Page 65 of Vincenzo
“Oh, is he now?” His tone is laced with intrigue rather than disapproval.
“Don’t start, Armando,” Amalia says. “Besides, I have something extremely important we need to talk about.”
“Oh, you think?” he says, and I have to cough to cover up my laugh.
Amalia eyes me sharply before turning her attention back to her phone. “I was attacked tonight. Some guy named Miguel and two other men.”
“Shit, Amalia, are you okay?”
“I’m fine. I promise.”
“She got punched in the back of the head,” I interject.
Amalia cuts a glare at me when Armando says, “Fucking hell. I’m coming to pick you up and bring you back to my place.”
“She’s fine with me,” I say, and there’s a pause on the other line.
“Enzo, I presume?” Armando asks.
“Nice to meet you. Your dad’s a fucking dead man, by the way.”
“Enzo,” Amalia says in warning.
“Tell me something I don’t know,” Armando mumbles. “Amalia, I’d feel a lot fucking better if you were staying with me.”
“I assure you, she’s safe with me. Safer than she could ever be with your family, clearly,” I state, not able to mask the irritation of Armando trying to take Amalia away from me.
“Okay, enough you two,” she says. “Armando, I’m fine where I’m at, but I need to tell you what I found out about Pedro.”
“Pedro? What does he have to do with any of this?”
“José said Felipe was there the day of the driveby, and that he saw Pedro pull the trigger.”
“Fucking hell, Amalia. If this is true?—”
“It is true. Why would he lie about that? And if it weren’t true, why would your dad try to have me killed?”
Armando’s silent on the other line.
“Think about it. My dad was a few years younger than yours, but ourabuelitoput him in charge of the North American region, something your dad always wanted.”
“Fuck,” he mutters. “So you think my dad had Pedro kill your dad for power?”
“Exactly.”
“But then why did he have Pedro kill my mom?”
My eyes widen at that information. What the fuck is going on in this family?
Amalia sighs. “That part I haven’t been able to figure out yet, but I fully intend torightbefore I kill them both.”
“Amalia—”
“Don’tAmaliame. You’re basically a big brother to me, and I’ll always see you as such, but Ineedthis. Taking out those assholes for what they did to my parents is something Ineed.”
Her voice is desperate, pleading for the one thing in life she needs to move on from this hell. I can’t imagine what it’s like to have thought the men who killed your parents were taken care of years ago, to find out the ones responsible for it have been playing you this entire time and raising you to do their dirty work.
I want to help her, to take care of this problem for her, but I know Amalia. She needs to avenge her parents’ deaths, just like me and my brother wanted to avenge our parents’ deaths. I won’t step in the way of that—I can’t—but I can do everything in my power to help her see her mission through.
