Total pages in book: 74
Estimated words: 80139 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 401(@200wpm)___ 321(@250wpm)___ 267(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 80139 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 401(@200wpm)___ 321(@250wpm)___ 267(@300wpm)
“Yes.”
“And did you see him a lot? Vega? Was he around a lot, like, when you turned twenty, twenty-one?”
I wrinkle my forehead. “Yeah. I mean, he took trips sometimes, but he was around.”
Robin furrows her brow. “But that’s when he was here. Working drugs on the border. When Eagle got involved with him.”
“Eagle was involved with him?”
Robin ignores me, continuing. “He couldn’t have been running a crime syndicate in Colombia while also spending that much time in Texas.”
“I mean, maybe. He has lots of associates,” I say. “Where are you going with this?”
“Eagle got involved with a drug kingpin named Diego Vega.” She swallows, lowering her voice. “We thought… In the barn…”
Oh, shit.
I get it now.
She doesn’t know.
And I didn’t know it was even important. I didn’t understand how much of this family’s confusion rests on one name used for two men.
“Robin.”
She looks at me.
“The man buried underneath your barn,” I say, low, “was not Diego Vega.”
She furrows her brow. “What?”
“Not the Diego Vega who is head of the family now. Not the man who runs the organization tied to the Agudelos, the Bianchis, the McCallisters. To Hernando Reyes.”
Robin stares at me.
“That man—the body I exhumed—was Diego Vega Junior.”
Her mouth drops.
“His son.”
45
ROBIN
My head hurts.
Not in the normal way, either. Not the dull throb of exhaustion or dehydration or too many tears, though I probably have all that going on as well.
This is different.
This is the specific ache of too many puzzle pieces snapping into place.
Diego Vega Junior.
Vega’s son.
For a second, I can’t speak. I can’t even breathe properly. I just stand in the open doorway of the main house, my heart pounding, my mind racing so fast it feels like it might break apart inside my skull.
Because—
God.
Everything makes sense.
Okay, not everything.
But this?
This piece?
It fits.
Eagle, Falcon, and Hawk buried a man in the barn all those years ago.
A man they believed was Diego Vega.
A man tied to whatever happened back then, to Eagle, to secrets, to violence, to the kind of nightmare my brothers spent years carrying.
But they buried the son.
Not the father.
The father is the one Vinnie dealt with.
The father is the one connected to Vinnie’s grandfather. To his organization. To the old alliances and crimes and all the tangled threads.
Hawk, Falcon, and Eagle never met Vega Senior.
Why would they know the difference?
And Vinnie never met Vega Junior.
Why would he?
Two men.
One name.
One dead.
One very much alive.
My stomach turns.
“Wait,” I whisper.
Cruz doesn’t push. Doesn’t try to step inside. Doesn’t reach for me.
I need space to think, and if he touches me right now, I don’t trust my brain to keep doing its job.
“The picture,” I say.
His brow furrows. “What picture?”
“The photo. The one that made us think Vega Senior was dead.” I press my fingers to my temple, trying to slow the stampede in my head. “It turned out to be AI. Fake. But if my brothers had seen it, they would have realized it wasn’t the same man. Right?”
Cruz doesn’t answer immediately.
Because he doesn’t know.
But I do.
I do.
“No,” I say before he can speak. “No, they didn’t see it. They never saw it.”
Only Vinnie saw it.
Not Hawk.
Not Falcon.
Not Eagle.
I let out a shaky breath. “My God.”
Cruz stays still.
There are two Diego Vegas.
One is dead. Both should be.
I look at Cruz again.
Really look.
He’s standing on my family’s porch. He came here after I told him not to. After I kissed him goodbye. After I told him we were even and that he should disappear out of my life and live honestly far away from me.
He came to Texas anyway. I should be angry. But I’d be lying if I said it isn’t good to see him.
God help me.
He looks terrible, of course. He hasn’t slept, and he’s still wearing the same black shirt. If you look closely, you can see Zabala’s blood. Probably Señora’s too. His knuckles are crusted, and his face—his gorgeous face—is hollow and bruised.
But to me he looks wonderful. Seeing him standing here makes something in my chest loosen that I didn’t even realize was still clenched.
I’m just so fucking happy he survived.
And he came.
But can I trust him?
Can I trust Cruz Moreno?
The man who helped abduct me.
The man who staged Eagle’s overdose.
The man who exhumed the body from the barn.
The man who got me out of Colombia.
The man who killed his own coworker when Zabala came to the brothel.
The man who crossed a continent to stand at my door and tell me he loves me.
The man who just told me something that changes everything.
Something useful.
Something true.
Something that makes one piece of the puzzle simpler than it was five minutes ago.
And maybe that matters.
Maybe all of it matters.
The good and the bad.
The damage and the rescue.
I think of Ştefan.
His hand in my hair. His belief that my performance was real. That bond was fake. A thing I built because I needed to survive.