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My eyes fly up. “Theirbusiness? I thought you said you eliminated all of your gang members who were in on the scheme.”
“It looks like I missed one.”
Shit.
I’d feared Luis might be involved after he made his comments at my engagement party, shortly after I shot the man who’d been scouring the city for an assassin to take out my fiancée. But now it looks like I have proof.
I hold up the paper. “What does this say about my family?” I need to know the extent of Diaz’s threats to determine how best to handle him.
“That Luis knows you were in on the cleanup,” Santiago reveals. “That if you don’t stand down and stop interfering in gang business, he will reveal your involvement to the Furnaris.”
And ruin the engagement my grandfather so desperately craves...
Well played, Luis. Well played.
“Why wouldn’t he send the threat directly to me?” The threat loses its impact coming from a secondhand source.
“Perhaps he’s too afraid of the repercussions from your family to threaten you to your face.”
No.That’s not right.
Instinct screams that there’s another reason.
Suddenly, it clicks. “Santiago,” my tone hardens, and my body tenses. “Who knows we’re here right now?”
Confusion flits over his expression, followed swiftly by alarm as understanding dawns. “No one outside my inner circle,” he insists. Though, there’s an undeniable hint of unease in his gaze.
I stand from the chair. “We need to leave. Now.” Luis wanted Santiago to tell me this news in person. Either to catch us in the act of conspiring or to attack, I don’t know which. But I know a trap when I see one.
The old man rises too, albeit much more slowly. “There’s a back entrance,” he tells me as I reach the office door. I nod.
Jane, Juan, and Myles all stiffen as I swing the door open.
“We’re leaving,” I bark at my family. “Now.”
They both take out their weapons at the same time.
“What happened?” Jane asks, eyes darting to the old man hobbling out of the office behind me. Santiago moves to stand by his grandson, speaking Spanish, no doubt communicating my fears.
I stand in the doorframe. My eyes scan over the empty gambling den in front of us, looking for the unknown threat. “I’ll explain later,” I tell Jane. “First, we need to get out of—” I never finish the sentence.
A wall of heat blasts into my back from the explosion that detonates inside the office, sending me flying forward as the room behind me bursts into flames.
Chapter5
Catarina
It’s been forty-eight hours since I kept my word and moved back into the penthouse. Forty-eight hours since Declan and I had sex in the contemporary art room at the Met. Forty-eight hours since he left me staring at his retreating figure, slack-jawed. Forty-eight hours since we’ve said a word to each other.
At first, I told myself the distance was a good thing. Sure, I complained about how Declan avoided me in the past, and he’d promised to rectify that. But that was before I suspected his involvement in my brother’s untimely death. Now, the distance between us is a good thing. It’s necessary. At least until I get to the bottom of what happened to Antony.
Is that why you fucked him within an hour of seeing him at the museum?
I groan and lean my head against the backseat of the town car Nolan drives through the crowded city. Liam is in the passenger seat. I’m on my way to my father’s house for lunch. The invitation came out of nowhere this morning. I thought about saying I was too busy. I’d texted Jane to see what she was doing tonight, hoping I could convince her to join me for a much-needed girls’ night to distract me from the chaotic mess that is my life. But when my text went unanswered for an hour, accompanied by my father’s angry voicemail insisting I find my way to my childhood home this afternoon, I decided to attend the lunch. It’s better than spending another uneasy evening alone, ears strained to pick up the sound of Declan moving through the penthouse. I swear, my fiancé is part cat. I haven’t even heard him in two days.
“Everything all right back there, Catarina?”
I open my eyes and see Nolan glance at me through the rearview mirror before looking back to the road.
