He looks down at his arm as if he’s forgotten the piece of ink is there, gazing at the dark tattoo that’s been added to the full sleeve of ink on his right arm. It’s a black snake, covered in white roses, coiling around his arm. It actually is beautiful, but if it has meaning, I know he’s never going to tell me. As frequently as we used to be in each other’s company, I was never close with Ciro. Only close enough for me to know that he’s an extremely private person.
I don’t have time to blurt another pointless comment, because a second later, the door slams open again and Hale walks in. A bolt of tension follows him into the room, as if he’s brought a fucking thunderstorm with him.
“What the fuck is going on?” he demands, stalking toward the bed. He stands to one side of where Ciro is sitting, towering over me like an avenging god. “Look at me, Grace. I want fucking answers. Now.”
“I don’t know what you mean.” Goose bumps break out over my skin as fear and anger war inside me. Ciro finishes with my bandages and slides out of the way, leaving no barrier at all between the furious man glowering down at me.
“You know exactly what I mean, smartass,” he says. “Your dad was up to something, wasn’t he? What the hell kind of shit was he into?”
“Nothing!” I scoot away from him on the mattress, but Zaid moves to block the other side of the bed, trapping me between the four of them. Fuck.
“Really?” Hale cocks his head, his dark blue eyes burning. “You were always a daddy’s girl, Grace. You really expect me to believe he didn’t tell you anything?”
“There’s nothing to tell.” I swallow, my scratchy throat dry as cotton. “He isn’t into anything. He has a good job at a bank. He pays his fucking bills. He’s just a normal guy.”
“Was.”
I blink. “What?”
“You said he is, Grace.” Hale’s voice is hard. “But he’s fucking dead. He isn’t anything anymore. Everything you’re telling me is what he was.”
My stomach seems to shrivel in on itself, leaving a hard lump inside me. Tears burn my eyes as the reality of my situation hits me full-force once again. My father is dead. He died in my arms, his blood covering my torso and neck. He’s gone. He’s gone.
It’s hard to draw a full breath. Grief and shock are crawling through my limbs like ice, turning me numb.
Hale’s jaw clenches, and he shakes his head like his chastising himself for something. Then his expression softens a bit. “It’s okay Grace,” he says quietly. “You don’t need to protect him anymore. You can talk.”
I don’t need to protect him.
Because he’s dead.
“I told you, I don’t know anything!” I spit the words like venom, almost snarling at him. “And even if I did, I wouldn’t tell you shit, you fucking asshole!”
“What was your dad up to?” Hale’s voice is still soft, but I can’t find it comforting. The calm in his voice is lethal—he’s a ticking time bomb, and I’m the target.
“If he was up to anything, he didn’t tell me!” My hands claw at the sheets, trying to ease some of the tension in my body. “We were living a normal life until you decided to show up at my fucking wedding!”
A fresh wave of pain hits me as the words tear from my throat. Not physical pain from my wounds, but the pain of regret. Of hopelessness. Of the enormity of what they took from me.
They just took away the life I worked so hard to build—the one that may never have made me deliriously happy, but that never made me feel agony like this.
And for what? For revenge?
Didn’t they get enough of that when my father’s blood bathed the church floor? What more can they possibly want?
They could take whatever vengeance they still think they’re owed out on you, a small voice in my head whispers, making a shiver run down my spine.
I don’t want to believe that, don’t want to consider the possibility. But they have me captive. I’m completely at their mercy.
They can do whatever they want to me.
“If my dad was doing anything, he didn’t tell me.” I repeat the words, my voice dull and subdued. Exhaustion is blackening the edges of my vision again, and I don’t have the strength to keep screaming at Hale. “Maybe he was into something shady and never told me, but I never suspected it. I never knew about it. When I say we were living a normal life, I mean we were living a normal life.” I huff a breath that’s almost a laugh. “Not that any of you would know what that is.”
Silence settles for a long moment as Hale and the other men absorb my words. I hope like hell they can hear the truth in them, because if they keep pushing for a different answer, I don’t know what I’ll do. I have no more information to give them.
“What about the other men?” Hale asks, shifting his line of questioning. I don’t know if that means he believes me about my dad, or if he’s just letting the subject drop for now. “The other group who showed up. Do you know who they are?”
“What other men?” I blink at him, my brows pulling together.
“The other men who attacked in the church.” He narrows his eyes at me, as if he thinks I’m trying to pull a fast one on him. “We weren’t shooting our own guys.”
Thinking for a moment, I try to recall the other men in the church. Even if I did know any of them, it’s not like I would remember now. The whole terrifying event can’t have lasted more than five minutes, but time seemed to both slow and speed up, leaving me with a spotty recollection of the details. It all passed by in a blur; I barely had enough time to register that I was being taken, let alone to identify the individual faces of a dozen gunmen.
“No…” I shake my head slowly. “I’d never seen any of them before.”
“Could there have been anyone at the wedding who knew about your past life?” Hale’s questions are relentless.
“Besides my father… no.”
“Not even your fiancé?”
“No.”
Hale stares at me hard. My skin prickles, but I hold his gaze, refusing to look away. He can either think I’m lying or that I had a terrible relationship with my husband-to-be—one based on secrets and massive omissions. I don’t care which conclusion he draws. It’s none of his goddamn business what I did or didn’t tell my fiancé.
“Was there anyone you invited who would have been able to find out about your life?” He leans closer, slowing his words as if the reason he’s not getting the answers he wants is because I’m too stupid to understand.
Irritation begins to crawl over me. I just want him to leave me the fuck alone. I want to let the exhaustion that’s pulling at me drag me away from consciousness for a while, to float in blissful oblivion and pretend none of this is real. “No. None of them knew anything. We never talked about it. Ever. It was my father’s only unbreakable rule.”
Hale’s jaw clenches, his eyes bouncing between mine. Then he curses and straightens, stepping back from the bed. “Fucking hell. All right, we’re done here.”
My heart doesn’t even jump with hope. Whatever Hale might think, I’m not stupid. I know “we’re done here” doesn’t mean they’re going to let me go. It doesn’t even mean they’re done interrogating me for answers. It means I get a momentary reprieve, nothing more.