Page 31 of Cruel Devil

“Right. You two probably just missed each other. He went AWOL a few days after the whole drive-by thing.”

I clear my throat, trying to signal to Vito that he needs to shut the fuck up about cartel matters in front of unvetted family.

Vito doesn’t even look at me. “Anyway, Doc’s this awesome guy, stitches everyone up and shit.”

“But now he’s dead, right?” Nyx chimes in as if she’s struggling to keep up.

“Yeah, super fucking dead. And we found her—” the whisky in Vito’s glass sloshes around as he points at Andy “—at the scene of the crime.”

“He’d been dead for at least a day,” Andy says dryly, but her eyes remain on me like we’re in a blinking competition.

“Anyway, now she’s claiming to be Viv’s daughter.”

Nyx shoots to the edge of the sofa. “You’re Andy? God, your mother’s been yakking about you the whole day!”

Andy looks as mystified as Vito when I glance at him. “Bro…The fuck’s going on?”

Nyx points at Andy so wildly that the strawberry-blonde winces and tries to lean back in her chair. “Why don’t you ever message her back? That’s just plain cruel.”

“Um…” Andy looks at me like I somehow have control over my crazy wife. “What’s happening?”

“She had lunch with Viv today,” I tell Andy.

“Oh.” Andy frowns at me, then turns that look on to Nyx. “That was you with her at the sushi place?”

I sit back, crossing my arms over my chest as Nyx starts chatting with Andy about Viv and some falling out the two of them had, how she has to do the right thing and forgive her mother. When they start an animated conversation about how much they both hate cartels, I stand and beckon for Vito to follow me into the kitchen.

Nyx takes my place by the coffee table, sipping at her rapidly emptying whisky glass as she chats with Andy.

“She mention anything about Nyx to you?” I ask Vito.

He shakes his head, leaning on the kitchen counter as he stares across the room at Andy and Nyx. “Not a word. But she also didn’t speak about Viv much. Sounded more like a Hail Mary when she finally admitted to it. Kinda makes sense if she hates the thug life that much.”

“So, if she’s telling the truth, she just happened to arrive at Doc’s house hours after he was murdered.”

Vito hangs his head. “Poor Doc, man.”

Felipe Gomez has been the cartel’s doctor for decades. I’m pretty sure the old timer delivered me back in Colombia. He didn’t deserve what happened to him and his family.

“Where’s her phone?”

He fishes it out of his pocket and turns on the screen. When he sees it’s password protected, he taps the kitchen counter. “Give me a sec.”

I watch him with narrowed eyes as he goes over to the girls. They have their heads down, whispering almost conspiratorially…unless I’m being too paranoid.

Matias and Samuel confirmed that Nyx and Viv were having lunch earlier today. It’s the only reason I didn’t abandon Doc’s crime scene to chase down my fucking wife. I thought she was having a good time, not that she was getting ready to bolt.

Yes, they’d only just met.

No, I don’t think Nyx makes friends easily.

But when I heard Nyx had pulled a runner, I knew the only reason she’d been with my dad’s girlfriend in the first place was because she was using her to escape the villa.

Her reasoning at the time was valid. She thought Donny was the key to finding her sisters, that I wasn’t interested in helping her. So she followed the crumbs.

Who knew they’d lead to a gingerbread house owned by none other than Sullivan fucking O’Brien.

I drum my fingers on the countertop. Nyx is giving my cousin the stink eye, and although Andy is turned away from me, her posture is stiff enough to suggest that she’s not about to hand over her pin code.

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