“A wise woman, then.”
The doctor nods at Elio and stands. “I’ll be back tomorrow. She should rest. She may see her children, and I’d like to make sure they are well.”
“They are,” I say confidently. “They weren’t… there’s no physical damage.”
The mental stress of seeing their grandmother kidnapped, and running from the men who grabbed her in plain sight?
I’m not sure any of us will get over that.
My heart squeezes, but my mom is a tough woman. She’s survived Benicio Souza before. She’s actually the only one of his many wives and mistresses who is still standing, probably because shortly after having me, she moved us to her parents’ horse farm in Florida.
Well, that, and she’s a crack shot. She shot my dad in the chest, once.
I think he kind of liked it.
I thought that the twins and I would be safe with her in Fort Lauderdale. He’s never tried to take the twins back to Brasilia, and they’ve lived there since they were about six months old. I lived with them, and he didn’t care until recently. He only came for me, two years ago, because he remembered that as of yet, I am unmarried.
I don’t want to get married.
I didn’t think that he’d look for me at my mom’s, but I guess he did. Why he decided to kidnap her is probably going to be a huge problem, but I can only assume she’s alive.
I hope she will survive him now.
I shuffle, and the stitches along my ribs twinge. I gasp and Gia shoos Elio out of the way, coming to sit by my side. “That was a nasty cut, girl.”
“Yeah,” I grunt. “It wasn’t really fun for me either.”
Her hand slips into mine. “It’s good to see you again.”
I grin. Gia and I met about a year ago when my father took her hostage too.
Gia doesn’t take kindly to being a hostage. Not even a week inmy father’s compound in Brasilia, and she got us both the hell out of there.
I had no idea that she was Dino’s sister-in-law until she told me. Being trapped in my father’s house, I’d missed the Rossi-De Luca nuptials.
Not that I would have been invited.
Being a Souza, I don’t get invited.
Ever.
Because people would rather invite a starving tiger to a wedding than anyone who shares my father’s name.
“What happened?” Gia asks.
I sigh.
I shouldn’t tell them. These people owe me nothing, and I’m the daughter of a man who, for some reason or another, has decided that they need to be wiped from the face of the earth.
They deserve to know, though.
“After we left my father’s house in Brazil, I went to go live with my mother and the twins in Fort Lauderdale. Father has never once tried to bother with my mother, not when she lives in the United States.”
“He’s on the top ten?” the question comes from Sal, and it’s referencing my father’s place on the DEA’s most-wanted list.
I nod. “Yes. He still is. He’s wanted and will be apprehended on sight should he get caught.”
Despite what the movies say, it’s still a pretty formidable barrier to enter the States, especially when your face is an arrest-on-sight mandate. My father is, surprisingly, quite risk-averse for being one of the most brutal cartel leaders in South America.