I rub my face, nod, and walk out of the bedroom to find Alec in his chair and Cerberus anxiously half-sitting staring at the door.
“He’ll be fine,” I tell them both, petting Cerberus.
Alec nods, relieved.
“Was it Rinaldi?” I ask him. Or the cartel. I don’t ask that part.
“Not sure.” But I get the feeling he knows something.
“I’m going to shower. I’m just in here.” I point to Elizabeth’s room. “I promise not to go anywhere so just get some rest or something. You look like shit, Alec.”
“I’ll be here.”
Stubborn as Cristiano.
“Suit yourself.” I walk into my borrowed bedroom feeling like an intruder in this little girl’s room. A dead girl’s room. Killed when she was young enough to play princess.
I think about Noah down in that cell. At least he’s alive.
I rub my face and close the door behind me. I’m dead tired but I need to shower and get my uncle’s crusted blood off me before I lay down. And what I need to focus on now is getting Noah out of that cell. Whether it was the cartel or Rinaldi, it won’t be the last time and if Cristiano doesn’t survive the next attack, then Noah’s as good as dead locked in that cell.
22
Cristiano
“Hey, Brother,” Dante says when I open my eyes.
He looks older than twenty-six. Already has gray at his temples. He’s too fucking young to have gray around his temples.
“You look like I feel,” I say.
“I should have been there.”
“So you could get shot up too?”
“So I could fight alongside you.”
“Fuck that. I’m glad you weren’t there.”
“I’m glad you’re alive.”
“I’m not going anywhere yet, Brother.”
“You can’t control that,” he says, running a hand through his hair.
I can. To some extent. Guilt gnaws at me, but I shove it away. “Did you get the problem solved?”
“What? Oh. Yeah. It was nothing, really. Some stupid emails crossed and just nothing.”
“I’m glad Uncle David sent you, Dante. It’s better if you’re outside of this. Like he is. It’s safer.”
“I’m not a coward, Brother.”
“I know that. But I don’t want you in harm’s way. This isn’t the end. It’s not even the fucking middle. And I’ve been thinking about this. I want you out.”
He stands, shakes his head and goes to close the window which is open a crack. “You’re either high or delirious.”
“I’m neither. I watched them die, Dante. I don’t want to watch you die.”
“And I don’t want to watch you die. So what do you suggest? We both walk away? Fuck that. Fuck Rinaldi. Fuck the cartel. They’re not getting away with our family’s murders.”
I breathe in a long breath, watch my younger brother in the shadowy light of the moon.
“After, then. You’re out.”
“Let’s get to after. You need to get some rest.”
I feel myself drift. He’s right.
“After,” I say again.
“Sure, Brother,” he says, and I hear him chuckle as my eyes close.
I don’t know how much later it is when, after pulling on a pair of jeans, I open the door to my sister’s room. I don’t like coming in here. Every time I do, I think about how young she was. Just a little girl.
I can’t wrap my brain around how anyone could have killed a little girl.
But what happened to Mara? Is it worse?
No. Alive is always better than dead. If she’s alive. They could have dumped her body in the ocean for all I know but that doesn’t feel right. They left a bloody mess behind. It was to make a point. Why go to the trouble of hiding one body?
Mara was sweet. I still remember how she’d always go to Dante when she scraped a knee or fell off a swing. For anything at all, really. Always trying not to cry. Always trying to act like she was older around him.
I’d watch him with her, too, my cool brother. Made fun of him for days after at how he was with her. So careful. So caring.
Moonlight drapes Scarlett in white light. She looks almost otherworldly if I look at her like this. She’s lying on her side on the single bed with the Princess pattern blanket pulled up to her shoulders. Her hair has half come out of its braid and is splayed over the pillow.
She mutters something when I stand over her, rolling onto her back, but her eyes don’t open. She settles quickly back into sleep. I study her face, free of makeup and dried blood, lips parted slightly to show a neat row of white teeth. Like this, relaxed as she is, she looks younger even than twenty-two.
My fingers play with the hair on Cerberus’s head. He followed me in. Since the moment I got up and he saw I was fine, he’s come to stand guard just outside her door. It’s strange. Cerberus hates people as much as I do. It’s one of the reasons I chose him. But he will protect her.
I cross the room to her bed and touch her forehead, brush hair back from her face. It’s the only place I see any evidence of what happened. A bruise, small, but there, turning a soft shade of purple. She must have hit her head when I tackled her. I think she’d been in shock standing there, watching her uncle on the floor. An easy target.
I wonder if her uncle knows he saved her life tonight. Not that he’d have done it willingly given the choice of his for hers.
She blinks her eyes open once, twice. Once they adjust to the light and she realizes where she is, she runs the back of her hand over her mouth then her hair and sits up.
I notice she’s wearing one of my button-down shirts. The clothes from our shopping trip haven’t been unpacked yet. The bags line the hallway outside. I haven’t decided where to put them. Where to put her.
“What time is it?” she asks, adjusting the blanket when she realizes one thigh is exposed.
“Late. Or early, depending.” I move to sit and wince at the pain in my side. “Are you all right?”
She nods. “Are you?”
I shrug my shoulder, catch myself too late. “Fine.”
“Did you take that bullet when you were protecting me?”
“Doesn’t matter.”
“It matters to me. I wasn’t sure but…did you?”
“I don’t know, Scarlett,” I lie. I did take it when I was trying to get her out of there. “Doesn’t matter. We’re both alive.”
She studies me but drops it. “What happened? Who was it?”
“Cartel. Rinaldi. Both.”
“You don’t know?”
“We killed some from both crews. Captured a few alive.”
“It wouldn’t be the cartel. Why would it be the cartel? They killed my uncle.”
“No, Little Kitten. You’re not that lucky.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean that cockroach will crawl out of his hole yet again.”
“He’s alive? I thought…I saw him though. I saw him go down.”
“He’s alive.”
She processes, her forehead creased, then continues. “It’s not the cartel, Cristiano. Why would they try to kill him? He’s one of them.”