face hidden behind a mask?
The girl beside me studied me quietly for a few seconds, and then she muttered, “All right, what’s this plan? Hit me with it.”
And so I did.
It wasn’t going to be easy, and I’d need to talk to the others about it before we put anything in motion, but if we were careful, we’d be able to do an old-fashioned bait-and-switch. Miguel wanted the Cobra. He wanted him free—if he was merely going to use the Cobra’s existence as blackmail against Atticus, he would’ve done it already.
No. If I knew Miguel at all, and I knew him better than most, he wanted the Cobra for one thing.
Death. Destruction. Mayhem and all the bloody chaos that came with it.
Miguel wanted to set the Cobra on the path he’d tried to take before. He wanted the Cobra to finish his work with the others, to kill them all, and then, when Miguel was the only one left, he’d backstab the Cobra. Miguel would rise above the ashes and make himself the leader of it all.
Of course, none of that would happen if I had anything to say about it.
Chapter Thirteen – Luca
I alerted Atticus the next morning, after I got up and saw my father wasn’t home. I knew what had happened, and I didn’t fancy myself a great liar, so although Atticus might be well aware of Giselle’s plan to nab my father, I had to sound believable.
My father was gone, blah, blah, blah. I didn’t know where he went, blah, blah, blah. He wasn’t answering his phone, blah, blah, blah. You know, that sort of thing.
I didn’t know where he was, but I knew Giselle had to have him somewhere, tied up. Or maybe he was already dead. As much as I hated him for what he did to her, for what he probably did to other girls all behind my mother’s back, I couldn’t be a part of it. I couldn’t watch and cheer her on.
Honestly, it was for the best. My mom couldn’t move to Cypress, not with her health being as it was. Once the smoke cleared and everything was settled, I’d have to tell her the truth—or parts of it. I’d practiced it in my head a lot, and so far, this was what I had: Mom, you know Dad’s done some shady things. Well, those things finally caught up with him. He’s dead. No, there won’t be a funeral, but…
And that was all I had. I figured she’d be upset, I’d have to comfort her; that whole conversation was probably one I’d have to have face-to-face with her.
Atticus called a Black Hand meeting that afternoon, and I was required to attend. Since I was my father’s heir, until he was found—or found dead—I would be acting as his replacement.
Yeah. I guess, technically, right now I was a Black Hand member myself.
The meeting was held in their new headquarters downtown, on the top floor of the building they’d just finished renovating. Apparently, they had a big safehouse not too far out of Cypress, but for quick, important meetings, an updated office space was good enough.
The conference room was surrounded by windows. Each wall was made of glass, and to my surprise, that glass could be darkened with one flick of a button. Atticus sat at the head of the table, Shay to his right. The Palmers sat across from Shay, while I was beside her. Miguel took the end opposite Atticus.
I didn’t know much about Miguel, but even I could see he wasn’t happy. His mouth was a thin line, a constant scowl, and that scowl only deepened when Atticus told the others why we were here.
“It seems one of our newest members, Rocco Moretti, has gone missing,” Atticus stated, and while Shay and I did not look surprised, the Palmers certainly did. Miguel continued to scowl. “It seems he never came home last night after the party.”
The Palmers, Randy and Molly, I believed their names were, glanced at each other. I could see where Slade got his looks from. Both his parents had similar appearances: yellow hair, light eyes, sharp jaws.
It was Randy who spoke first: “What are the odds something would happen so quickly? Do you think it was someone who might be feeling snuffed that Rocco got on the Hand instead of them?”
