“Jesus, G. You’re scaring me. What is going on that’s so—wait. Did you finish your car?”
“Yeah,” he says quickly. But he doesn’t have the look of pride I would expect. He’s jittery. Paranoid.
“Is it running?”
“Yeah. Tristan helped me?—”
I stop. “Tristan? You’ve been hanging around with Tristanagain?”
“Yes.” He runs his hands through his hair. “That’s what I’m trying to tell you. I’m sorry, sis. I thought he was a pretty cool guy, but?—”
“A pretty cool guy?” I echo my brother’s words but louder. “Gianni, he’s a Chadovich! We talked about this!”
“I didn’t know what that meant!” he blurts. “I thought he ran in the same circle as your boss. Who was being kind of a prick that night, by the way. He was treating me like a child. All I wanted to do was talk cars. And Tristan loves cars.”
“Tristan loves racing. And cheating people, and hurting people, and…” I let out a long-suffering sigh. I’m practically on the vergeof tears. “You cannot hang out around him, G. You have to stay away from him.”
“I know. I mean, Ididn’tknow. But I do now. And I’ve made mistakes.” Gianni’s voice is cracking too.
I freeze. “What kinds of mistakes?”
Gianni sits down and looks up at me through glassy eyes. “I think they’re all in on it, Amara. Tristan. Your boss. His friends.”
“In on what?” I ask, my heart slamming into my ribcage.
“I think they’re running. Or dealing. Fuck, I don’t know. I think they might even be involved with the cartel. Whatever it is, it’s deep and dark and bad. It’s really bad. And I’m sorry I didn’t listen to you before.” I bite my lips and try to decide my next move. The less Gianni knows, the better. But at the same time, the less he knows, the more he is going to dig to find out, which is equally as dangerous.
I bend down in front of my little brother and take his face in my hands. “Gianni, listen to me. You need to let me take care of this, okay? Just stay away from Tristan and all the guys he runs with and lay low. Let me handle it.”
But Gianni pulls away, shoving up from the chair and shaking his head. “No. You don’t get it. You can’t take care of it because your boss is in on it. He’s part of the problem.” Gianni looks at me, tears brimming his now red eyes. “They tried to kill Ransome.”
“Who did?” I ask.
“Tristan and his guys. They shot at him and missed. And they’re not going to stop. They want him gone because of whatever deal he’s a part of, and they’ll stop at nothing to get to him. They’llcome after you and me and the girls. Fuck, Amara. We are in deep here, really fucking deep. And it’s all my fault!”
“No.” I grab him by the shoulders. “It’s not your fault.”
“But it is,” he says. “I helped him.”
My heart stops. “What do you mean, you helped him?”
Gianni wipes his hand down over her face. “That car you drive? That fancy-ass work car? It belongs to your boss, which means your boss can use it.”
“He does,” I say. “But I don’t see how that?—”
“I put a tracker in it, Amara.” Gianni’s expression twists in pain and regret. “That day you were at my house and I told you to pop the hood? There was nothing wrong with your engine. Tristan told me to put a tracker in it so he could keep an eye on the things Ransome is doing. The places he goes.”
Fuck.
My mind races as I think about that. Ransome has used my car. It’s more discreet than his own. Which means he may have used to go to the warehouse.
“Shit.” I run my hands over my head.
I don’t know what to do. Everything is racing so fast in the direction of disaster, and all I can think of is talking to Ransome.
I take a moment and turn back to my brother.
“Thank you for telling me. But you have to stay away from Tristan, do you understand?”
