Page 3 of Deadly Lies

Ashley swapped seats with me. I reclined my seat back in the truck. I needed to take a deep breath and try to process this new information about Joaquín.

Ash drove through the desert, the warm air blowing hot through the car. I felt as if I was almost suffocating, but it wasn’t from the heat.

The pressure was internal.

Joaquín.

Could it have been a lie? Could I be right?

And why, Dios mío, why would he have ruined his life and confessed to such an awful crime? A crime against nature. We may not be biological siblings, but we were brother and sister. Blood did not determine family. My first memory was of Joaquín. And I had only realized recently that we were not biologically related. It didn’t matter to me when I found out. It didn’t matter to me now. No matter what, Joaquín would always be my only sibling.

And what on earth did it mean if he had lied? Ashley said it must have been to protect me. And I believed her. But who was he protecting me from? Joaquín was now a convicted felon doing hard time. He spent his days in a cold, dank cell, instead of living life up as a Navy SEAL in Coronado. And he never complained.

I couldn’t even in my wildest imagination what would make him lie.

But I would find out the truth.

I had failed to free him once. This time, I would stop at nothing until I figured out what happened on the night I was raped.

A hunger woke inside of me. One that had been dead since the day he had confessed. I would do anything.

Anything to find out the truth.

Anything to set him free.

But first, I needed to focus on Sienna.

Sweet Sienna. She was a firecracker and definitely had Mitch’s stubborn streak. Julián and Sienna were very good friends, and I watched her almost every time she visited Mitch. I prayed that wherever she was, whoever she was with wasn’t harming her. Maybe that person took her to protect her.

Like Lorraine had protected Julián.

Lorraine.

What had ever happened to her? Last I heard, she had pleaded out charges and was released. NCIS and the FBI had interviewed her. But had they asked the right questions? What else did she know?

Ash was mostly silent on the drive. My anxiety was at an all-time high. I had to call Grant.

He picked up on the first ring.

“Hey.” His sexy voice always soothed my soul.

“Hey, any news on Sienna?” It was a stupid question. I knew damn fucking well that if there had been any news on Sienna, Grant would’ve already texted me.

“None. Are you in Vegas yet?”

“No.” I paused. Grant was my husband. The father of our son. After everything we had been through together in the last few years, I should be honest with him. I needed to be honest with him.

Even so, something held me back.

Grant hadn’t been there the night I had been raped. That was a fact—the man had been in a hospital. He had no way of knowing if Joaquín had left or Paul had framed him.

Only one person put Joaquín at the scene of the crime. And that person was April.

And unfortunately for me, she was in a coma.

I inhaled a deep breath. This was not a suspicion I intended to keep from him. Not at all. But I didn’t want to tell him in the car. I wanted to tell him in person.

“How’s Mitch?”