Page 74 of The Fixer

But how did you help people grieve the loss of someone who was still alive?

And while my heart ached for them, my mind swirled with the new information I’d received about the man who had saved me again and again. The man who revealed his secrets in a slow trickle, the rest of them hidden behind a dam holding back an ocean.

“I’m not keeping him from you,” I promised, hand over my heart. “I only just met him a few weeks ago.”

“Likely story,” mumbled the big guy, Alex.

“It’s the truth.” Desperation flooded me, tightening my chest. “We met at my father’s funeral three weeks ago.”

One of the women, this one surely one of his sisters, gasped and pressed her fist to her mouth. “Oh God! I knew you looked familiar. You’re Charlie Westbrook’s daughter, aren’t you?”

I bit down on my lip, gave a sharp nod.

She stood from her spot on the couch next to her sister and crouched down before me. “I’m Silvia. I worked at your father’s funeral. I’m so sorry for your loss.”

“Thank you.”

“Guys,” she said, turning to her family, “this is the girl I was telling you about.”

“The one he was glowering at like she killed his cat?”

A strangled cry left my throat. His words shouldn’t have affected me, I knew that. But they did. They were a reminder of Mr. Jingles. A reminder of my mother and my father. Of everything that came before, and everything that came after.

My apartment.

The theft at Dad’s.

The car chase that I’d tried so hard not to think about. Tried not to let bother me as I clutched tightly at the one thing holding me together.

And here I was, getting grilled by his family as if it were my fault the man was an emotional wreck.

Tears welled, then trickled from my eyes. I curled in on myself, hid my face in my hands. I didn’t have to hear the words these people said to know this display I was putting on had rocked them.

“What did you do?” Rachelle’s voice boomed from behind me. I jumped at the sound. Jumped again when she dropped a calming hand to my back.

“I didn’t do anything!” came Alex’s voice, as if it weren’t his words that had hit me hard in the chest.

“Alex,” someone else admonished, a cracked whip softened by age and experience. A familiar, comforting voice I’d let soothe my soul just a few weeks ago.

“All he said was Jet was glowering at her at the funeral,” someone else tried.

“Eliza, sweetheart, what is it?” Emilia cooed at my side. “What did Alex say?”

Shaking my head, I peeked up at the man still standing against the wall. His arms were no longer crossed, his hair no longer perfectly swept across his head. It stood on end, the way Jet’s did when he strung his fingers through it when he got upset.

“He didn’t—” My breath hitched, body shaking on a sob. Triumph split Alex’s face before it fell flat with my next words. “Someone poisoned my cat.”

The woman seated at Alex’s side turned and slapped his chest while, in front of me, Silvia gasped. “Oh my God!”

“When was this?” that gruff, familiar voice asked.

I pulled my head up and found Giraldo Pasternelo Sr. standing next to me. Concern etched his face and swirled in his deep brown eyes.

“Last week,” I told him, trying to suppress my sobs. “He’d come over to deliver my dad’s things the night before, and when I found Mr. Jingles, he rushed over and cleaned up the mess. And then my apartment was trashed and my dad’s was broken into and I’ve been living with Jet for the past week and last night we were chased through the streets by a gang on motorbikes and shot at and Santini’s car flipped and he’s in the hospital and Jet’s chasing down the gang and brought me here to keep me safe.”

My ramblings brought silence to the room. Wide eyes stared back at me as if my spectacle had risen to another level. It was Giraldo who broke the silence, the soothing cadence of his voice in direct contradiction to the words that came out of his mouth.

“We don’t talk about what my son does outside of these walls.”