Now his name is a reference code in a ledger tied to El León. His and our fathers. It doesn't make any sense.
I don’t breathe until Dre boots us out.
"What the fuck does that mean?" he asks.
"I don’t know," I say, and for the first time, it’s the truth. "But it’s not an accident."
I look back at the bag still swaying faintly on its chain, trying to wrap my head around what I just saw. Why would my father send money to Caracas, and what does Nico have to do with it?
My phone buzzes again, and again I ignore it, but Dre doesn't. He reaches for it, listens, then lifts a hand—you need to take this—but I keep staring at Gino, trying to solve a puzzle for which I don't have all the pieces yet. And in my bones, I have this premonition that a storm is coming. I walk over to the bag. The world seemed complicated just a few minutes ago. A few minutes more and it's turned into a hurricane. "Boss…" Dre's voice has that edge like he’s not sure if he should be amused or terrified. "You didn’t tell me."
"Tell you what?" I slam an elbow, and the bag jumps.
"That you got married."
I stop.
"Say that again."
He doesn’t smile. Doesn’t blink. Just holds the phone out like it might detonate. "I have a Doctor Morales on the phone; she's from St. Raphael’s Medical Center. She says yourwifehas been shot."
I narrow my eyes. If this is a joke, it's a bad one. I glare at Dre, but he shakes his head. Whatever the joke is, he's not in on it. I take the phone without looking away from Dre’s confused face.
"Conti."
"Mr. Conti? This is Dr. Morales. Your wife has been brought to the emergency department."
My wife? The words would be disturbing…ifI had a wife. As it is, I don't, nor do I have a fiancée or even a girlfriend. I don’t tell her that, though. I don’t say you’ve got the wrong guy. In my line of work, it doesn’t pay to believe in wrong numbers or confused identities. If someone’s pretending to be my wife, I want to know who, why, and what the fuck she thinks she's doing. "How is she?"
"She's alive," she assures me, "she just got out of surgery. I'm so sorry to tell you this, but she was shot. Twice. One shot was a graze to the shoulder, the other to her flank. She is stable for now. Before she lost consciousness, she said your name, gave us this number, and told me to tell you one word." Paper rustles. "She said to tell you… temporale."
Everything in me goes still.Temporale—thunderstorm. My brother Nico and I used that word to warn each other of an impending storm, meaning our parents—mainly ourdad, mom had mentally checked out a lot by that time—had found out about something one of us had done. Ice floods my veins like it always does when I think of Nico. His trail has been dead for three years, and now twice within the span of an hour, his name pops up. That's not a coincidence.
Across from me, Dre repeats the word under his breath like he’s testing a new caliber. "Temporale?"
Not even he knows about it. It was a word only Nico and I used—our secret code.
My jaw ticks. "Keep her under my name. No visitors. I’m on my way."
"We’ll be ready," the doctor says. "Triage will take you straight back."
Of course they will. They know my name. They know my family. And with everything we’ve poured into that place lately, we’ve practically paid for an expansion.
Dre’s staring. "Thunderstorm? As in:a storm is coming?"
He might be right. Maybe it wasn't our code, just a storm warning. With the way things are right now, it does seem like the storm of the century is about to slam over New York. It doesn't feel right, though. So I fill Dre in. "It was Nico's and my cover," the words evoke images of Nico running toward me, laughing his ass off, shouting:Temporale, as he brushed by me before my enraged mother turned the corner. "When we were kids, if one of us needed the other to take the heat from our parents, we’dsaytemporale. It meant one of us would disappear while the other took the brunt, pretending to have no idea where the other was. Nico and I were the only people who knew it."
Dre’s eyes narrow. "Nico?"
"Yeah." Nico, the man everybody decided was a ghost. "So who the fuck is this woman?"
Dre's already moving, thumb flying over his iPad. "Gimme ten seconds… I’m in. ER board: female, twenty-something, ballistic trauma, listed as," he looks up at me, "Ana Conti." He looks back down. "Two GSWs, just like the doc said." He whistles lowly, "and a lot of other cuts and bruises. She either was in an accident, or someone did a number on her."
There's only one way to find out. "Let’s go."
We leave the computer room. Two bodyguards fall in without a word; a third calls ahead for the car. My men know my looks. This one means blood.
I don’t register the sweat or the fact that I’m still in nothing but sweatpants until one of the guards, Gordon, tosses a shirt at my chest. I pull it on while stripping the last of the wraps from my hands, knuckles still humming. Sweat burns my eyes; I blink it away.
