57. Chapter 57
Nico
Islammed the heavy wooden door in the face of the guards who had been shadowing us as we moved through the villa. Cruz raised an eyebrow, silently asking the question I was asking myself. What the fuck was going on?
“Oliver, can you find out more? We need a better picture of what’s happening.” Instincts clawed at the inside of my skull, demanding that I find Rosa, and I paced the length of the sitting room attached to our suite like a caged lion.
He hurried into the hall that led to the bedrooms we used when we stayed and came back with a laptop. Without saying a word, he flopped onto the black leather couch and booted it up.
Cruz crossed his arms over his chest, leaning back against the plaster wall. “What don’t I know?”
“Lorenzo took over the Reyes compound and has…” I pulled out my phone and opened the camera app, remembering the situation earlier. “Had Rosa prisoner. Looks like she killed his whole pack.” I chuckled darkly. Pools of black blood littered the cellar floor, and unmoving bodies lay sprawled in it.
“Why are we just standing here, then?” Cruz asked, unamused.
Every bone in my body was screaming the same questions and urging me to get out of this place and go to her.
The best thing I could do right now was to trust that she could handle herself.
As much as I wanted to solve any and all problems she might have, she was too far away for that right now.
By the time we took out my father’s guards and drove back to the island, we’d be hours too late.
“She has it under control. They’re strapping down the last guy, and her dad is with her now.
She’ll be fine.” She fucking better be. I couldn’t hide my cynical amusement.
She’d come so far. Every day she proved to me how perfect she was, but the more I knew about her, the more confident I was in my decision.
She was mine. Even if she refused to admit it.
Cruz pushed off the wall and stalked toward me. “That’s not an answer.”
“My father is up to something. He’s hiding shit.
Rosa is over an hour away and is taking care of it.
There’s nothing we can do to help her from here, but we can try to find out what Francisco’s doing.
” I sat down next to Oliver on the couch, kicking my feet up on the coffee table, and keeping an eye on the cameras at the Reyes compound.
“I don’t like standing around doing nothing,” Cruz said and started pacing the same path I had across the marble floor.
“Have a little faith in our girl.” I held out my phone so he could see her moving around the house as if she was on a mission. “Plus, we have our own issues. Ollie, can you sort out what’s going on with Lorenzo and my father?”
Oliver’s fingers were already flying over the keyboard. What he was doing, I had no fucking idea, but the furrow between his brows assured me he was on to something.
While we waited to find out what Oliver came up with—it was a long shot, considering her phone had been left at the resort—but I tapped out a quick text to Rosa’s cell anyway. Just in case.
Nico: Lena, baby. Are you okay?
I didn’t expect an answer, and none came, but I felt better once I’d tried.
“Did you find it odd that my father was so pissy about omegas? Considering Mom just died, I expected some sort of reaction to that. He’s never been an emotional guy, but it was strange, even for him,” I asked, not expecting anyone to answer as I scrolled through my contacts list.
I stopped on Dom’s entry. My brothers might know.
Nico: How are things?
Dom: Listen, we aren’t going to hurt Claudia. We’re keeping her. So don’t bother asking.
Well, fuck. That wasn’t even what I was going to ask about, but I guess that explained why Rosa didn’t buy the finger threat.
Nico: Fine. I don’t care about Claudia. Have you noticed anything strange about our father?
Dom: No more than usual. Why
Nico: He’s being weird. Something's up. Where are you?
Dom: In town.
Nico: Get here. Be ready for war.
Dom: I’m dying to ask what you think is going on, but I don’t really care. Any excuse to blow shit up. We’ll be there.
My brothers were more loyal to me than my father, and I had a feeling I was going to need their help even if they were generally unreliable and volatile as fuck.
“You find anything, Oliver?” I asked, leaning into his space.
He slid toward me, angling his laptop screen so I could see. “It’s something.”
Well shit.
I scanned the email he’d found. It was paternity test results dated the day before my mom died, showing that my youngest brother, Luca, was not related to my father.
He was seven years younger than me and six years younger than the twins.
It didn’t prove anything, but my father was a jealous man.
That was why he never had a pack. He couldn’t stomach sharing my mom with anyone.
If someone looked at her for too long, they’d be lucky not to find a car bomb the next time they left the house. That certainly was a motive.
Unease simmered in my gut.
“Find the camera footage from the night my mom died.” Everything I’d been told, all the hatred I’d harbored. It all hinged on my father’s word, and it was unraveling like so many bloody intestines spilled on the floor.
Oliver tapped away on the keyboard. “I looked already. That whole day was erased from the archive, but only that day is missing.”
That was convenient.
“Can you recover it?” I clenched my teeth, not sure if I honestly wanted to know. Wouldn’t it be better to think that an outside enemy had destroyed my world? Wouldn’t it be easier?
“Already working on it.”
I gripped my phone, at war with myself over what could be on those deleted files.
It pinged, and I looked down. There was an unread text. Probably my fucking brother. I swiped it open without looking at the preview, and was shocked to see that Rosa had texted me back.
Rosa: I’m coming.