Page 48 of Forbidden Devotion

“Yeah? And where did you do that, huh? In the goddamn woods with no one else around for half a day’s walk?”

“Selene!” Dad said.

“I’m not wrong!” Selene almost shouted, throwing her hands up in exasperation. “I get it, I’m the calm and collected one, but I’m not biting my tongue either. You’re emotionally immature, and you’ve got to find another way to deal with yourself before you make an irreparable mistake. And given that this entire family will rest on your shoulders someday, that mistake will cost us all.”

“That’s enough!” Dad almost roared, making both Selene and I jump back. I hadn’t heard him raise his voice like that in years, and certainly not at one of us. It was frightening. Guess you’re never too old to be scared of disappointing your parents, I thought drily. Dad took a deep breath, trying to rein himself in. “That’s enough. I will not have my family fighting right now. Not now. Do you understand me?”

“Yes, sir,” I said, dipping my head as guilt gnawed at me. Yes, he was mad, but more importantly, he was a frightened father who had just watched his son get carted off in handcuffs—just after getting out of cuffs himself. I wasn’t thinking about what this must be like for him, forget with his other two kids going at each other’s throats.

Selene pressed her lips together, looking like she was wavering between continuing and not, but eventually, she backed down. “Yes, sir,” she said unhappily. Dad looked at us both sternly.

“We will not talk about this again until Fabrizio is back with us,” he said, brooking no argument. “We are a family, and we will not be divided any further. Both of you go—I don’t care where, but go, and not with each other. Cool off because tomorrow we start knuckling down to help Fabrizio. Goodnight.”

I gaped at him. There was no way, right? No way he was saying what I think I heard? A sense of betrayal started creeping up my throat. “So you agree with her?” I asked. “We won’t talk about it now means we will talk about it later, and that means you agree with her.” Dad squared his shoulders.

“Yes, I do,” he said.

That was like a punch in the gut.

“I’ve given you more leeway than I should have,” he said, lips thin. I could tell he hated saying this, knew it would hurt me, but it wasn’t stopping him. “Part of me will always see you as my little boy, and because of that, I haven’t pushed you hard enough to learn to manage the emotional strain of this career.” I just stared.

“She said I’m not fit to take care of the family,” I said in disbelief. “She said I’m going to abandon the family!”

“You did today,” dad said.

I recoiled. My dad—my own father, the man who stood between me and a hailstorm of bullets, who had raised me and taught me about the world and the underworld—was telling me I had failed him. That he thought I’d fail him again.

How could he say that? After everything we’d gone through, after he’d been training me for over a decade to take his place, now suddenly he thinks I’m too weak? That I’m lacking? That I would drive this family to ruin?

For once, I wasn’t crying. I was just staring at him, incredulous.

“I am not the one who’s abandoning my brother,” I said, low and cruel. “You are the ones who have already given up on him. You’ve completely bypassed proving him innocent like you think he’s going to make it in there, and I’m the only one trying to get him out!”

“We’re all trying to get him out!” mom shouted, enraged.

“Yeah, eventually!” I yelled back. “If that’s what you’re willing to settle for, then fine, but you have no right to be mad at me for wanting to fight harder than you are for your own son!”

That was a dagger, and I knew it, but it was what they needed to hear. They had to snap out of whatever funk they’d fallen into and act, and even though I felt awful for saying it, I wouldn’t try to take it back. Fabri deserved to have all of us at his back, not just me.

When I turned past them to go up to Lauren’s room, no one stopped me.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

LAUREN

“Jen?” I asked, sitting on the overlarge bed with papers spread around me and my laptop right in front. For a second, the line was mostly static.

“Lauren!” Jen said. “Sorry, you know how airport reception is—are you okay? What’s going on? Are they being good to you?”

“Okay, wait,” I said. “First of all, I’m still fine. Second of all, I answered all of this in the email. Third of all, I’m guessing you didn’t get the email.”

“No,” Jen said regretfully, “I didn’t see it before takeoff. What’s up?”

“What’s up is that Fabrizio Marino was arrested over breakfast this morning,” I told her. God, had it really just been this morning?

“Oh damn,” Jen said, audibly taken aback. “I guess you took the case?”

“Of course I did,” I said. “Long story short, Fabrizio pushed a guy in front of a car, and he died, and there’s security camera footage to confirm it.” Jen whistled. “I sent it to you to check if it was doctored footage, but don’t bother with it now?—”

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