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Even relive our only sister’s death when she was just a baby.
“You did watch her,” I remind Domani. “But when the Torros invaded our home, you couldn’t fend them all off. You’re lucky to be alive, Dom.”
“Lucky?” His voice sounds hollow.
“We were twelve years old. There’s no way you could have protected Camilla against trained men with guns and whatnot. Dad pissed off the leader of the Torros, so they came for his daughter.”
But no matter how solid my logic is, Domani answers back with an ashamed, “I was supposed to watch her.”
I want to bring my father back to life just so I can kill him myself for saying that to my brother. Dom has always been a black and white, linear sort of thinker. To brand blame in his mind is cruel, and completely unfounded.
But again, Domani won’t hear it. We are forty now, and he still has episodes like this where he gets stuck in the trauma that never fully leaves him alone.
“Mom was never the same after that,” Domani reminds me. “We lost them both.”
I nod, pursing my lips to keep from saying anything untoward about our late mother. I don’t know what it is to lose a child. I would imagine it’s slightly worse than losing both your parents, which I’ve experienced firsthand. But a current of resentment keeps me company whenever I trudge up my mother’s memory. She checked out when Camilla died. We were nothing to her. She didn’t look after us. She didn’t remember our birthdays. She didn’t do much to involve herself with the family, which left our father to raise us—a task for which he never bothered to prepare.
But that’s neither here nor there now, so many years later.
I kiss my twin’s temple, holding him tight until his pulse begins to crest, his breathing evening out.
We stay like that until my phone rings with my pussycat’s name on my caller ID. “Hey, Jessica. I’m glad to hear your voice.”
But it’s not her voice that comes to me, turning the blood in my veins to ice.
“You want to take our money? Then we’ll take your woman.”
I recognize the voice as belonging to Kevin—an underling of the Torros family.
I stand immediately. “Where is she?”
“She’s with us now. I think by the days’ end, she will regret ever knowing you, and you will regret ever stealing from us.”
I hear my woman’s scream in the background, and before I know it, I am running to my car.
I will not let them take Jessica from me. They took my sister, which took my mother. I will not rest until Jessica is in my arms, safely hidden from anything that dares rise up against her.
12
Idon’t wait for my brothers to come with me. I dash to my car and speed out of the garage, stopping only when Giovanni’s form runs into the driveway, his arms raised.
“Out of my way!” I yell at my youngest brother, which isn’t a thing I often have reason to do.
Giovanni rushes to the passenger’s seat and throws himself in beside me. “You think I didn’t hear enough of that to know you’re walking into a trap?”
“I don’t care what I’m walking into! They have Jessica. They have her because of me.”
Giovanni buckles his seatbelt because he knows I’m about to be a crazy driver once I get onto the main road. “That’s fine, but you’re not going alone. Don’t be a dumbass. Rule Number Two: Don’t go in without backup.” He points to the road. “Where do they have her?”
I throw my phone at him. “I installed a tracking app on her phone. You get to navigate.”
Giovanni whistles long and low as he opens my app and fishes through the settings. “First night together, and you’re already tracking her? Remind me to tell her how lucky she is to have found a psycho like you.”
I glare at Giovanni, silently asking him if he thinks it wise to mess with me right now, of all times.
Gio backpedals because he may be a loudmouth, but he’s not an idiot. “Just kidding, just kidding. Here she is on the app. Okay, left up ahead. I’m calling my men in to help us. She’s your woman?”
I nod.
