Page 82 of The Complete Truth Duet
That wasn’t an accident.
That was personal.
All initial signs pointed to the Guerreros. But we couldn’t get any solid proof. And, while killing those pieces of shit in Lisa’s name wouldn’t have cost me a single night of sleep, it also wouldn’t have soothed the searing failure engulfing my soul.
That was when Drew, who’d been burning at the stake beside me, decided we needed to handle it ourselves. He stole two cars in order to get himself locked away in the same prison Manuel Guerrero had been sentenced to. And then Drew did what he did best—he became a chameleon.
That was how he learned about the meeting.
That was how we found out someone had asked Manuel to put a hit on a nosy reporter who was getting too close.
And that was when Manuel had bragged about how strong his family was, stating that he’d allowed his young granddaughter to make the final decision.
According to Manuel, the child had declined to issue the woman’s death, proudly stating that Guerreros didn’t take orders from anyone.
But my wife still died the very next day.
Whoever had been in that room with Manuel and his granddaughter that night had Lisa’s blood covering their hands, and it didn’t matter the sacrifice I had to make, whether it be rotting in a cell or in a body bag. I would make them drown in it.
Like I’d told Cora all those weeks earlier: The world was an ugly place. It was filled with more sinners than saints. More hate than love. More chaos than kindness. And that was not because the world was filled with bad people. It’s because the good ones stayed silent.
I was the sinner in this story. With a heart filled to the brim with hate and a mind overflowing with vengeance and chaos.
But I would not stay silent.
“Manuel specifically told me he had only one grandchild, Penn. I listened to him rave about her for hours on end.”
I turned in my seat. “And you heard him say it was Catalina’s daughter, Isabel, who was there that night?”
He slammed the heel of his palm down on the steering wheel. “No. He told me it was his granddaughter. His only granddaughter. It had to have been Isabel.”
“Unless it was River and we’ve had the answer at our fingertips all along. Shit. We were so focused on finding Catalina we couldn’t even see what was sitting right in front of us.” I rubbed the center of my chest as if I could ease the pain. “Goddamn it, I’ve been asking the wrong questions all along.”
We both fell silent, lost in our separate but parallel thoughts.
“Okay, we gotta figure this shit out. What are the chances River isn’t Nic’s?” Drew asked.
“If Cora’s her mom, she’s Nic’s. She’s never been with anyone else.” Except me.
And, if I had my way about it, she’d never be with anyone else, either.
But what next?
Did I just forget about the people responsible for Lisa’s murder because I’d met Cora?
Ride off into the sunset together? Love heals all wounds?
Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit.
I’d warned Cora about the fire inside me.
I’d told her if she got too close it’d burn her too.
And now, we were all up in flames.
“This has to end,” I told Drew. “Marcos, Dante, Cora, fuck…Penn Walker. There’s gotta be a better way, Drew. There’s got to be a better way.”
He took his eyes off the road long enough to look over at me. “Admit you love her. I want to hear it out of your mouth before I agree to help you break her.”
I stared out the passenger-side window, biting the inside of my cheek until I tasted the metallic tang of blood. The world rushed by. The sun followed us, trees and cars blurring as we passed, and clouds moving in slow motion above our heads as the opaque moon hung in the sky, waiting for its turn to shine. Not even an hour earlier, Cora had been sitting in my lap, drinking piña coladas, carefree and giggling.
That was the life I wanted for her.
That was the world I wanted for her.
One in. One out.
“I just want her to be free. Even if that means she has to be free of me.”
Cora
“So, she’s your daughter?” Penn asked from the double bed beside us.
River’s soft snores hummed in my lap, but even though she’d cried herself to sleep nearly an hour earlier, I continued stroking, soothing, and playing with her hair.
The minute Penn had gotten back from dropping Savannah off at the hospital, he’d ordered us to pack a bag. He and Drew had stood guard at the door while River and I had gathered a few things, and then we were off.
Cussing and cringing every step of the way, Penn took us to a hotel. And not a cheap one. I didn’t know how he was paying for it. But I was too shaken to care.
