Page 84 of Chris

“You didn’t see me come back?”

He hoped to distract the woman with a lie, but perhaps he should have known better than to even try. There was something about Abril that was not the same as her brothers although what it was, he wasn’t sure. She was quiet, always sticking to the shadows, but never inserting herself into conversations.

However, Chris understood it was the silent ones someone had to watch more than the others. They were the people who saw things, but never said a word. They heard conversations and filed them away in their minds for a later date.

He doubted Abril was different.

“No, I didn’t see you come back,” Abril said, resting her arms over her jean-covered knees, and tipping her head to the side. “But I saw Val leave with one horse, and her daughter, and then come back with two horses. Maria was riding Butter.”

Chris cleared his throat.

Abril smiled.

“You’re playing a dangerous game, Christopher Guzzi, and I want you to tell me exactly what kind it is.”

“I’m not sure what you’re talking—”

“Cut the shit. I’ve seen you dancing around her since you arrived. Last weekend? You got out of her room just in time because Jorge got home an hour later and passed out in the hallway before his men came up and put him in a spare bedroom.”

Fuck.

“The door closing,” Chris murmured.

Abril shrugged one bare shoulder where her flimsy blouse had fallen down. “I don’t trust new people, and I had every reason to wonder about you.”

“Why?”

“I’m aware of just enough about the cocaine trade in Canada to say your father has a good supplier, and he didn’t need to come here. Jorge and my father? They think I’m a pretty face to give to whoever the fuck they want, but that’s their mistake.”

He didn’t miss how she didn’t say her other brother. The one that stayed in this house with her.

Chris didn’t point it out.

“I like Val,” Abril said, “and I don’t like very many people, so that says a lot. And my niece? She didn’t ask to be here, either.”

“What do you want?” he asked outright.

Abril smirked. “Not much … just a guarantee. Tell me what you want, and then we’ll see what I can do for you.”

“I’m not sure you can help me.”

“Don’t make the same mistakes they do. Those who underestimate me tend to get what they deserve. Do you want to fall into that category, too?”

Well, all right, then.

“Valeria, and her daughter.”

Abril’s expression didn’t change, and she gave nothing away when she replied, “What about them?”

“What do you think?”

“I think if you came here to remove them from my brother, then you will have an uphill battle to make it happen.”

Chris laughed darkly. “That’s not news.”

“What if I help with it?”

“How so?”