“I know.”
Part of me is wondering why she's being so cooperative, but I don't have the time to question it.
We walk into Ricardo's apartment and I walk us to the bathroom, with Lou-Lou as my hostage.
Since there's no point in knocking on his bathroom door. I have Lou-Lou open it.
The look on Ricardo's face when he see's that I'm holding a gun up to Lou-Lou's head is one for the record books.
He reaches for a towel and quickly wraps it around his waist before he steps out of the shower.
That's when I silently pat myself on the back because the fact that he's naked as the day he was born means that he has no weapons on him.
However, what bewilders me is why he isn't more freaked out about this. I know he's worried about Lou-Lou, that's more than evident by the way he looks at her. But the fact that he's not puzzled by his current predicament is unnerving.
“How did you find out?” he says, his tone solemn.
I open my mouth, but Lou-Lou cuts me off by screaming, “I didn't tell this bitch shit, Ricky.”
I whack her head with the gun. “No talking.” I look at Ricardo. “You have his eyes. I'll never forget his eyes. They haunt me in my dreams.”
He closes his eyes. “I'm not like my father, Alyssa.”
“Doesn't matter. Your father took the most important person in my life from me and he's about to do it again. I want him to feel what it's like to lose the most important thing to him.”
He sucks in a breath and glances at Lou-Lou. “Yeah. I get that, Alyssa.”
His expression quickly changes to nervousness. “Wait, what do you mean he's about to do it again? Where the fuck is Jackson right now?”
“He's working with an FBI agent. An FBI agent that's going to set him up for the murder of your father. I have to get to him before that happens.”
“Shit. Can't you just call him and warn him?” Lou-Lou asks, her voice cracking.
“He's not picking up his phone.”
“Fuck. No. Oh, my god. Shit,” she sputters, her breathing erratic.
I yank her hair. “As touched as I am about your sentiments regarding my boyfriend's current circumstance, can you kindly shut up so we can get on with the program.”
She shakes her head. “I swear, I didn't mean to. I didn't know it was Jackson. Oh, my god,” she squeaks.
Suffice it to say, she has both Ricardo's and my attention at this point.
I pull the other gun out of my waistband and put them both up to her head. “You better start making sense, Lou-Lou...or your brains are gonna be all over the carpet. What the fuck did you do?”
“There was this guy. This FBI agent. He started talking to me, you know flirting, all that.”
“You talked to the fucking Feds?” Ricardo screams at the same time I scream, “Was his name Ford?”
“H-how did you know?”
“Cut to the chase, Lou-Lou. I know how Ford pulls the females in. Tell me what he wanted you to do. And how Jackson is involved.”
“That's the thing. This Ford, guy. He seemed to know everything about me. Things that no one knows.”
Ricardo lets out a curse and I scratch my head with one of my guns. “And you didn't find that a little suspicious? You can't be that dumb.”
“I'm not dumb. Of course, I did. But then he offered me a deal.”
“Goddammit, Lucianna! He's a fucking double agent. He's not legit, he works for us!” Ricardo screams at the same time I scream, “What kind of deal!”
I aim one of the guns for Ricardo's head and gasp. “What? What the actual fuck did you just say?”
It feels like all the air just got sucked out of the room. The only reason I'm not collapsing right now is because I still have to save Jackson.
Ricardo runs a hand down his face. “Shit,” he says. “Look, Alyssa. Trust me when I say that you're better off not knowing the truth. I don't think you can take it and I'm not going to be the one to tell you.”
I shoot the wall beside his head. “Tell me. Tell me the fucking truth.”
“No. You can shoot me dead, but I will not be responsible for putting the same soul-crushing look on your face that my father did the day he killed your dad!” he roars. “My father's eyes haunt you in your dreams? Well, yours fucking haunt mine!”
“You—” I pause because my voice is wavering. “You were there that day? The day my father was killed?”
I look at him in disbelief. He's only 5 years older than Jackson. The only young people I remember seeing that day were the teenage gang members.
“I was 18,” he says. “In fact, it was my 18th birthday. The day I officially became a man. My father wanted to celebrate by showing me what you do to rats. Or specifically, what you do when you find out that one of your men is an undercover agent.”
His face contorts in agony. “You weren't the only one locked in a car that day, Alyssa,” he says gruffly before his tone turns somber. “I'm so sorry. I liked your dad. We did some runs together and became close. I looked up to him. Wanted to be like him. He used to talk about how much he loved his little goblin— ”
I shoot the wall beside his head again, much closer this time. “Shut the fuck up. You didn't know shit about my dad, you piece of shit! Your father killed him! He killed him and I watched every second of it and I saw the look in DeLuca's eyes when he did it. So don't you fucking try and stand there and offer me your condolences or sympathy. Like this is some kind of hallmark moment...when you're literally the spawn of fucking Satan himself!”
His eyes become glassy. “I didn't want to be. That day changed me. You have no idea what that day did to me.”
“It will never compare to what it did to me.”
“I know,” he whispers.
In front of me, Lou-Lou's trembling and I hear her sobbing. “You're the little girl. The little girl in his nightmares.”
“Stop, Lou-Lou,” Ricardo warns.
Lou-Lou lifts her chin. “No. You need to know, Alyssa. He's not Bruno. Trust me, you don't know what Ricardo's been through. He's not the bad guy. Bruno is.”
“I guess it's time to find out then, huh?”
Ricardo's eyes meet mine. “What do you mean?”
“Call your father and find out where he is right now. If you don't, I'll kill her in front of you and give you another nightmare.”
Ricardo picks up his shorts off the floor but I click my tongue. “Are you armed?”
“Would it matter? I'm not going to kill you.”
“A leopard doesn't change its spots.”
“You know, bitch—you're not the only one who watched their parent get murdered by the hands of DeLuca.”
“DeLuca killed your parents?” I question.
“Probably,” she scoffs. “Who the fuck knows. However, I was referring to Ricardo.”
“He killed your mother?” I ask in his direction.
Ricardo closes his eyes and nods. “Yeah. After I told him that I wanted nothing to do with him and said I would never be like him. He tracked my mother down and taught me another lesson.”