“Never asked?” he questions.
“I don’t want you to think I’m crazy,” I say quietly.
“I won’t. You can trust me, Erin.”
“My foster father told me my dad died in a car crash. It always made me think what happened to my dad was covered up so that nobody asked questions. I was scared I’d look insane if I told people I was there. So, I never said anything. The only person I’ve told is Chase, and now you.”
“You’ve kept what happened a secret this whole time?” he asks, but there’s not a lick of annoyance in his voice. It’s full of sympathy and sadness.
“The nightmares I used to get convinced me that I was safer if I said nothing. I thought if I talked, he would come after me.”
“He?” Brax questions.
“Not long after my dad was shot, a man came in through the front door. He called me Lucia and stuck a needle in my neck that made me sleepy. I remember being strapped into a car, and then everything went dark. When I woke up, I was already with Roger and Griff. When nobody asked me questions or said anything other than my dad was dead, and they couldn’t find my mom, I just stayed silent.”
“Did you recognize his voice or face?”
I shake my head. “The only thing I remember about him is his tattoo.”
“What can you tell me about it?” Brax asks, still holding my hand.
“I remember wondering if the curved lines over his arm had been drawn by a child. They were short and long. But each one curled at the end. I never saw the whole thing, but the image has stayed with me.”
Brax’s expression changes. There’s a puzzle inside his gaze, and as seconds pass, a thought seems to come up for him. He pulls out his phone, taps on the glass, then turns his screen around. “Was it this?”
My eyes immediately fall to the swirls. I count eight of them, the same way I did back then, and my stomach flips as I take in the full image that’s haunted my dreams a thousand times.
“That’s it,” I confirm. “Is an octopus a common tattoo?” I ask. I never would have guessed back then that’s what it was.
Brax curses underneath his breath, and uncertainty coats my skin. “Erin. This isn’t just a tattoo. It’s a brand.”
“For what?”
“A cartel,” Brax explains, voice tightening. “One of the largest in the country.”
The words hit fast and quick, a punch I don’t have time to prepare for.
“My dad worked in publishing, and my mom owned a hotel.” My hands tremble as I press them to my temples, pulse pounding hard against my skull.
“Breathe, Erin,” Brax says gently.
“Why would a Cartel want anything to do with us?”
I want to throw up, and my vision starts to blur.
This doesn’t make sense.
“Was my dad part of the cartel? Is that why my mom killed him?” I ask, my brain firing signal after signal as it tries to understand.
“I don’t know, Erin,” he answers. “Do you remember what your mom said that day?”
I close my eyes and go back to a day I’ve tried but have failed to forget. The memory slams into me at full force.
BANG! BANG! BANG!
That gut-wrenching sound fills my ears, and I’m there, but this time, I’m not wondering who’s on the porch because I know it’s my mother, even though I don’t see her.
“What do you hear?” Brax’s voice penetrates the vision, and he materializes into the memory. His voice is loud and clear as if he’s right next to me, watching from the wooden panels.
