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Carla was clearly troubled. I saw it in her eyes when I pressed my fingers to her throat. She’d cowered in front of me. The fight left her immediately, and the fire in her eyes was replaced with terror.
“Then, why have you ordered me to be with her at every moment of the day? Seems a little extreme for a fresh start.”
A scowl overtook my father’s lips. Normally, I didn’t ask so many questions, but after everything that happened with Luca, I realized I could no longer go through life following blindly. Such behavior almost caused my cousin to be killed, and it was a miracle that Matteo or I hadn’t been harmed in his desire for revenge.
After the events of the fall, I’d vowed never to be caught off guard again.
A long, drawn-out sigh drew my attention back to my father. “Your mother and I didn’t want to say anything because we wanted to give Carla her privacy.”
Eager anticipation filled me. Was I about to get the answers I wanted?
“Carla’s sister passed away a few years ago.”
My heart stopped. “What?” I sat up straight. “Cartel related?”
My father shook his head at me. “No,” he said. “She had a brain tumor. Childhood cancer.” He ran a hand through his face as though the very thought was aging him. “The family struggled after that, naturally.”
He looked past me towards the floor to ceiling windows, and I knew what he was thinking. Mikey, my uncle, had been sick as a child, and it turned out that illness was genetic. Though he lived, after years of treatment, his body was still fragile.
Matteo and I had been born healthy, but the two children after us had not, and that nearly broke both my parents. It was something that our family never discussed. Matteo probably didn’t even know about it. He was too young to remember that time, and by the time he was old enough to remember, they’d stopped trying.
The sound of my father’s sniffle brought my attention back to him. “After her sister’s death, Carla fell in with the wrong crowd, and things…” he trailed off, “they spiraled.”
Carla’s eyes had been haunted when I looked at her, and now, I knew why. Matteo and I were close. I’d do anything for my brother, including kill. But I couldn’t cure cancer.
A million questions were running through my head, but I kept my lips sealed. “What about Carla’s mother?” I asked. It nagged at me that she was never mentioned. I couldn’t find anything about Moreno’s life online either, which made this all the more complex.
“She’s passed.”
I blinked in shock. “Shit,” I muttered.
“Indeed.”
He’d returned back to his desk. There was a restlessness about him when it came to Carla. I thought maybe it had to do with the fact that Carla was a girl. My dad never said it aloud, but I always wondered if he wanted a daughter.
He loved Matteo and I, but he was softer towards Fiona than he ever was with us.
Now, I realized it was much deeper than that.
He pitied Carla.
“So, you can see why I wanted you to look after her,” he said. “She’s had a difficult couple of years.”
“Don’t you think that she would prefer to be with her father. After all, he’s the only family she has left.”
The sadness in my father’s eyes deepened. “Your mother and I don’t disagree with you, but her father makes the choices.”
A small chuckle escaped me as I lifted myself up from the chair. “Don’t they all.”
There was a noise from my father, but this time I didn’t turn around to see what he wanted to say to me.
Carla was now mine to protect whether I wanted to or not. And as much as I wanted to screw her over and send her away so that I could get on with my life, I couldn’t ignore the way her sad, golden eyes affected me.
Now, I knew why she was here, and it made me feel all the more drawn to her.
I’d do my job. For now.
CHAPTERELEVEN
