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I sighed, growing frustrated. I was getting a small taste of what it must have felt like for Carla when I’d been unwilling to hear anything from her.
“We already know why she freaked out. Her family was murdered.” This time Luca spoke. Things must have been bad if my wayward cousin was willing to impart a little bit of reason into things. “She was scared. But I agree with Eli, and I was there for most of it. She wasn’t going to hurt anyone.”
“Are you sure?” Matteo threw the USB to me. I caught it easily. “Carla was and is the prime suspect in her family’s murder.”
“What?” Carla had not mentioned that when she told me. I knew that she found them, but I never considered that she would be a suspect.
“Her father tried to cover it up, but she was the only survivor in the house.”
Luca’s brow was raised, and it was clear that he found this as ridiculous as I did. “Carla’s tiny. She was able to kill her mother, brother, and a bunch of guards? Doesn’t track.”
Matteo shook his head. “It would if she had help.” He nodded at the USB in my hand. “I got my hands on the police report. They found male shoe prints around the property, and they were not the size of anyone on the property.”
“So, she stumbled upon an intruder?” There was no part of me that believed Carla murdered her family. Not one.
“The police think that her boyfriend helped. The shoes were his size.”
This gave me a moment of pause. I’d been rolling the USB between my fingers with no intention of looking at any of the files Matteo was discussing. I stopped, immediately.
Matteo looked at me, his eyes intense.
“What?” Luca asked, looking between the two of us. “What the fuck do the two of you know?”
My brother didn’t take his eyes from me. “Her boyfriend is in New York. Apparently, he’s a student at NYU. Odd considering his grades are worse than mine.”
Luca cursed under his breath, but I said nothing. Carla did not kill her family. Right?
CHAPTERTWENTY-NINE
“Are you alright?” I whispered to Eli as we walked into the party. Tonight, Ingrid’s father was hosting a fundraising event, and though spending the night with a bunch of rich New Yorkers sounded like a horrible time, the Blanchi family made it clear we were all to attend.
Eli grunted, but he said nothing.
I tried not to allow his non-response to upset me. I had no reason to be offended. After all, I was the one who made it clear I did not want anyone to know anything about the two of us.
Still, the indifference that he showed me since I walked down the stairs in my gold dress, hurt.
“No drinking,” Marco Blanchi said as we walked into the ballroom. “The press is here, and I don’t want any photos of my sons engaging in underage drinking.”
I expected Matteo to groan or say something, but he also grunted. My eyes met Ivy’s, and we both looked concerned. It was one thing for Eli to be monosyllabic, but Matteo always had something to say.
But she said nothing, instead looping her arm through her husband’s, who guided her into the room. The ballroom was decorated tastefully in various shades of cream and gold. There was a full bar and a small dance floor that was currently empty.
“I’m going to go get a drink,” Matteo muttered the moment his parents were out of earshot. Apparently, he was not going to heed his father’s warning, not that I was surprised. What was shocking was that Eli didn’t try to stop him.
In the weeks I had been with the Blanchi family, I realized that Eli was the caretaker of his brother. Except for tonight.
Something felt off. Not that I was going to ask. Eli was acting weird, and I was too prideful to ask if it was because of me.
“Which stuffed shirt is Ingrid’s father?” I asked. I probably should have done some homework before coming, but I didn’t see the point. This was a high-society event. Sure, it was funded by the mafia, but that didn’t shock someone like me.
When I was younger, I’d gone to all sorts of events like this one. All funded by my father in an effort to create the illusion that he was a respectable businessman instead of an arms dealer.
“Does it matter?” There was a wariness to Eli that threw me for a loop. Since we’d returned from Boston, things felt…nice…between the two of us. After class, we’d go get coffee, or I’d paint in the warehouse.
At night, he’d slide into my bed and body, worshipping me to the point where I lost all sense of self, and I was ready to tell him anything that he wanted to know. Thankfully, he never asked.
Things were nice, and now, it felt like that gulf was back between us. “I guess not,” I muttered.
