Page 99 of Violent Attraction

Maybe if we had handed him over, Emilio would be in prison right about now being someone bitch. If they were able to hold him at least.

“The only thing that they’d be able to pin him with is kidnapping and attempted murder of Serena and Aria.” I sigh, throwing myself on the leather couch that Leo has here in his office.

“We also have him on Cristiano’s death. Which will lead the DEA back to Ronaldo.”

I’m shaking my head before he even finishes the sentence. “All speculation. You and I both know it’s true, but the DEA needs more than just a photo of a tattoo to put someone there.”

I’m sure if we went to Madden with all the information we had, he would tell us that he still needs more and not to go back to him until we had it.

“This shit has to go deeper than Ronaldo paying the Castros for a favor for killing Cristiano.”

For weeks, we’ve been throwing idea after idea around. One of them is the idea that Ronaldo hired the Castro family to do him a favor of getting rid of my father. We haven’t figured why Ronaldo wanted Cristiano dead, but he did, and he couldn't do it himself, so he got outside help.

“Emilio was in debt and had to pay money to Belize. He probably reached out to Ronaldo, offered to do a job for him, which was to kill Cristiano. And after all was said and done, Ronaldo would give him the money to pay for his stupidity.”

It’s the most logical theory. Especially since, per the information Elliot Lane was able to get for me, his debt was paid off within weeks of my father’s death.

“Where does Isabella come in though?”

That’s the question of the fucking century, isn’t it?

I look up at my ceiling and give him my answer.

“Ronaldo said so himself, it’s all about money and power. He probably noticed that the Castros were growing and expanding quickly, and that he needed to put a stop to it. So, he most likely told them that he would take over all their businesses, in exchange for something. Emilio probably knew about your sister and so he took the shot and he got it. Now here we are.”

In a black hole of hell, that feels like we are repeating the same day over and over again.

“There has to be more to it.” Leo says, not dropping it.

There isn’t any more, is what I want to scream at him. If there was more, we would have found it by now, but we haven’t.

This is all just about money and power and we have to fucking take our heads out of our asses and accept it.

“Unless…” Leo starts but trails off.

Unless? Unless what? We’ve gone through so many “Unless” scenarios, there shouldn’t be more.

I don’t move from my place on the couch, but I turn to see Leo take out a storage box from the small closet he has in the office.

He places it on the desk and starts to rummage through it like a mad man. Papers are flying everywhere and every few seconds he asks himself where it is.

Whatever ‘it’ is, I have no idea.

“What the fuck are you looking for?” I finally ask, sitting up and making my way over to him.

Leo continues to flip through the files and the papers inside the box until he finds what he’s looking for I’m guessing.

“This.” He grabs a red file and lays it on the wooden surface, all of its content spreading out. “A few months ago, I had Elliot’s brother Drake, looking into something for me. Mostly it was to find anything on who was after Serena, and to see what the FBI and DEA had on the cartel. While I was looking through the file, I found this.”

Leo holds up a picture of his parents posing with some strange man.

“What am I looking at?” The picture just looks like any other picture of the elder Morales.

“Look at the man. Who does he look like?” I take the picture in my hands and inspect it, looking at the man’s face very closely.

He looks familiar. Like I’ve seen him before, but where?

I look at the face for a few more seconds, until it finally clicks.

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