I thought of how her hands trembled. “We all have ways of coping.”
“Some more legal than others,” he said wryly, but I recognized the tone from earlier and found it stung.
“You’re mad at me.”
“A little.” His laughter was gruff. “My family knowing about what happened added to my workload.”
“Sorry.”
“No. It’s fine. You’re right—they should have been there. I’m the one acting unSicilian. Working too much, not eating, barely sleeping, fixating on the end prize. I could go on.”
“Currau said you lost someone you loved.”
He stilled. “He told you that?”
“He did. But you did too. That night in the ER.”
“Did you know Rory found out about Currau when she completed a family tree for a school project?”
“How could I know that? Still doesn’t answer my question.”
He rubbed the heels of his hands into his eyes. “Yes, I mourned someone I lost.”
“Past tense.”
“Is that how grief works?”
Now there he had a point. “No.”
He shifted around to stare at the pool. “One of your sisters—what about them?”
The change of subject had me at a loss. “What do you mean?”
“Could they be a reason why Martinez brought you here?”
“I guess. I don’t know everyone in their lives like they don’t know everyone in mine. Look, are you sure about this?”
“My trip down here was last minute, Kitty. So last minute that Ireserved the flights when the sun was still rising. Yours, I have to assume, were booked before that.”
“Y-Yeah. Maybe ten days ago.”
“That recently? Well, they had a picture of you. He showed it to me.”
Anguish shivered down my spine, but before it could take flight, his arm curved around my shoulders. “Fuck.”
“I could be wrong, Kitty. But if I’m right, you’re safe,duci. I won’t let anything happen to you.”
I had no reason to trust him. Actually, it was the direct opposite.
But that didn’t stop me from tucking myself into his side and letting him hold me.
Unlike on the plane, he couldn’t appease my worry by distraction. Even as my mind raced with the possibilities of why we’d been brought here, I sank into him and wished that we really had gone to Key West...
Sending up a silent apology to my brothers, I turned my face into his chest. “Do you think they’ll hurt us?”
TWENTY-TWO
STAN
