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I ran through it again as I went downstairs to the galley and started to unpack the food. The attack had happened in a neighborhood where we’d thought we were safe, and where my uncle had felt secure enough to build his own personal house. It had taken out several people in the family—lesser cousins—and a few of our soldiers. One of the biggest businessmen in the family. No one I was close to, and I’d breathed a sigh about that—then felt awful for having discounted the people who did die.
My uncle, when he called, didn’t know what was going on or why. And that right there made me nervous. He’d told me to get onto my ship and get out to sea, and that had made me even more nervous. My uncle didn’t believe in running from problems.
He believed in killing them.
I didn’t think I was at fault for what had happened but I couldn’t stop my brain from mulling over the possibility that he was blaming me anyhow. I’d been in charge of getting close to Joseph Rossi and brokering a deal, and I’d failed at that. In the process of failing at that, I’d gotten far too close to Brooks Peterson. I couldn’t remember what I’d said to her that first night and couldn’t shake the feeling that I must have said too much. She was involved with the Rossis and this attack had happened days after she stumbled back into my life. She’d known where I was going to be—or at least she’d thought she did—and the attack had happened within hours of me inviting her to the bar.
It fit too neatly for me to ignore. A member of the Rossi clan comes calling and gets friendly, flashing her body and fluttering her eyelashes and doing her damnedest to remind me of what we’d once had. For what, though? Why? If the Rossis had wanted to attack us, did they have to use Brooks as an entry?
I didn’t think so. I’d thought at first that she must have been behind the whole thing, but the longer I considered it, the more I wondered.
I didn’t think my uncle would see it that way, though. I’d cozied up to a Rossi no matter how you cut it, and our family had been attacked. My uncle might have virtually demanded that I do what I did, but he might decide to ignore that part if he needed a scapegoat.
He might pin the whole thing on me.
Which meant that getting out of town—and off land entirely—was my best shot at staying alive. Sure, my uncle had told me to leave, but this might also be my best chance at survival. This ship’s paperwork was registered under an alias and I’d bought it myself, with money I inherited from my father. If I was out on the water, I didn’t think my uncle would be able to track me down.
Though I didn’t like being out on the water when so much was happening in the city. If Brooks was the mole and had somehow turned us over, I might be the only one who realized it.
If Brooks wasn’t the mole, but had been in the wrong place at the wrong time... she might also be in a world of trouble. I didn’t know if the Rossis were behind the attack, after all, but if my uncle thought they were, and he thought Brooks might have been gathering information through her relationship with me...
“She’ll be the first one he hits,” I murmured, the pieces on the board suddenly rearranging themselves into a picture that terrified me.
This. This was why I hated being a part of this world. There were a million different things that might happen and I would never be able to guess at the truth because I only had half the facts. I didn’t know who I could trust or who might be my enemy.
I didn’t know who might be my friend, but wearing an enemy’s clothes simply because that was the family she came from.
Now that I was slowing down, I realized that I didn’t want to think Brooks had done anything wrong. I’d never known her to be straightforward, exactly, but I’d also never seen her stab anyone she loved in the back.
Which, I guessed, begged the question of whether she loved me enough to take care of me. I would have thought so, once. These days, I had no way of knowing.
Suddenly I heard my name. Not once, but twice, and then a third time.
Someone outside was screaming for me.
I dashed up the steps, my hand on the gun at my belt and my ears attuned to what was going on outside. Who the hell was outside yelling my name in the middle of the night at the harbor? And were they insane?
I got to the top of the stairs and ran along the deck toward the back of the boat, my pace increasing as I went. Because now that I was out here, I realized that I recognized the voice that was yelling my name.
Brooks had come to my ship.
And I had no idea why she was here.
12
BROOKS
By the time I got to his boat, courtesy of a bike I’d stolen back at the bar, I’d changed my mind once again. I wanted whatever information he could give me, yes. But I also wanted to make sure he was okay and that he knew what was going down out there. He definitely knew his family had been hit, because he’d high-tailed it for a secure location. But I didn’t know if he’d have taken the jump all the way to realizing that the Rossis might assume that the Massimos thought it was them, and hit before the Massimos could hit them.
Too many Italian names doing too much crazy shit, honestly.
But I understood every piece of it. We were all in this for one reason: We wanted to protect our family, and we’d do whatever it took to make sure we did that.
The problem was, I had a foot on each side of that particular line. Half of me—and more than half my heart—was on the Rossi/Brennan side. It was where I’d grown up, their families welcoming me when my own family proved too difficult to deal with. I loved them with everything I had in me and would have done anything for them. Including go to war with the Massimos.
Except that I had a foot in their camp, too, courtesy of fucking Anthony Massimo.
I jumped from the motorcycle, letting it fall behind me, and ran for the Ally, which was already starting to pull away from the dock. The fucker was going to leave without even glancingback, and though I couldn’t blame him for that, a part of me was screaming bloody murder about him leaving without bothering to return any of my texts.
