“Duty calls,” he said. He really had a charming smile for such a bulwark of a man. “And this one—” he nodded at Aish “—claims he doesn’t need his ‘lap dog’ anymore.”
Sofia refused to cringe at what she’d called the manager during that confrontation in her office. Her assessment hadn’t been wrong. What was striking now was how it had evolved. Aish had christened the vines and winery with a decent amount of his sweat, and Devonte had taken off his suit jacket, rolled up his sleeves, and sweated right alongside him.
“You’ve been a tremendous help when you could have just been a tremendous dolor en mi culo.” Devonte chuckled. Pain in the ass was understandable in all languages. She went up on tiptoes to kiss his cheek. “You’re the only friend of Aish’s I’d let in the kingdom.”
Devonte stepped back and eyed her. It was a long pause for such a flippant remark.
Sofia glanced at Aish. He shrugged.
Finally, Devonte said, “You weren’t a big fan of John’s, either?”
“What?” Aish scowled. “What are you doing?”
The majority of partygoers were on the other side of the pool deck around the food table, leaving Sofia, Aish and Devonte alone by the second-story railing. Twilight was settling in around the foothills and lights strung around the deck sparkled on.
“Getting another perspective,” Devonte said, his jaw set. “I can’t be the only one who never trusted John.”
Aish’s head snapped back. “What the fuck are you talking about?”
Devonte rubbed his hand over his jawline as he reached for words. Whatever was happening here, Sofia didn’t want to be involved.
She raised her empty wineglass. “I’ll just...”
“Sorry, Princesa, but I gotta know.” Devonte looked resigned to the course he’d set. “Why didn’t you like John?”
She glanced at Aish’s hurt expression. “I don’t really think it’s my place to—”
“Don’t be shy,” Aish said, and now there was anger building behind his words. He glared at Devonte. “We’ve had nothing but one-on-one time for an entire fucking year but at a party when he’s about to leave is when he decides to drop a bomb. Go with it. Tell Devonte what you told me.”
In her room that night, when she’d apologized for using him, was the only time she’d revealed her true feelings about Aish’s best friend since diapers.
“John didn’t like my connection with Aish,” she said, dropping her eyes to her empty glass. Acknowledging their past in this intimate way felt treacherous. “I think he actively worked to break us up.”
“No way,” Aish interjected immediately. “No fucking—”
“It wasn’t overt,” she said, looking directly at Devonte. He was a better friend to Aish than John. If he needed something from her, she would give it to him. “It was cuchicheos. Whispers. He wasn’t a good person.”
“Sofia, how can you—”
“He made me pay off a family once.” Devonte’s cold words shut Aish down. “A single mom making threats and her sixteen-year-old daughter. I had to bring an envelope to this apartment outside St. Louis that was just...” He shook his head. “The girl had gotten backstage, wanted to show him some lyrics she’d written. He let her show him the lyrics...then he showed her a few things.”
“What are you saying?” Shock and betrayal ravaged Aish’s whisper. Sofia nudged their little group until Aish’s back was to the party. He didn’t deserve onlookers to this.
Devonte made a disgusted snick with his tongue. “The girl tried to rip the check out of her mom’s hand and give it back, told me she loved him. But she was sixteen. An obvious sixteen. Two weeks later, he’s showing you those lyrics in the studio and telling you they’re his. I realized then I wasn’t paying for statutory rape. I was paying for those goddamn words.”
Sofia’s shock was a cement block in her chest, suspended as she watched this terrible truth play out between Aish and his trusted manager. She wanted to leave; she wanted to believe she didn’t belong here. Instead, horribly, she knew she had to stay.
“Why is this the first time I’m hearing about it?” Aish asked, leading with anger and defensiveness, the animal snapping his teeth from the corner. “Why didn’t you tell me then? Why did you agree to deliver the money?”
Devonte slid those bone-crushing hands into his expensive suit and looked Aish straight in the eye. “I have a juvie record. I was told to hurt a couple of guys...and I did.” Finally, like that was all he could risk, his dark eyes dropped to the tile. “My record was expunged but somehow John found out. If I didn’t keep his secrets, he threatened to tell everyone. Tell you.”
And that was the worst threat, wasn’t it? That Aish, with his perfect upbringing and gleaming American ideals, wouldn’t understand a life of hard choices. That he would take himself away.
“There were more secrets?” Aish asked, his voice cracking. Even when she’d glimpsed him in that video, even when he’d emerged from his town car in her courtyard—pale and worn—Sofia had never seen him look this devastated.
“That was the worst one,” Devonte said.
“Why are you telling me now?”
Instead of looking at Aish, Devonte looked at Sofia. “Because she knows what I know about John. He wasn’t good enough for you. He didn’t deserve all the devotion you gave him.” He took two steps and propped his arms on the railing, looked out over the darkening foothills and the still-white peaks of the mountains.
She leaned on the rail next to him, felt the railing shimmer as Aish fell back against it on Devonte’s opposite side.
“You buried yourself in your house and worshipped at the shrine of John for the last year, and I had to nurse you through it knowing he was a piece of shit,” Devonte said quietly. “Committing suicide and
