Page 21 of Corrupted Deception

“I’ll take that as a yes.”

I followed him down the stairs, dropped my glass in the sink and my laptop on the coffee table, then slid into a pair of sandals and led Ray out the door.

We spent an hour driving around with Ray sticking his head out the passenger-side window before I gave in to the tide that had been trying to pull me from the moment we left the warehouse. It pulled me another forty-five minutes out of the city to a place I hadn’t been in some time.

As I pulled into the long drive, the imposing structure before me stood as a testament of time, its weathered brick façade bearing witness to years of existence. Tall windows, their panes obscured by curtains of lace, punctuated the building’s exterior while a wide, manicured lawn stretched out in front, dotted with carefully tended flower beds that added a touch of color to the surroundings. A tranquil atmosphere enveloped the place, as if it held secrets and stories from a bygone era, waiting to be discovered within its walls.

I got out of the car and put on Ray’s leash, which, personally, I thought was ridiculous. With people around, Ray wasn’t leaving my side even if the whole world started to fall down around us.

Taking a deep breath, I pushed through the double glass doors and entered a world that felt both familiar and foreign.

The soft hum of fluorescent lights overhead bathed the lobby in a sterile glow. A reception desk, unoccupied at the moment, stood like a silent sentinel against one wall. I glanced around, my eyes catching on a nurse in pale blue scrubs, her attention absorbed by a clipboard.

Ray and I continued down a well-lit hallway, its white walls adorned with framed artwork that seemed oddly out of place. The faint scent of disinfectant lingered in the air as we passed closed doors on either side. As we reached the end of the hallway, my heart quickened. The door to the room was ajar, revealing a sliver of the world within. I hesitated a moment before pushing the door open.

The woman inside sat on a rocking chair, a blanket on her lap, her dark hair pulled back, heavily streaked with gray now.

She looked up at me, but there was no recognition in her eyes. She turned her attention to Ray and smiled.

“Well, aren’t you just a big, beautiful thing?” she crooned.

Ray loped over to her obediently, though I don’t think he minded the attention one bit.

I closed the door, crossed the small room, and sat down on the empty chair next to hers while she scratched Ray behind the ears and petted his shiny coat.

Finally, she looked up at me.

“Hi, Mom,” I said, my teeth digging into my bottom lip.

Her brow furrowed. She didn’t answer, just turned her attention back to Ray.

My chest ached and felt hollow at the same time.

“I used to have a dog a lot like him,” she said as she went back to scratching his head. After a moment, her brow furrowed more. “‘Ali’, I think I called him.”

Yeah, I know. You got him for me.

Chapter Six

Cielo Luciano

“All right, so we know Marín ratted us out, we just don’t know who Felipe Espinosa is or why he’s interested in our business,” my eldest brother, Amadeo, summed it up as he leaned back on one of the wingback chairs in the office at home.

“Sì. I’ve reached out to my contact in Colombia,” I told him from the seat opposite him. “She’s agreed to hold onto our product until we can sort out a new route.”

We paid Marín to ensure smooth sailing for our product across the border in Colombia to Venezuela and at the ports out of Venezuela and into the U.S—product we’d obtained not long ago in a less than conventional transaction with a Colombian cartelcapo.Product that had nearly been stolen from the Venezuelan port twenty-four hours ago. The altercation had left one of our men dead, and the attackers had managed to get away. We all wanted retribution. Now.

“Bene. Grazie, fratello,” Deo said with a sigh of relief. The past few months had been fraught with more than their fair share of trouble.

I chuckled. “Don’t thank me yet. She’ll want a fee.”

None of my contacts did anything for free. I wouldn’t have trusted them if they did.

But that was me, the brother with the contacts—the less-than-lily-white connections all around the world.

Deo shrugged. “I’ll gladly hand over some cash in exchange for a little peace at the moment.”

Peace.That was the last thing I was feeling at the moment.

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