9. Savage
Chapter 9
Savage
My fingers start to ache, and it’s only then that I realize how hard I’m gripping the Expedition’s leather steering wheel. My wife hasn’t said a word since we’ve left Liam’s apartment, as if she’s just as busy as I am digesting the garbage truck of secrets Brennan dumped on us. She stares straight ahead, a fierce scowl on her face like she’s imagining just how she’ll torture O’Brien once we find him.
I stop for a red light, and use the chance to turn and stare at her, elbow propped on the car’s window, fingers cradling my jaw. “Never knew you were in the mob, hmm?”
“No fucking clue,” she mutters.
“Wish I could believe you, but we’ll deal with that later. Right now, there’s a lot of shit we need to talk about?—“
“Now’s not a good time,” she cuts in. And then immediately lifts her hand to stall whatever I’d been going to say. “And I’m not being snarky. I’m just…I’m still fucking processing, okay? Lot of that back there was fresh news to me. I kinda have to rewrite my entire fucking backstory, you know?”
I want to sympathize, but I have no fucking clue what it feels like to have an epiphany like she just did. I’ve only ever dreamed about it.
“You’re lucky, you know that?”
She snorts. “Oh, yeah. Learning my mom cheated on my dad with some mafia dude I thought was just my best friend’s father, who then told his son to stalk me ‘for my protection’?” Her air quotes are fierce claws. “So lucky, Papi.”
“You know what I wouldn’t give to have some light shed on my past?”
She rubs her palms over her thighs. “Honestly?” Blows out a breath. “I wish I didn’t know.”
I shake my head, but my jaw is too tight to argue the point. What I wouldn’t fucking give to have one fucking clue to the true identity of the demons who gunned down my mother?
Or Camila.
I’m convinced it’s someone in Bogota, but I don’t have any fucking proof. If I did, those people would have as many—if not more—bullet holes in their bodies than my mother did.
Or strangle marks… as Cami did.
But I guess I’ll have to wait a while longer for my answers.
Perhaps forever.
“We’ve got one quick stop to make, then we’ll head back to the villa. I’ll send out our eyes and ears, start tracking this guy down. They can start at that club where you first met him.”
It was twilight outside by the time we left Liam’s apartment. Street lamps shine all along our route back to Nico’s mansion—nothing but dim beacons, their light barely reaching the road.
“ I’ll start at The Foundry. Alone.”
“There’s no way in hell I’m letting you go there alone.”
Her slap catches me off guard. It wouldn’t have, if I’d been looking at her, but I’m too busy fucking driving.
We come to a red light. She tenses up, but I just sit there, both hands strangling the steering wheel.
The light changes. I drive on.
“You can slap me as hard as you want, as often as?—”
This time I’m prepared. I catch her wrist as her hand comes flying for my face, and hold on to her as we go round a corner, using just the pressure of my palm to turn the wheel.
She tugs at me, then lands a punch in my side.
I pull over with a squeal of brakes in the nearest driveway, grimacing as I turn to face her. She tries to come at me again, but it’s enough to grab her other wrist and squeeze.
Pain flickers over her face before she forcibly smooths it away.
“I know you don’t want me involved,” she whispers. “It’s dangerous. I could get hurt. Bla-fucking-bla.”
“Killed,” I slip in smoothly between her sentences.
“But there’s no fucking way you or any of your guys are getting in there without being seen. They’ll spot your tan a mile away.”
“Are you saying I’m too Colombian for your Irish fuckbuddy’s club?”
Color stains her cheeks. “Ease up on the whole ‘my wife got fucked by an Irish gangster’ thing, okay? Liam made sure that never happened.” She twists her hands, pulling out of my grip so easily it’s obvious she let me hold onto her. “And while you’re at it, don’t ever start up with Liam again. He’s been my only friend for years.”
She sits back, arms crossed, like our conversation is done.
“You do realize your friend told O’Brien where to find your sisters?”
Her chin quivers. “No.”
“Nyx, it’s the only?—“
“Not Liam,” she spits out, jaw bunching as she wages a visible battle to control herself. “It must have been his dad.”
“Does it matter? The Brennan’s betrayed you.”
“Of course it fucking matters!” She faces me in a rush, fists slamming down on the console between us with a loud thump. “I’ve trusted Liam from the moment I met him, Caesar, and if I was wrong about that too…if he sold me out, my sisters …” Her blue eyes fill with tears that she blinks back fervently. “Then my whole life’s a fucking lie.”
I let out a soft sigh through my nose. Cupping her face, I smudge a tear against her cheek that escaped her fluttering lashes.
“Everyone’s life is a lie. Day in, day out, we’re all pretending to be someone else.”
She studies me for a moment, then drops her gaze. “Then what’s the fucking point?”
I guide the SUV back onto the road, shaking my head.
“If you ever figure it out, let me know.”