“How do you know this?” I ask through gritted teeth.
“Because he told me. Or he told me enough to put the rest together on my own. He could sell this building for millions the IRS would never question, yet he holds on to it to funnel dirty money through it, and not a lot at that. He says it has sentimental value, and I’m pretty sure he isn’t referring to whatever memories the place holds for Celeste.”
“You think my mom and Arturo were—what?” I’m cold inside and a little nauseous, unwilling to complete the thought.
Leo leans up on his elbow again, a worried look on his face. “Shit. I didn’t mean to suggest . . . I just thought if you knew, you’d stop worrying about the old man taking you out. It’s probably nothing like what you’re thinking.”
But the truth is that it makes too much sense not to be exactly what I’m thinking. I just never realized it until now. Mom was Celeste’s dance teacher for years. Once a month, Arturo showed up to pick his daughter up after class, and every single time he came, he would meet with Mom in the office that used to be in the little room where I do tattoos.
To the ten-year-old boy I was, it was just grown-ups doing grown-up business. I remember the night Celeste broke down in tears, crying about how her Mama was dead and wasn’t coming home. I didn’t know what the hell to do. Elle hadn’t been born yet, so I had no practice dealing with little girls. All I knew was that I’d be devastated if something like that happened to me, so I just held her and comforted her as well as I could.
It just seemed logical that when I went to Mom’s office later to ask for a box of tissues, she was sitting on the love seat, holding Arturo in her arms. If Celeste’s mother was dead, that meant his wife was dead. Of course, he’d need to be comforted too.
They looked shocked when I popped my head in, and Arturo moved away from her fast. Their clothes were all askew, but they weren’t naked. I just assumed he was too distraught to keep himself put together the way he usually was. Even at that age I grasped that losing a loved one would mess you up pretty bad. I didn’t think a thing of it, and every time after that I was more and more preoccupied with Celeste, too much so to care what kinds of meetings Mom had with Arturo.
Leo squeezes my shoulder. I shake my head and scrub my face with my hand.
“This can’t be real, but it makes too much sense. I remember seeing them together once. I mean, they were together a lot, but only this one time did they act strange about it.”
I look at Leo, who still hasn’t spoken and whose expression looks a little too horrified to just be reacting to the confirmation that his boss probably slept with my mom.
“What is it?” I ask, bracing myself for something even worse.
He glances at Celeste. “He’s owned this building for more than thirty years. Do you think he and your mom were . . . all this time?”
The bottom drops out of my stomach, and the world goes dark. When my vision clears, I’m standing at the foot of the bed with no memory of how I got there, shaking my head and staring at Leo. He’s kneeling now, hands stretched out to placate me. Celeste sits up, blinking in confusion.
“What the hell?” she murmurs and rubs her eyes.
“He is not my father. Don’t you even fucking suggest it!” I’m breathing fast, practically hyperventilating.
“Maddox? What’s wrong?”
I point at Celeste. “Tell him you’re not my sister. Jesus!”
“Why would I be your sister? That’s ludicrous.”
Leo puts himself between me and Celeste as if I’m some kind of threat. “Turns out his mom and your dad have been a lot closer for a lot longer than he realized.”
Her eyes widen, and it’s clear she had no clue either. I’m racking my brain for something, anything to prove otherwise, but I just keep going back to that night more than sixteen years ago that proves my mom was having an affair with Arturo fucking Flores.
Celeste leans over and turns on the bedside lamp, then climbs out of bed, grabs a clean shirt from my dresser, and slips into it. She’s so calm as she crawls back onto the foot of the bed and nudges Leo aside, then kneels in front of me, resting her palms on my shoulders. I flinch, still mentally rejecting the idea that I might have just fucked my sister.
“Look at me,” she says, hooking her hands around the back of my neck and forcing me to tilt my head down and meet her eyes. “Papá didn’t move back to Los Angeles full-time until just before I was born. He and Mama lived in Cancún with . . . they lived in Cancún for at least three years before that. He and Mama were very happy, very much in love. They were until just before my mother’s death when I was eight.”
“Celeste, he needs to know the truth,” Leo says.
I narrow my eyes at her, and Celeste shoots Leo a withering look, then returns her gaze to me. “It is the truth. There’s no way you’re my father’s son. I know Marcella and Papá too well. I’ve only seen photos of your father, but you look just like him. So do your brothers.”
“And my sister . . .” I begin, but I know that’s wrong because Elle looks nothing like Dad.
“I don’t know,” she says, seeming to pick up my train of thought. “What you’re thinking is possible if I’m following this conversation
