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DANIEL
“Did you know or ever meet a woman named Emilia?” My voice is a low rumble against the shell of her ear as we sway on the dance floor.
Being on the far edge of it, opposite the couple and away from the remainder of the bar patrons, affords us some privacy.
“No.” Mac gives a slight shake of her head. “Emilia was your sister?”
“Yeah.” With my lips still at the shell of her ear, I exhale softly without thinking, and she shivers again.
I can’t explain what the hell’s going on with me, but my entire body feels like I’ve just been plugged into an electrical outlet.
Christ. The fuck kind of shitty-ass brother am I, getting distracted by a woman and letting my dick lead the way?
Frustration and self-loathing threaten to suffocate me. I scan my surroundings once again for threats but don’t detect any. Behind the bar, Benny pulls two beers from the cooler and uncaps them, sliding them toward a guy who tosses down some cash.
Get your shit together, asshole. I force myself to focus and slide my phone from my pocket to pull up the only current photo I have of my sister. I grit my teeth to suppress the urge to wince at the image.
“Have you ever seen her?”
Mac studies the image on my phone carefully while I gauge her reaction. Not a single ounce of recognition flickers across her face.
When she lifts her gaze to mine and says, “No. I’ve never seen her before,” it sends what feels like two tons of disappointment plummeting down on my shoulders.
I pocket my phone without a word, without looking at the photo again, because Emilia’s haunted expression still fucks with me.
There’s no doubt in my mind she knew she was going to die. When she showed up out of the blue in Scorpion territory and asked to meet with me, I’d been so damn eager to see her after all those years that I almost let logic and common sense fall by the wayside.
If it hadn’t been for Bronson and one of our other guys, Steve, insisting on being on the lookout during the meeting, not wanting me to take any chances and put myself at risk.
After all, I didn’t really know who Emilia Madrano was anymore. The only version I had was from my early childhood memory.
It made it more jarring when I finally spotted her inside the coffee shop that day. I didn’t think it possible with her darker skin tone, but she’d looked pale that day. Sickly.
I’d felt guilty snapping that photo of her, but the selfish part of me desperately wanted to have a more current image of the sister I’d been robbed of knowing all these years.
The moment I took my seat across from her, she started right in, and the urgency in her voice had my heart stalling in my chest.
“I love you, Daniel. And I’m so sorry.” Her voice had cracked, but worse than that was the goodbye she didn’t say. But it was there, right along with resigned finality.
“I’m proud of you. And you’ll never know how sorry I am that I left you. If I could’ve come back for you, I would’ve, but they—”
“Let me help you.” Desperation clogged my throat. “I can—”
“No, Daniel. You can’t.” She peered up at me with green eyes a shade lighter than my own, the sadness and regret in them twisting my gut into knots. “Nobody can.”
She laid a shaky hand on my arm. “I love you. But you need to let me go once and for all. It’s too dangerous. Don’t do anything else.” Her voice dropped to a ragged whisper. “Please, just…let it go.”
Eyes shining with unshed tears, she dropped her hand and slid past me, walking away to catch the bus that was screeching to a stop at the small, covered awning.
She’d planned it perfectly. Timed it to the second.
I tracked her movements, and not once did she look back. Not one goddamn time. She just stepped right onto that bus and let it take her away from me yet again.
Except she didn’t get far, because her body had been found a few days later in a dumpster on the outskirts of our territory.
If she hadn’t been wearing the same goddamn outfit she had on that day, I don’t know that I would’ve been able to identify her. She’d been beaten, her face and body so swollen, bruised, and bloodied.
I shove aside the anguish threatening to spread through me. Not the time or place. I’m not sure if I’m just imagining it, but Mac seems to edge closer to me.
