“Again, help yourself,” my father grumbles.
“Sorry, E. Here, you want to plug it in?” She pulls the USB back out and holds it up.
My dad snatches the drive from her hand and plugs it in again. “What is it?”
“It was inside one of the guys from the chopper.”
“And how exactly did you find it?” Uncle Sammie asks.
“I have a friend at the morgue who called to tell me they found it,” my aunt says. “The idiot must have swallowed it. Why? I don’t know. But this has the layout of every property the Lopez family owns. It has financial information and the location of all your businesses, E.”
“Someone has gone to a lot of trouble to collate that,” Uncle Carlo says.
“No shit,” I mutter. “Who are they?”
“No fingerprints. But they’re Mexican. Whoever they are, they followed you here,” Aunt Lailani explains. “There’s something else. One of their phones had messages on it. Their next plan of attack is laid out in this thread.” She pulls the device out of her pocket.
“You could have started with that,” my father says, snatching the phone from her.
“And miss the build up?” Aunt Lailani shakes her head and smiles. “Anyway, we can find them. From my count, there arethirty at the location they’ve made their headquarters. Here. We get in there and keep one or two alive and you should be able to get answers.”
“Okay, when do we roll out?” Uncle Carlo asks.
“You guys don’t need to do this. I’ve got it,” Dad says.
“Yeah, that’s not going to work for us, E. We’re in. When are we going?” Uncle Louie asks.
My father looks at his watch. “Two hours. Get all the family here. They’re safer together. If they’ve been following Emilio, they’ve seen him out all week with Frankie and meeting up with the other kids. We don’t know who they’ll use as leverage.”
“Fucking hell,” Uncle Louie curses as he flicks his gaze towards me. I don’t think I’ll be on his Christmas card list anytime soon.
Chapter Twenty-Six
There aren’t many times that I’ve wished my family were different. More on the legit side of the law than where they are. But right now, it’s one of those times.Right now, I really wish they weren’t involved in the underworld.
I know something big is happening. The men walking around the house, the fact that in the last hour, all my aunts and cousins and my mother were brought over… Emilio hasn’t come out of his father’s office. Whatever they’re planning, he’s going to be involved. They also called Ezekiel in, leaving me to stew on my own.
I’m worried about Emilio, about my dad, about my brothers who are also in that office. I don’t like it. I want everything to go back to last week, where I was blissfully happy and unaware someone was trying to kill my boyfriend.
“You look stressed.” Eliana comes and sits next to me on the deck chair. I’ve been out here for about twenty minutes. I need the space, the quiet. It’s starting to get busy inside.
“Aren’t you?” I ask her.
“Nope, my papi is the best and so are my brothers. No one is going to take them out,” she says with so much confidence. “You should have faith in them.”
“I do,” I tell her. “I just…” I look out towards the garden. “I took too long to finally allow myself to feel this, and now I’m worried I’ve wasted time I won’t get back and our future will be cut short because some asshole has a bullet with my boyfriend’s name on it.”
“Well, lucky for you, your boyfriend is good at what he does and he’s not going to let that bullet hit him anywhere vital,” Eliana says.
“Vital?” I parrot. “I would prefer it didn’t hit him anywhere at all.”
“Yeah, well, I would also like to be able to date in the open without knowing my father or brothers will skin the guy alive, but that’s never going to happen either.”
“You should start with Emilio. He’d be the easiest to break, because he knows what it’s like to be on the other side.”
“Emilio once saw a boy at school give me a flower. He beat the crap out of him, Frankie. Almost killed him. All because of a flower.”
“Seriously?” I ask, not sure why I’m shocked.
