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“Oh my God,” I whispered again.
I’d been so happy to see her again, so charmed by her smile and the way she made me feel, that I hadn’t spent enough time trying to figure out what she was doing or what she wanted. I hadn’t spent enough time reminding myself that I couldn’t trust her any more than she could trust me.
She’d been playing me. And she’d found out what she needed and then sold my family out.
True, there were holes. I’d never told her where my family would be, but if she was talking to me there was every chance that she’d been talking to other people, too. Brooks wasn’t a real Rossi and I knew her well enough to know that people—particularly men—got sloppy around her. All she had to do was flash that smile and flutter those eyelashes and men would sell their own soul to give her what she wanted.
She’d gotten to me. Who else had she gotten to?
I’d known she was dangerous and I’d invited her back into my life anyhow. I’d been an idiot. I hadn’t even thought about where her loyalties actually lay.
If she sold my family out, I was going to have to kill her. The thought broke my heart a little bit, but it didn’t change the facts.
She had her loyalties, and I had mine.
And I wasn’t going to forget that again.
10
BROOKS
I dashed toward the entrance of the bar, heart hammering and mind screaming at me. No, the attack hadn’t been here—according to the police scanner we’d been listening to—but Anthony was. Or at least he was supposed to be. If he was, it followed that he was, theoretically safe.
If he wasn’t here, though, it meant that he might have been in that house with his family when the place was shot up. It would also mean that he’d invited me out to the bar when he wasn’t going to be here. When there were assassins out on the streets. I was trying very hard not to think about that part, though, because it opened up too many questions and I already had enough to deal with.
I hadn’t even started to consider why I was acting so insane about a man I’d known when I was a kid and barely knew as an adult. I’d gone running out of the house and right toward danger for someone who was... what? What was he to me, really? The son of a family that was making war on both of mine. Someone I hadn’t seen in years. The boy I’d slept with when we were too young to realize what we were doing, and who’d never called me afterward.
That’s right. He’d let me walk right out of his house without so much as a kiss, and then he hadn’t called me.
I pulled up short at that memory and glared at the door in front of me. What was I doing? Anthony Massimo had dragged me to his room and spent one mind-blowing night with me and then never called me again. And I was rushing right into what could be a dangerous situation trying to make sure he was okay because...
What?
Because he’d somehow gotten inside my heart that first night in the bar, I realized. He’d smooth-talked his way right into my affections and made himself someone I cared about again. Or maybe it was just the memory of what we’d once been.
Either way, I gave myself a firm talking to, got myself under control, and walked through the doors of the bar like I didn’t give a single fuck whether Anthony Massimo was on the other side.
I mean, I was still curious.
The second I was through the door, the bartender started looking wary. Figured. The last time I was in here I’d put one man on the ground and then hustled into a corner with their local rock star. The people in this bar didn’t exactly have a lot of reason to trust me.
Though I might be able to use that to my advantage.
I walked toward the tender, looking him right in the eye and daring him to stop me, and leaned on the bar when I got there.
“Get you something to drink?” he asked, sounding as if he definitely didn’t want me sticking around to drink anything.
I smirked at the thought. “No thanks. I’m actually looking for Anthony Massimo. He told me he’d be performing here tonight.”
The guy’s eyes flicked from me to the stage and back. “He was here. But he left in a hurry about ten minutes ago. Didn’t say anything to anyone. Just went running out the door.”
God, this guy was twitchy. He was basically radiating ‘get out of here, please and thank you’ vibes. Though at least it meant he was answering questions quickly.
I leaned forward, getting as close to him as the bar would let me. “He didn’t tell anyone where he was going?”
The man shook his head, his lips sealed, and though someone with more experience than him might have been lying, I didn’t think this guy was. He looked terrified that I might hit him if he said the wrong thing, and I didn’t think he was clever enough to have made something up just to get me away from him.
He was telling the truth. Anthony had rushed out of here without telling anyone where he was going or why. And I was betting he’d left because he’d just received word that his family had been attacked.
