She nodded. “He’s actually doing remarkably well following the procedure. If he stays like this, there will be no need for him to be here after tomorrow morning. He even said I don’t need to stay, and I’m inclined to agree. But not for long.”
“Okay.” Luca blew out a breath. “Let’s go track down Dr. Torres and find out why he left. I don’t like this at all.”
“Me neither,” Kira said. “But we should swing by my place so I can change first. It’s close by, and I don’t want to be wearing a dress and heels if something happens.”
Luca nodded. “That might give Deputy Marshal Butler time to call me back.”
But he didn’t.
The call came from Renegade Correctional Facility, and Luca had to agree to accept the charges.
He disconnected the Bluetooth from his phone and put the cell to his ear, knowing exactly who was calling. “How do you like your new place?”
“Are you kidding me?” Amir huffed over the phone line. “Care to tell me why I’m suddenly in Colorado?”
“I needed a favor, and I figured you could use some goodwill for the parole board.”
Kira had told him her dark secret—the reason why she’d quit the work she’d been doing overseas. It was past time for him to tell her about his family. The reason he hadn’t settled down before with someone else. And, until he’d met her, hadn’t had any plans to.
“What’s the favor?”
He explained who Jenkins was and the connection to Hammer. “Someone tried to kill him.”
“Does he want protection?”
“No,” Luca said. “But he needs it.”
“Great. So protect him but don’t make it look like I’m looking out for him?”
“The guy who tried to kill him is in solitary. Just keep an eye out for anyone else who might have been persuaded to try and take his life.”
Kira glanced over at him but didn’t say anything.
“And this is going to help me with the parole board how?”
“It’s called a good deed. The police here know what’s going on. I know a detective who can put in a good word for you if you help us with the investigation.”
“I think I just graduated to snitch.”
“That’s not what I’m asking from you. Just try and keep the guy safe.”
“I’m so glad you’re worried about my well-being. Sure, I’ll keep this lowlife who beats on his family safe. No problem.” Amir hung up the phone.
Luca tossed his cell in the cupholder. “My brother. The newest inmate in Renegade Correctional Facility.” He pulled over to the curb outside Dr. Torres’s house and turned to her. “He was in jail the weekend I graduated high school. No one I knew showed up to the ceremony.”
But he wasn’t telling her this sob story to get her sympathy. It was what it was.
“I never met my mom and don’t have the first clue how to find her, if I even wanted to. Which I don’t.” The words were coming out quickly now that he’d started talking. “Amir’s three years older, and he got into the wrong crowd. I saw everything he was doing and tried to make better choices, but life is life. The day after I graduated, I walked into the Army recruiting office. The rest, as they say, is history.”
But it wasn’t all of it.
“I’m sorry you had to do that alone. It should be a celebration with your family.”
Luca shrugged. “My father died two years before I finished high school, and Amir got custody of me after. For all the good it did. In that community? We were pegged as terrorists by everyone, all because of a war going on in a country we’d never been to. A war that had nothing to do with us.”
She nodded. “I understand.”
“It was the middle of the night. The FBI kicked the door in and raided our apartment. Someone had put money in an account that had my father’s name on it, but he swore he had no idea where it came from. The funds had come from accounts connected to ISIS, and they said my father had researched training camps on the computer. They let him go a couple of weeks later, but he was never the same.” Luca had to swallow so he could continue. “He lost his business. No one in the neighborhood would speak to him. He killed himself about a month after.”