The book goes down, and she looks at me with visible surprise. "You don't look the type to know..."
Her voice trails off awkwardly, and I keep smiling even as something inside of me grows cold.
"I don't have to believe in God to know the stories. And they're good stories. There's a thing or two to learn from all of them."
"Like what?"
"Like sometimes, a beautiful girl can be offered to a scary man like me."
She shakes her head.
"I'm really not scared of you."
She points up.
"Because of that. We're being broadcast live."
The direction of where she's pointing makes me stiffen and swear in my mind. I know what she's pointing at without looking up, just like I know that this girl...
She made me lower my guard, made me skip protocol, such as looking for security cameras on lampposts.
And that makes her as dangerous to me as I am to her.
I leave without looking back or a single word of explanation.
It costs me a lot to walk away.
But I do what I have to do. I can't afford getting traced and gunned down until I've avenged my father.
Chapter Five
I'M NOT SURE HOW IThappens. Or why.
One moment I'm in his arms, and the next, all I can think about is what he just told me in the seconds before he kissed me.Eighteen years. WITSEC. El Carnicero.And underneath all of it, the one thing I've spent eighteen years not letting myself remember.
The wedding night.
The woman in his bed.
And then suddenly—
No no no no no no.
“I'm going to be sick.”
It's true. And fortunately for both of us, Nate—no, Nicolo, now—he's as fast as I remember him, and he gets me to the sink in seconds.
Ugh.
He holds my hair away from my face as I throw up everything I've eaten in the past ten hours.
Above the sink is the window I keep cracked open even in winter because the radiator runs hot, and through it I can hear Mr. Diaz one floor down yelling something at the Cubs game.
A normal day for my neighbor who may or may not also be in his payroll, but for me, this day just keeps getting unbearable.
When I'm done, Nate—Nicolo—is holding out a white handkerchief.
I force myself to reach for it.