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“Just because he turned out to be a relative of mine, doesn’t mean I’m going to mourn him, Frankie,” he adds, seeing my expression. “Fuck him. I make my own family. So? Did you kill the old bastard?”
I give him the ghost of a smile. “Ask me again when we’re a couple of thousand miles away from here.”
“Good riddance. Still,fourteen years…” He whistles to himself in disbelief, as if love, to him, has an expiry date. “That’s a long time to keep a flame burning.” Turning back to the car, he grabs a folder resting on the front dash and holds it out to me, the corners of his mouth lifting before adding, “No matter how pretty the smoke is.”
Not pretty.Ada isn’t pretty.Her light and grace weave a million gold threads around that statement.
She’s perfect, and she’s mine.
Even after all this time.
Even now when she’s forced to wear another man’s ring.
Flicking open the folder, my heart stills when I see her face. She’s sitting all alone in a garden reading one of the books I sent her, with her Bratva bastard of a husband’s men in the background disturbing the peace.
My finger traces the curve of her cheekbone. “I had to keep her alive, Aiden.”
Brotherhood is brotherhood, but Ada is my whole soul.
Our gazes catch again before he’s switching up the subject. “I got you out as soon as I could.”
“How d’ya do it?” I hand the folder back to him but pocket the photograph. “Did you hold a gun to Miss Interpol’s head? Was she cute?”
Aiden laughs, diffusing some of the tension between us. “Not me. I’m a happily married man these days. One of Santiago’s men did the honours.”
“Remind me to send him a bottle of bourbon.” Slotting a five-month-old cigarette into the corner of my mouth, I lean against the car next to him and wait for his usual bitching about my smoking habit, but it never comes. Blowing rings at the silhouette of the French jail, we watch them break apart as soon as they hit the metal fence. “I’m going back, Raven.”
“Figured as much.”
“I’ve got debts to collect. I won’t be returning to the Riviera.”
“No more sunshine,” he warns.
“Not planning on doing much sunbathing.”
“Maybe I’ll visit.”
“Maybe you will.”
“Is she worth it?” he asks, repeating the same words he spoke to me all those years ago.
My lips twist. My answer is still the same:
Worth killing for.
Worth dying for.
Worth the war that’s coming.
I can feel his dark eyes flickering over me, searching through the ruins of trust between us for something that’s still alive. “There’s a business opportunity on the table in London, if you’re interested.”
I take a final drag of my smoke. “What kind of opportunity?”
“The Colombian kind.” He leans over and hands me a black card embossed with the gold scorpion motif of the Santiago Cartel.
“White or brown?”
Coke or heroin?
