“I’ll try, but if not, stay clean. Your Uncle Roberto will take over the business.” He punched Axe in the chest. “Take care of your woman and your bambina. Make me proud.”
“I will.” Axe kissed his father on both cheeks, blinking back tears. He understood that war required sacrifice.
“Let’s go,” Leanna’s father said. “I’m turning off the stage lights now. Follow me.”
Axe’s father turned toward the bench.
Leanna stumbled, but Axe held her tightly. Gabriel and Soledad walked in front of them, and Ivan held up the rear.
The guard opened the door and waved them through. Axe took a look back at his father, but all he saw was a silhouette sitting at the judge’s spot, appearing to write on a legal pad.
* * *
Leanna had blood all over her. Splattered blood from Joshua and blood that rubbed off from Carmelita, or actually Soledad. She walked as steadily as she could, aware of the line of guards staring at them. She kept her face down, but she was sure Cano’s top dogs would get suspicious.
So far, they were buying her father’s story, and he was barking orders, but she couldn’t miss the tension buzzing throughout the Moorish-styled castle.
Axe’s father could only hold the charade for so long before he was discovered, and then the Canos would go after Gabriel’s family. How frightening that she knew them that well.
With the capo dead, who would be in charge?
“Halt!” a female dressed in military gear shouted. “All exits must be personally approved by the capo. He is not answering his phone.”
“Boss Veronica, you know how he is,” Leanna’s father said in a deferential manner. “He relishes in making the videos. The phone is turned off, and he doesn’t want to be disturbed.”
“Why aren’t they there to get videoed?” Veronica sneered at Leanna and Soledad. “Theputaand the spawn. I’m sure they would add to the bloody graphics.”
Leanna could feel her father’s anger rise. The veins bulged in his neck, but he swallowed and cleared his throat, saluting her. “Capo feels they’ve been through enough. He wants to take them back to the United States. There might be repercussions from the execution.”
Veronica returned the salute limply and waved them through. “Pampered pets.Que idiotas.”
Leanna’s footsteps faltered, and her knees buckled once they reached the Hummer, but Axe’s firm grip lifted her into the vehicle. He and her father sat on either side of her, and Ivan arranged himself with Gabriel in the cargo section, the better to shoot at pursuers.
“We’re missing one of the prisoners,” the guard in the passenger seat said to Leanna’s father.
“Capo changed his mind and executed the older man,” Leanna’s father said. “Drive.”
The Hummer drove down the winding drive. Every roll of the tires on the smoothly asphalted road was like the grinding of the millstone pulverizing Leana’s heart. She’d killed again. Shot Joshua Cano. The blood spurting and his body collapsing replayed in a continuous loop. Her body was amped and flattened at the same time. It was both thrilling and exhausting.
What must it be like for the girl huddled next to her? To be so terrified and confused. To lose her foster parents, to not know her real parents, to be shuttled like a pawn and set up to be a pervert’s plaything.
Leanna watched the tall stately columns of Italian cypresses wave them toward the exit. The iron gates, decorated with golden gargoyles, towered over them. The driver barked orders to the guard, but Leanna’s heart sank like a lead safe in a deep well. She’d killed the capo. She would have to pay. They would never let her get away.
Had Axe’s father sacrificed himself for nothing? He would be discovered soon. There was no way that bitch, Veronica, wouldn’t check in on Joshua. From the looks of it, she was his latest squeeze. Young and still under twenty, but invested with power far greater than she could comprehend at her age.
One thing eluded her and all the other women Joshua had. They could not give him an heir. Carmelita. Ana and Eduardo had hidden her in a migrant caravan. Leanna was almost sure.
The birth control pills.
The makeup to hide her facial features.
The FacePlant posts being the only way she could communicate with them.
The real Carmelita would have US papers.
She was a US citizen because Leanna had registered her before the adoption.
Leanna’s heart flew out of the dark well like a dolphin jumping out of the water. Her little girl was in America, but would she ever find her?
