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“I never intended for Carla to stay in New York.”
This made me laugh. I couldn’t stop myself. “You didn’t tell me anything except that I was being shipped here to your friend because you were worried I was losing it.”
The charming mask my father always wore slipped, and I could see the beginning of the cartel runner take over his face. “I was trying to ensure your safety.”
“You hated that I lived.”
Ivy inhaled sharply; her eyes were wide with horror. Eli was stiff as a statue, and I worried that he would snap at the smallest bit of air that blew near him. Marco’s eyes didn’t leave my own, his expression was blank, and I realized Eli got his ability to control his emotions from his father.
Though he would probably never cop to that.
“How dare you say such a thing?” my father snapped at me. “When you woke up…” He looked away, and I didn’t know if he was overcome with emotion or trying to play it off for the guests.
It hurt me deeply that I literally could not tell the difference anymore. For years, I’d thought my father had been the only person who truly loved me. But after everything, I couldn’t help but question it.
And I wasn’t going to allow him to bamboozle me any longer. Even if he was glad I was alive, I was going to hold him to the mat for everything else that he had done.
“You didn’t listen to me when I told you what I saw!” Now that I was started, I didn’t think I could stop. “You were determined that it was cartel related.”
“Because it was.” He bit out the words between gritted teeth, and I knew that he was holding back. His eyes left mine briefly as he looked around the table, and I knew it was the Blanchi family’s presence that was keeping him under control.
I wondered what would happen if they weren’t here.
But I didn’t care what the Blanchis thought. Between last night and this morning, I was hanging by a thread myself. And it was frayed.
“That’s not what happened!” I hollered, slamming my hands against the cushions of the couch. “You just want to believe that.”
“Why would I want that?” my father asked. His eyes clouded slightly, and for the first time, he looked away for a brief moment. “Do you think that I want to be responsible for the death of my wife and son?”
I’d thought a lot about that over the last few months. For months I’d turned over why my father refused to hear me. At first, I thought it might have been because of the police presence surrounding the case, but as the police stopped sniffing around and he refused to listen, I became aware that he just didn’t want to listen to me.
“I think that it’s easier for you if your enemies did it.”
He snorted and rolled his eyes. He leveled me with a look that made my blood run cold. “There was nothing easy about this.”
I sighed and shook my head. It was clear that he was still not going to listen to me, and just sitting across from him was too much for me right now. I stood up from the couch.
“I’m leaving,” I announced.
Ivy’s eyes went wide. “I’m sure that—”
I shook my head. “There’s no reason for me to sit here.” This time I looked directly at my father. “He’s never going to believe me.”
“Carla.” There was a warning in my father’s voice, but I ignored it and walked out of the house—alone.
CHAPTERTHIRTY-EIGHT
I could hear arguing on the other side of the large oak door that separated my father’s office from the rest of the house. Normally, the door was too thick to hear anything from the other side, which meant that my father and Moreno were clearly arguing.
“I can’t get ahold of Carla,” my mother said as she walked back into the living room. She glanced back at the door, worry creasing in between her eyes. She had been stressing since Carla walked out of the house. Probably even before that. Hell, she’d practically shoved lunch down our throats when it became clear that neither Carla nor her father were going to behave nicely with one another.
“I’m sure that she’s fine.”
I knew she was. I’d used her phone to track her. She was at the art store, most likely decompressing.
“Why did Dad call Moreno?” I asked.
My mother’s eyes went wide. “What makes you think that your father called him?”
