Page 89 of Roaming Holiday

Arlo rises and steps to Nina, who wraps her arms around herself. She shivers when he brushes a curl away from her face. “What do you know about your bodyguard, Miss Laffley?”

My chest caves. I never met him before, but Santiago always labeled his little brother as a drama-seeking pain in the ass.

I want to panic and tell her not to listen to him. But what’s the point? I should’ve known this would happen. I tricked myself into thinking there would be an easier way for her to find out.

I shut my eyes and brace for my newfound peace to shatter, knowing she’ll never look at me the same.

“A few years ago,” Arlo continues, “political deaths among my enemies and associates alike started looking suspiciously… unsuspicious. Contract killings were not unheard of or popular. You wanted someone dead, you sent your men to take care of it. But this man… this man murdered without humanity. No one knew his real name; not many knew his face, so everyone called him El Revalté. The Ghost.” He downs the remainder of his drink and circles me like a predator. My two worlds are blending and I don’t know how to stop them. Nina and the underground. Light and darkness. Shades of grey filter around me and I need to do what I can to get out of here without her hating me in the end.

“The day my brother died, he told me he was El Revalté’s boss and contracted him out—on physical records only, if at all. No trace. My brother knew he was going to die that day and wanted to tell me The Ghost’s real name. And after a little research, there he was. The Ghost was none other than Wesley Dominik Troutbeck. An army ranger moonlighting at a hitman. Could be a movie.”

Serrated dread coils around my throat. Despite being tied to a chair, I feel like I’m slipping and falling into darkness.

My night with Nina was the best of my life even if I had the burdening truth on my shoulders. For the night, she was my salvation. She was mine. Mine to please. Mine to love. But the look she gives me now is the exact one I fought to never see. Disbelief, shock, and, worst of all, fear.

“What do you want?” she asks Arlo, and I smother my slight surprise.

He claps a hand on my shoulder, but Nina is the one who flinches. “I only need a conversation with him. Maximo will make you comfortable right next door if you need you.”

“What—no!” she exclaims while being forced out the door by Maximo—who’s twice my damn size. I bite my tongue, suppressing the fury building in my chest. Thrashing and yelling won’t help either of us.

Arlo sets his empty glass on the desk and moves in front of me. “I understand why you like her.”

“If she has so much as a mark or sheds a single drop of blood, I will rip out your throat.” My deadpan, almost bored tone throws him off.

He stares, face tight in thought. “I thought you would be scarier than this.”

“I’m a man of my word, and your faith in that won’t change the outcome. Now ask your goddamn question before I lose my patience.”

Arlo crosses his arms. “Who killed Santi?”

“An explosion,” I lie.

“I have an eyewitness who swore he was shot. If my brother wasn’t shot, he would’ve gotten out of that building alive.”

“What do you care? You took over his company.”

“I care because our poor mother is distraught beyond belief—and no one kills my brother but me.”

He’s a businessman; he should know hubris kills.

“If your eyewitness swears he was shot, why didn’t they tell you who it was?”

“Died before he could,” Arlo says with a shrug, lowering onto a stool with a relaxed demeanor. “And I believe you can tell me who shot him.”

I’d rather die than give Jack up. He shot my former boss in cold blood before I lit the fire. Jack isn’t only the reason I’m alive; he’s the reason I’m free.

“I can’t.”

Arlo huffs. “I don’t care that you snitched on my brother. Thanks to you, I’m a lot richer. I am here because my mother is a pain in my ass and even if you end up dead without telling me what I need to know, I can tell her I did everything I could. So let’s wrap this up so I can go on with my week, yeah?”

In the distance, I hear car horns. We haven’t left the city at least. Efficiently drugging me required three people at least. If Arlo treats this interrogation as a bump in his day, he has little back-up. But if he heeded my reputation at all, he’d have more.

I level a glare. He revealed everything to Nina out of boredom. He liked watching my life fall apart.

I don’t know how I’m getting out of here, but when I do, I’ll kill him just for that.

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