Page 75 of Up In Smoke

He'd been right the first time: He was the reason she was targeted. He'd made it into the fire department. Carlos hadn't. He'd made it out and gotten the good job. One that he liked. Whether or not Carlos had, he seemed to hold the grudge anyway. More and more little things had filtered back to him … Him telling Carlos they were better off without their father and Carlos yelling back that he was going to find the man.

Fuck. Maybe he had found Santiago Hernandez Senior. Maybe their father was an arsonist or criminal or a pimp. Luke didn't even know but understanding filtered through and things he’d paid no attention to at the time now fit together.

He turned his head back to the officer who was shaking his head. “She's not answering.”

Jesus. Luke told him, “Now! Go in now!”

He grabbed the officer’s arm and propelled him forward. “We have to go in and check.”

The officer fought back, twisting his wrist and easily breaking the hold Luke had. His tone was condescending. “She might be asleep.”

“Get your fucking ass in that house right now!” Luke shoved him forward. The man still had one hand on the butt of his gun, but Luke had ceased to care. If the officer didn't get his feet moving, Luke was going to pass him and maybe take a bullet in the back as he opened the front door.

But as he moved forward, he was tackled again. Face down into the snow, he turned and landed a punch. A hard one. Right under the jaw.

He watched as the officer’s eyes rolled and he hit the snow with a hard thud.

Good God, what had he done?

Chapter Fifty-Seven

Ivy's phone rang in her hand, and the slow cautious steps forward she'd been taking stilled. Her hand shook violently as she reached out and hung up on the caller—the officer out front. But it didn't change anything.

In the room, the other two had heard the phone ring as well. She heard Carlos tell her sister, “Don't even think about it.”

“I don't even know who you are.” Her sister was so confused. Her voice clear and Ivy so desperately wanted to turn the corner and take a peek. It would be the first time she had seen her sister in well over a decade.

She thought it was Lily. But who knew?

It had been long enough that this could be Peony or Meadow or even Violet. The genetics had run strong in her family, it could be any of them. Her heart broke—if her sister had escaped or been kicked out and found her way all the way to Ivy only to die at Carlos’s hand …

No. This had to be Lily. She was the only one who looked exactly like Ivy.

Ivy wasn’t going to let her sister die. She was going to fight back.

She began to slowly back her way down the hall. Right now, she had to pray that he didn’t just shoot her sister because, as of right now, Carlos didn't know that she existed. Whatever Lily was saying, Carlos was arguing with her as though she were Ivy. Ivy couldn’t hear much, but she had to hope he wouldn't figure it out very fast.

Further away now, she picked up her pace, rolling her feet with each step to minimize the noise. She hoped he wouldn’t even figure it out if he did hear her. He thought he was holding her at gunpoint.

The big, comfy chair in the living room still had her rifle propped next to it from where she sat up on nights that Luke worked. Though it wasn’t normally her habit, lately she'd been keeping a bullet in the chamber.

She'd probably only have one shot and it would break Luke's heart. Gun in hand, she raced as quietly as she could down the hall.

Carlos was the baby. Carlos had been Luke’s favorite. Carlos had been the one that he hoped would break the family curse and do the best—even better than he himself had.

With the weight of the gun in her hand, she flipped her phone to silent and shoved it in her back pocket. Creeping the last few steps, she lifted the rifle and pushed herself up close to the open door. She peeked around the corner with a smooth movement.

Crap.Carlos was facing her, Lily was facing away. Carlos clearly had a gun on her sister. Ivy swung into the room, barrel aimed at the man who threatened everything.

For a long, drawn out moment, the three were at a standoff. Lily unarmed and in the middle and Ivy trying to aim at Carlos’s head over her sister’s shoulders. She knew Carlos had a weapon she couldn't see, and it was clearly trained center mass on Lilly.

As Carlos’s eyes widened, she could see him looking back and forth between the two of them. Ivy would have loved to have taken advantage of his surprise, but she couldn't see his gun. The three of them stood so close, the room was so small, there was almost no way he could miss.

Her sister was here!

Ivy was not going to get her killed. What could she do, though?

It took a moment to weigh her options. And then she said in her slowest, lowest voice, “Hello, Carlos. Hello, Lily.”

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