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“Nadia—”
“I know. I’m not saying I just discovered gangs. What I’m trying to say is there are more of them, and at sixteen, Jay thinks he’s all grown up.”
I laugh and shake my head. “Runs in the family, does it?”
“Why are you . . .” Nadia takes a deep swallow of her drink. “I don’t deserve your anger or whatever this is. If you came for revenge or for free entertainment, get back on your . . . your . . . hog and go.”
Fuck me, this time. I bite down on the laugh, Pippy Longstocking on the sofa stirs in me. I don’t think I’ve ever referred to my motorcycle as a hog.
“I’m not about to do that. You said you needed help, I heard it, so I came.”
She frowns. “Can you sit? You’re so . . . big.”
“Jesus fuckin’ Christ.” But I do as she asks.
“I just . . . I’m sorry, there’s no one else to help. My brother’s pretty useless when it comes to Jay. And Dad . . .” She swallows. “He was a good man, the best, I know he had troubles, but I could count on him, and now, he’s gone . . . all I could think of was you.”
Nadia’s overwhelmed which is rare for her or it was ten years ago. But I don’t need to digress. What I need is to see if her issue’s connected with the Dallas issue? Problem? Situation? I’m not sure what to fucking call it because I don’t know if it’s even anything at all.
Except there’s no real thing as coincidence in my world.
All I could think of was you . . . fuck. She didn’t mean it like that, and the reverence for her piece of shit father is so earnest and wrong it could break hearts.
I rub a hand over my chin. “Tell me about the gangs.”
“They come in waves, always have. One group moves on, grows up or dissipates, others come in, looking for a new place, fresh blood. But some of the new ones are troublesome.”
I lean forward in the armchair, not trusting myself to sit next to her. Although what the fuck am I going to do, ravish her? “Troublesome, how?”
She licks her lips, catching a crystal of salt with her tongue. “Remember how the gangs tended to be roughhousing idiots, a stabbing, maybe? Drinking? Vandalizing? It’s changed. And this new one . . .”
Nadia takes another swallow of her drink. “I found a baggie full of coke, some pills that could’ve been, I don’t fucking know, Diego. MDMA? Oxy? A-and a gun.”
“Fuck. Where is he? Point me to him.”
I’m on my feet and so is she. A cold, biting fear gnaws at me. A gun is not what I want to hear. Or the drugs.
“I don’t know. I called after the fight over the gun, when he took off and didn’t come home. Calling my brother never helps.”
“I’m sure it doesn’t,” I say bitterly. “And his wife is still about personal improvement?”
She snorts a laugh. “You remember?”
“Of course, I do, Nadia.”
“I . . .” Setting her drink down, she smooths her fingers over her trousers. “I got a call, a threat to leave him alone. Chances are he put someone up to it. I love him, I do, but he’s being a little shit with his rebellion kick, and the gang he’s with . . .”
Nadia shakes her head.
Another time, another world, and I’d be there, easing her into my arms. Holding her until she gives in to the trembles, until they pass, and she just sets her head against me.
Another world, another time, and my lips would brush her temple, and she’d seek out my mouth.
But this is here and now, and the chasm made from hurt, mistakes, secrets, and years past lie between us.
Man, breaking heads, bringing down threats and protecting De Luca family members with my life is way less complicated and dangerous than this. Standing in Nadia’s living room.
“They’re the problem one, Diego,” she whispers, hugging herself. “The crew he’s with. I run—ran a program to help kids who had bad home lives, or needed someone one-on-one, and some said this crew’s really bad. They’re collecting new members. Lots of the older kids were approached when they got to town.”
