AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I looked down at the photo of a well-dressed, attractive man. A man I’d seen before.
My fingers heated and prickled where they touched the photo, kind of like someone had dipped them in something terrible, something like acid.
“’Twisted’?” I said. The word just slipped out, but that’s who this was. This wasn’t Domínguez; this was his second-in-command. The guy who drove around with chopped up body parts in his car and dropped them in barrels of acid.
Enzo cocked an eyebrow at me while Gabe and Brute and even Leo leaned over my shoulder to get a look. Ella didn’t seem terribly interested.
I ignored the question in Enzo’s expression—since I really didn’t want to get intohowI’d come up with that name for the freak in the photo.
“Are you sure,Signor?” I asked, because there wasn’t really a good way to tell your boss he had the wrong guy. In Enzo’s defense, twenty years was a long time. A really long time for a twelve-year-old kid. I didn’t personally know any twelve-year-olds, but I was pretty sure they changed a whole lot over twenty years.
But he nodded, unperturbed. “I never forget a face,cara mia,” he said, his gaze fixed on mine.
I don’t know if it was the words or the way he said them or the way he was looking at me like there was no one else in the room. Whatever it was, it made my breath hitch in my throat.
“Never?” I asked, but surely, I was reading into this, right? It was nothing more than coincidence.
“Never,” he said, shaking his head, though his eyes never left mine. Hazel eyes. Like Deo’s and Freya’s.
Like mine.
I looked down at the photo of “Twisted” and through lowered lashes, glanced surreptitiously around the room. Everyone else was focused on the photo; none of them seemed to have picked up on the other conversation going on here.
Maybe that’s because it’s all in your head, dumbass.
“It’s a rather old tactic,” Gabe mused, “but not unheard of.”
Really? Just like that we were getting on board with this?
Nico and Brute nodded in agreement. So, I guess we were.
“But if that’s Domínguez, who the hell have we been dealing with?” Brute asked, running his fingers through his hair and coming up short.And does Leeri know?He didn’t say it out loud, but I could see it in his eyes.
Good question. Though, I had a feeling the cactus wasn’t going to be forthcoming.
“I’m afraid I cannot help you with that,” Enzo said, shaking his head. “I don’t know the man.”
“Grazie,Enzo,” Nico said nonetheless, rather politely. I think Raven had been working on his diplomacy skills.
Enzo nodded. “I’ll leave you with that,” he said, nodding to the photo. “If you would see me out, Greta?” he asked.
Um, okay. Talk about awkward. “Of course,Signor,” I said—because that’s what you said to your boss when the guy you worked for was a mafia boss.
“It’s rather unique, don’t you think?” he asked as I followed him out of the room and down the hall to the foyer.
“What is,Signor?”
He stopped in front of the door and turned to face me. “The ability to capture images so permanently in the mind?” He had his hands clasped together in front of him. I wouldn’t have thought anything of it if it weren’t for the way his knuckles were turning white from clenching them together so tight.
“Um, I suppose so. Not quite the superpower I would have opted for.”
“No? And what ‘superpower’ would you have chosen?”
Was I really having a conversation about superpowers with Enzo Luciano? Maybe when I’d gone to get Nic a drink, I’d knocked my head on one of the cupboards and was actually lying unconscious on the kitchen floor. Or maybe I’d stepped right into the Twilight Zone. Either one seemed much more plausible, in my opinion.
So, admittedly, I didn’t give his question a whole lot of consideration.
“I suppose ultimate crime-sleuthing powers would be handy right about now,” I said offhandedly.
