Gino blinks, his gaze unwavering. “Do I look like I’m laughing, mutt? Maybe it’s about time you got your head out of the fucking sand. Look around—” he gestures to the rest of the club with an outstretched hand. “If Shen really gave a shit about some dead girl, do you think he’d let me open up shop so soon? Not unless he needed somewhere to stash his precious pussy—”
“Enough!” Rafe nearly lunges across the table, snatching a fistful of his suit collar. “You work for Shen? Let’s call and ask him?”
Gino’s eyes practically glow in the dim lighting. “Fuck, yes. Call him, mutt. Ask him why he’s cut you out. Made you do his dirty work. The way I hear it, the old man’s all but left you for dead.”
“Rafe, don’t!” I grab the fist he starts to form before he can lift it. Tension ripples off his body like a wall of heat. I grit my teeth in the face of it, and it takes everything I have not to give in to the raw, instinctive need to back away. “Don’t do this.”
He snatches his arm from me, but in the same moment, grips my wrist as he turns on his heel. I have no choice but to follow him. When I look back, Gino is watching us, his arms crossed, lips still quirked.
And his warning seems more ominous than ever.
“Run little mutt,” he calls. “But you know the truth, don’t you? You never meant shit to him, and still don’t.”
Rafe tightens his grip on me rather than answer. As we pass the bouncers, they let us go without a word, and his car is already parked directly out front.
“I thought we had a deal, huh?” he snarls once we’re inside it. “Ten minutes, and if I say you bail, you bail.”
“I don’t think Gino killed Faith,” I blurt in a rush. “But he knows who did. I think he’s afraid of them.”
I hesitate to admit anything more, gauging his reaction. He’s staring straight ahead, still furious. Would he even believe that his uncle was capable of such crimes? Though perhaps he’d deluded himself like I had.
But the truth is inescapable. Branden’s reasons were well beyond trying to intimidate me.
The silence between us extends as Rafe says nothing, but he doesn’t have to. He heard Gino’s tirade himself through my phone. Even knowing that I can’t bring myself to name the prime suspect out loud.
But I don’t have to.
“No,” Rafe says, starting the car. “No. He wouldn’t… He wouldn’t. Not him.”
His uncle.
I thought I knew what it felt like to be helpless—but this moment somehow tops any other.
Watching Rafe pace his kitchen, his hands clenched into fists, his head bowed. “No,” he growls for the countless time. “No. My uncle may be an asshole, but… No. No. He wouldn’t be into that shit. He wouldn’t. And Gino? The motherfucker’s been gunning for me since day one. He’s just fucking with my head.”
He has a point—but I can see the situation from a different angle. That of a man who desires only control, willing to do whatever it takes to exert it over his nephew. Like, goad him into a gang war for seemingly no benefit.
Or beat him.
Force him to commit a crime.
Torment him.
“If you went after Gino directly, what would happen, hypothetically speaking?” I ask, picking the less volatile topic to start with.
“Nothing good,” Rafe says bluntly. He sighs, bracing his hip against a counter, his gaze distant. “It would escalate fast. Besides, Gino’s territory isn’t worth the risk.”
“Why?”
“We’d have to muscle into his business. You can’t rely on sheer force to accomplish something like that. You need allies.”
“Allies that your uncle can’t associate with if he’s supposedly ‘clean,’” I say.
He swivels toward me. “What the fuck are you getting at?”
I flinch, but I don’t cower. Meeting his gaze, I say, “I think he’s been lying to you. I think he’s the one pulling Gino’s strings, and I think he’s about to do something worse.”
Something so bad that even Gino was alarmed by it.
But…as his expression transforms into a grim frown, I come to a startling realization.
“You knew,” I say quietly.
“I knew he could be a petty son of a bitch,” he corrects. “So, what are you getting at? He used Gino to run his titty bar?”
I sense it’s better not to say anything. Whatever he’s going through is personal. A dilemma that no one else can unravel but him.
The same way I have to face my brother’s part in this scheme.
“So what?” he demands, though I suspect he’s speaking to himself more than me. “He dabbles in human trafficking now? He wouldn’t. Why?”
He glares at the wall as if it might give him an answer. A muscle in his jaw quivers and I can almost see the struggle taking place in his brain between logic and loyalty.
“Rafe…” I finally step forward, placing my hand on his shoulder.
“Don’t.” He shrugs me off, crossing over to the couch. “I don’t need you to look at me with those bunny eyes right now. I need…”
“Answers,” I say, finishing for him.
“Damn right.” He inclines his head, fixing me with a cold stare. “Let’s start with the obvious. Your brother’s name unlocked Faith’s phone. Don’t tell me that’s a coincidence.”
Tears burn behind my eyes, and I don’t even try to keep them from falling. Nodding, I cross over to sit beside him.
“It wouldn’t be the first time,” I admit, hating the way my throat tightens. I’ve kept these secrets in for so long…
But in a hoarse whisper, I finally spill them. I tell him about Lexi. Her death. The bracelet.
When I finally finish, Rafe is glowering at the floor, his jaw clenched, expression unreadable. I can’t move, sick with anticipation of how he might react.
In disgust?
Horror?
“Shit,” he hisses, grasping my hand. I go limp to find there is no judgment
