“Santiago, this is my brother, Jericho. Jericho, Santiago De La Rosa. The man I told you about.”
“Santiago,” I shake his hand as I take him in, the half-skull-face tattoo impressive even though Zeke warned me. “Good to meet you.”
“Same,” Santiago says. We sit on the leather Chesterfields, and I see the folder on the coffee table.
“I’m sure my brother filled you in on the ugly details,” I say to Santiago and Judge.
“Your family history is interesting,” Santiago says.
“As interesting as yours.” I study Santiago. He is a Sovereign Son and a force to be reckoned with. For years after the explosion that claimed the lives of his brother and father and left him scarred, he lived a life of solitude plotting his revenge. That revenge came in the form of Ivy Moreno, the daughter of the man he believed had orchestrated the killing of so many Sovereign Sons. Things didn’t go the way he planned though. She recently gave birth to their second child. Looking at him, I wonder about her. Because she’d have to be something else to have turned this man’s head.
“We have a lot in common,” he says.
I think about Isabelle, about how right he is. But I can say one thing for sure. I will never let Isabelle become to me what Ivy has become to him.
Santiago grins as if he’s reading my mind.
“How are your daughter and mother?” Judge asks. “Zeke tells me they’re home.”
“Adjusting,” I tell him. “My mother, as you know, is recovering.”
“I’m glad to hear it.”
“Thank you.” We had thought for so long that she would die. That the cancer would beat her. But she’s in remission and slowly regaining her strength.
“And Angelique?” Judge asks.
“It’s going to take her a little longer to call New Orleans home.”
“Children are resilient,” Santiago says. He’s been studying me all along.
I nod although I worry about Angelique. Isabelle wasn’t very far off about her. She is a fragile little girl.
Zeke pats me on the shoulder and I realize I’ve gone off into my own thoughts. “She’ll be fine. She just needs a little time.”
“I wonder how much having Isabelle Bishop in the house will help,” Santiago adds. “I don’t think men like us are equipped with the…softer side children need.”
I look at him surprise by the comment. “Isabelle?”
He smiles.
“You make a mistake. She isn’t there to develop any sort of relationship with my daughter no matter the role she plays.”
“Her role as vessel.”
I nod.
“Don’t be too sure you can control it.”
“I will control it. Control her.”
“Hm.” One corner of Santiago’s mouth curves upward as if he’s humoring me. I shift my gaze to Judge who is studying me, expression unreadable, and beside me, my brother is doing the same. I’m still not sure he’s fully on board with my plans but I push the thought aside because it doesn’t matter.
“What did you find?” I ask Santiago.
He touches the sealed folder between us. “Carlton Bishop is not a nice man, but I don’t think any of us thought otherwise,” Santiago says.
I want to take that folder but hold back. My heart is beating fast because whatever is in there could damn Bishop, but I also know it will cost me.
Again, as if reading my mind, Santiago speaks. “And although I have uncovered something that may be useful to you, there is no evidence of any involvement on Carlton Bishop’s part in your father’s death.” His gaze momentarily but decidedly rests on Zeke.
“No?” I ask, confused.
He brings his attention back to me and shakes his head. “No.”
I’m confused. That’s what this meeting is about. “What do you have then?”
“The Bishop girl lost her brother one year after losing her parents.”
“Isabelle?” Zeke asks.
“This isn’t about Isabelle,” I say.
Santiago gestures to the folder and I take it, break the seal. I reach inside to lift out the stack of papers while he speaks.
“The parents’ deaths were an accident from the look of things. But the break-in at her brother’s house, that was planned.”
“What?”
“Attempted rape—”
“What?” I interrupt, dumfounded.
He nods. “Brother walked in, surprised the culprit. Got himself killed.”
I glance at him, my brain taking a minute to follow, then shift my attention to look through the pages. Police reports, hospital records. The certificate of death for Christian York. Multiple knife wounds. I keep going, looking at the photos from the crime scene.
And then I get to her.
“There’s nothing here about a rape.”
“No, there isn’t but that doesn’t mean there wasn’t an attempt. I assure you my sources are infallible.” I look at her jeans. How they’re undone, shoved halfway down her hips. Or possibly pulled haphazardly up. “In my opinion the whole thing was staged to cover up the real intention which was murder.”
I look at the picture, at her face. At the strange angle of her arm, the blood on her chest. She lies on the shards of glass that were once a coffee table.
But rape?
“Christian York was the target?” I ask absently.
“No,” he says, catching me off guard. “Isabelle was.”
“Why? And how do you know this?”
Santiago reaches over to take the pages from me, flips through and sets one on top. This one is numbers. All kinds of numbers.
“Easy enough. I followed the money. I tracked it from Bishop all the way through,” he starts, tracing a group of numbers with his finger that make no sense to me but appear to be a map to him. “To where it ends up here. In Danny Gibson’s bank account. A Bishop charity was used to transfer the funds.”
“Danny Gibson?”
“The man currently serving a prison sentence for the murder of Christian York.”
I’m doing the math but I’m unprepared. Zeke suggested talking to Judge who has access to Santiago De La Rosa. If anyone could dig up what I needed, it was him, so I’d asked Judge for help with finding evidence of wrongdoing on Carlton Bishop’s part in the death of my father. I didn’t ask about this. Although I’d wondered about the break-in at the York house that killed Isabelle’s brother, I didn’t care. It didn’t matter for my purposes. Still doesn’t.
I look from Judge to Santiago to my brother, who takes the pages from me to flip through them.
“You’re saying Carlton Bishop had Christian York killed and Isabelle left for dead?”
“I’m saying she was the target. Not him.”
“Why?” Zeke asks, clearly having as hard a time as I am understanding why.
“It’s in the file.” Santiago gestures to the papers Zeke is holding. “She’s half-Bishop. They share the same father,” he says to me. “If he doesn’t produce an heir and she does, he forfeits his inheritance. He loses everything and she gets it all.”
“And he hasn’t been able to produce an heir.” None of Carlton’s wives have carried a child to full term. Faulty sperm, I’d guess. Some scum shouldn’t have the capacity to procreate. Carlton Bishop is that scum.