Oxblood (16 page)

“Did you have any idea about this before now?” I wiped my tears and dried my palms on my pants.

“No. I thought he was an overzealous law student doing something really stupid in the name of education. Had I known he was specifically going after traffickers, I would have knocked him unconscious and sent him home.” Ian stood with an angry force. “I should have never told him about Paolo.”

“I thought you said Gil was the one who overheard the Cappolas mention him?”

Ian was pacing across the room. I could tell by the anguished look on his face that he was giving himself an internal beatdown.

“He did. But I had been trying to find something, anything that would serve as a solid lead to Paolo. The sooner I got to him, the sooner I would be able to take down his boss. When Gil told me what he had heard, I stressed how important it was to find everything he could about the Cappola connection to Paolo. All I told him to do was keep his ears open. Had I known his true intentions, I would have pulled him out.” Ian turned and dropped to his knees in front of me. “I swear, Victoria, I would have pulled him out and sent him home.”

“It's not your fault, Ian. He lied to both of us.”

My heart broke. Gil had not only lied to me, but he left me. He left me and walked right into a situation where he could be killed at any moment and I would be alone forever. Maybe he was already dead.

I didn't want to think about it. I wanted to believe that if avenging Maria had been Gil's objective all along, then he had prepared himself. That he had learned the lay of the land and knew exactly how to stay alive with these kinds of people. But Ian was right. There was a good chance that Gil's true character and integrity would keep him from putting children at risk. Normally, that wouldn't be a bad thing, but in this case, it may have already gotten Gil two in the back of
his
head.

Chapter 15

“I have to go out,” Ian said as he moved around the room gathering essentials: gun, cell phone, and an envelope he filled with money that he pulled out from under a loose floorboard.

I watched him, overwhelmingly aware that I was now officially in way too deep. Part of me wished I had taken Ian up on one of his offers—instructions—to go home. The other part of me felt like I was so close to finding Gil that I could almost taste it. There was still the smallest chance that Gil had learned how to navigate the deadly crowd in which he had embedded himself. He had risen through the ranks quickly thanks to his skills, his
useful
skills.

“Where are you going?” I asked Ian.

“I'm going to see what I can find out from some locals. I won't be long.”

“I thought Damon had already put some feelers out?”

“Not for what I'm looking for.” Ian took my hand in his. “Just sit tight, okay? Please don't go anywhere.”

“I won't, but what am I supposed to do?” I motioned to my puffy, tired eyes. “I mean, if I can't tell the others what's really going on.”

“We've just been through the journal again. You're upset and overwhelmed. You miss Gil and are afraid for what may have happened to him. The best excuses are the most obvious.”

“At least I won't be lying,” I sighed, and collected my thoughts. “Be safe, okay?”

He snickered at my implication. “I'll be fine.” The idea of Ian not being able to protect himself may have sounded absurd to him, but the image of him hanging by his wrists in the old factory would haunt me forever. “Damon has contacted Command. We haven't heard anything back from them yet, but if there's bad intel out there and they sent Bianca after us, I doubt we'll hear anything soon.”

“Is that what you think is happening?”

“No. I think Bianca is a tainted agent, and she and her associates are trying to stop us before we can stop them,” Ian said. Ian put his hand on my neck and ran his thumb across my cheek. “I shouldn't be long.”

He passed through the living room in a blur with a short declaration that he would be back soon. No one questioned him, not even Carter.

The door shut loudly behind him as I walked out of the bedroom. All eyes were on me. Claudia and Adam watched me with compassion while Eva raised a suspicious eyebrow. I knew what she was insinuating, but I wasn't going to gratify her presumptions with any kind of defense. Damon was engrossed in his papers and something on his computer. Carter? Well, at least he was consistent: It was the stink eye all the time.

I just shook my head and walked into the kitchen for something cold to drink. The small refrigerator had two shelves, one stocked with bottled water and the other with beer, white wine, and containers of food. I grabbed a water and guzzled almost half of it.

I leaned against the counter and thought about the dots Ian and I had just connected. I didn't know if I wanted to beat the crap out of Gil or give him a medal. I'd probably know when I saw him—
if
I saw him. I decided that the best thing to do was focus on Gil being alive and ready for my wrath. Maybe I could get Adam to help me sweeten my self-defense moves for a more thorough ass-kicking.

“What's the word, newbie?”

I ignored Carter as he opened the refrigerator, grabbed a bottle of water, and then immediately pulled out two beers. “Have a drink, newbie. You'll feel better.”

“Stop calling me newbie,” I said.

He chuckled. “Everyone needs a nickname.”

“In that case, which do you prefer? Jackass or douche bag?” I twisted the cap back on my water and walked out of the kitchen.

“Leave her alone, Carter,” Adam said. “Don't pay any attention to him, Vic.”

“Yeah. He's always got a stick up his ass about something,” Claudia added.

“I do not have a stick up my ass.” Carter said with a laugh. “Okay, okay. I'm sorry, newbie, I mean,
Victoria
. Tell you what. Since we don't know how long boss man is going to be gone, let's play a game to pass the time.”

“What kind of game?” I asked suspiciously. I didn't believe for one second that Carter was actually trying to smooth things over with me.

“It's not really a game,” Claudia interjected. “It's something we do when new people join the team, so not very often.”

“Have you ever played ‘Never Have I Ever'?” Carter asked.

I rolled my eyes. “Seriously? A drinking game?”

“It's a twist on that,” Adam began. “We all have a story, a reason why we've ended up on a Rogue team. We play ‘Never Have I Ever' as a way of telling our story. Sometimes we find that we have more in common than we think.”

“Here's how our version works,” Eva said. “I might say, ‘Never have I ever run away from home when I was sixteen.' In the original version, the person whose turn it is says something they've never done. Those who
have
done it take a drink. In our version, you tell something you
have
done, then you and everyone who has also done it takes a drink.”

She crossed in front of Carter and took the second beer out of his hand.

“You do know that you're all grown-ups, right?” I said. “I mean, I didn't wander into a frat house, right?”

Adam laughed. “Unlike at a frat party, the point isn't to get wasted. The point is to share things about ourselves,” he said.

He, among everyone here, seemed the most out of place. With his fair skin and hair that looked reddish in the right light, to look at him, you'd think he was a dad from the suburbs, mowing his lawn and taking his kids to Little League practice on weekends. Instead, he was deceptively strong and had an inhuman ability to hit any target you put in front of him, regardless of the distance. Were he not a Rogue agent, it would be difficult to convince me Adam had done anything nefarious.

“There is only one rule,” Damon said. “Once we talk about it here, we do not tell another's story without permission.”

In answer, I went into the kitchen and grabbed a beer. I popped the cap, took a fast swig, and gave the performance of a lifetime. No doubt about it, beer was nasty.

I cocked my head and locked eyes with Carter. “Game on.”

“Now
this
is a Victoria I could get on board with,” Carter said with a leer.

“You're not getting on board anything of mine,” I retaliated.

Carter laughed and took a seat.

“You don't have to do this, Vic,” Claudia whispered to me. I loved how she seemed to instinctively look out for me.

“I'm not going to let him push me around,” I told her.

“All right then.” She gave me a tight-lipped smile. “I'll go first,” she said to the group. Claudia took a deep breath and continued. “Never have I ever moved to Hollywood and tried to be an actress.”

She took a swig of her beer. I took a minute to translate in my mind that, in this group's version of the game,
never
actually meant that Claudia
had
moved to Hollywood and tried to be an actress.

No one else drank. Of course.
Thank you, Claudia.

“Really?” I said. “You wanted to be an actress?”

Claudia nodded. “Yeah. I had a few small parts on the stage and I was an extra in a national commercial. Nothing anyone would remember, but big for me.”

“I think that's awesome.” I smiled at her like a friend would.

“Can I go now?” Carter whined. “Never have I ever been on the run from the law.”

He took a huge swig of his beer, as did everyone else in the room. I looked at Adam curiously.

“Yep,” he said. “It turns out you can't take guns across the border into Canada.”

“Really?” I asked.

“Well, you probably could if they weren't stolen . . . and loaded,” Adam chuckled.

“Okay,
piccolina
. Your turn.” Damon raised his bottle to me and nodded.

I twisted the bottle around in my hand nervously. “Never have I ever flown halfway around the world to find the only family I have left.”

I took a drink. As I suspected, no one else did.

I bet they had all flown around the world many times over. But no one here had any family left. They were loners, runaways. Forging lives for themselves void of any real connections besides one another. That was how it worked, right? In order to be part of a Rogue team, you had to have no connections, no loved ones left behind to face your possible, and imminent, death.

“Would you do it again if you knew your brother had lied to you?” Carter took a condescending swig from his bottle, keeping his eyes locked on mine.

“How would you know anything about it?” I asked. I thought the only person who knew what was going on with my brother was Ian. Had he told someone else in the group, who passed it along to Carter, or had he told Carter directly?

I felt my blood beginning to boil at the betrayal, but Carter just raised his eyebrows. I looked around the room, eyeing Adam and Claudia, and then finally landing on Damon.

“I'm done.” I stood up and walked to the back bedroom. I pulled back the sheer curtain and walked outside to the small balcony, just big enough for two people. The view of the city was lovely. The sky had the same orange glow it did back home. For a single moment, I didn't feel so far from Miami. I didn't feel so lost. So alone.

I heard a boot scuff on the wooden floor behind me. “
Piccolina
,” Damon began.

“I don't know what that means, but don't call me that.”

“He was just curious about who you were and why you are here,” he tried to explain. He leaned back against the railing. “I was just trying to alleviate his suspicions about you.”

“It wasn't your story to tell. It wasn't Ian's story to tell
you
, either.” I could feel heat rushing to my face as I became angrier with them both.

“I know your brother. Ian had me teach Gil about gathering information,” Damon said. “He told me Gil was helping some of the mob families. He wanted to know if I thought there was a connection between the places Gil told you he was going and the places he could be now.”

Damon propped himself on the railing with an elbow and crossed one foot over the other, his Italian swagger in full force.

“Yeah, well, Ian still didn't have to tell you my business.”

Damon thought for a moment. “The way you talk to Claudia, you see her like a friend, like a sister.
Amica sorella
. I see this team like a family,” he said. “If we do not watch out for one another, no one will. I am sorry I told Carter about Gil lying to you. Carter is like a younger brother to me. An annoying, arrogant, younger brother,” he chuckled.

The temperature of my blood began to cool. It was nice to hear Damon share my sentiment about treating the people you trust with your life as friends or family.

I nodded. “Okay. But next time someone wants to know something about me, you tell them to come see me. It's my story, and I'll tell it how I want it to be told.”

I gave him a small smile and raised my eyebrows. Just enough to let him know that we were cool, but I was serious about him keeping his mouth shut.

“I can handle that,” he said.

We stood there together on the balcony in silence, enjoying the view of the sky. A café owner down the street was wiping off tables and setting out tablecloths and flowers. Mothers were coming home from the park with sleepy toddlers in strollers. It all looked so normal, so Italian Norman Rockwell. Little did they know that not far from here, and maybe in this town, children were possibly being bought and sold like property.

I wondered how long a person could handle being on a Rogue team. It all seemed crazy, so outlandish to me. But it stood to reason that, after a while, one would become desensitized to the atrocity of it all.

I wondered how long a person could handle being cut off from the world. Agents may not have any family left, but there had to be friends left behind. You would have to accept that your future would consist of the same three or four people who made up your team forever. Or until you—or they—were killed.

“I was
polizia
,” Damon said, breaking the silence. “A police detective.”

I turned to look at him. He was volunteering his story to me.

“There were so many Mafiosi in my town. They came to us. They said they wanted to work with us. They said they could give us protection.” He stared into the street below. “We told them, ‘we are the
polizia
. We do not need your protection. We protect the people of our town from
you
!' They did not like that. They made an offer to the men of my unit. What is it that gangster movie said? Oh yes. They made an offer that couldn't be refused.”

“So the men accepted their offer, and the mob took over?” I asked.

“Not everyone. Those who didn't accept paid the price. Some were never seen again. Others had brothers and sons beaten, mothers and sisters raped. They were left with no choice but to do what had to be done to keep their families safe.”

Damon turned his head to hide the emotions welling up in him. “It was a very difficult time for me.”

I realized that, as a member of Rogue, his biological family was gone.

“I'm so sorry, Damon,” I said.

He took a deep breath and looked at me. “Now you know my story. Perhaps one day you will share all of yours with me, not just the parts that Ian told me.” He smiled and patted me on the shoulder before he stepped inside.

I turned back to the railing and smiled. This was the kind of thing that connected the team. Knowing one another's stories made us real. Not divulging secrets through a lame pseudo-drinking game, but on our own terms, in our own way.

Suddenly, I was reassured. We were closer to finding Gil, and I knew that however it played out, Adam, Claudia, Damon, and I would have one another's backs.