Chapter One

Camila

It’s funny how the weather can affect your mood. On bright, sunny days I have always found that my confidence is better. I walk with a little bit of a bounce in my step. I generally feel very pleased with myself, like the world is my oyster.

I am unstoppable. I am woman, hear me roar.

But today? The sun wouldn’t touch me today, not with a ten-foot pole.

Today is the sort of day that begs for an indoor rereading of my favorite chick-lit novels, for spending time on my computer playing video games. Today needs fluffy, comfortable socks and mountains of gummy worms or coffee, depending on how I feel.

Am I doing that? No, of course not. Instead, I’m sitting in a pencil skirt that’s too tight to ever sit comfortably in an office with—an office that was professionally decorated on my behalf, but that doesn’t have a single thing inside of its four walls that looks like I would have chosen it. It’s formal sterile, save for a large potted indoor tree and its soft floral scent. The bookshelves lining the far wall are nothing but research tomes and case studies, much like the ones stretched out across my desk, so thick I can’t even see the jam-packed calendar underneath of it. One corner of the massive surface serves as a coffee cup graveyard for all of the caffeine that I’ve burned through already.  The cap of my red pen is prized between my teeth, as I bounce the pen over my fingers, reading and rereading the same three lines as the rain beats steadily against the window behind me.

I don’t even know how long I’ve been hunched over my desk—a long time if the soreness in my back is any indicator.

“This is getting me nowhere,” I groan to myself and drop the pen and its lid from my hand at the same time. I pinch the bridge of my nose and massage the inner corners of my eyes to will myself back to a more concentrated state of mind. It’s proving difficult to do. I almost regret sending my secretary home for the evening, however long ago it was… Somebody to fetch me more coffee would be really nice right about now.

I untuck my lavender blouse from my pencil skirt and inhale deeply. I’m getting a cramp in my legs from sitting so strangely. If the other partners in my firm didn’t also keep such random hours, I might be tempted to ditch the skirt entirely just so that I can move freely while I work.

It’s not like they can see into my office… I could get away with it. Probably.

Thankfully my train of thought is disrupted by a knocking on my door that nearly scares me right out of my skin.

“Knock, knock!” A familiar voice says in an overly chipper tone. A bright, warm light mixes into the dim lighting of my office as my best friend eases open the door to my office without waiting for me to invite her inside. “Are you alive in here?”

The scent of fresh coffee and cinnamon wafts in with her entrance, swirling about the room until the bright, happy notes of her perfume mix with the breakfast that she’s brought me. Just like that, I feel refreshed.

“It looks like a vampire den in here, you know?” Amanda teases with good-natured humor as she kicks the door shut behind her. “Earth to Camila?”

I realize that I’ve been staring covetously at the cardboard coffee holder in her hand with something akin to lust in my eyes. I snap out of it as she waves her hand in front of my face and a smile follows. “Sorry, I forget that you’re an angel.” I extend my hands out toward her greedily. “What have I done to deserve such wonderful gifts?” I pause, “What are you even doing awake at this hour?”

Amanda grins, “It’s four in the morning, babe. It’s the normal time that all of us legal-minded types have to be awake if we want to get anywhere.” Now she pauses and sighs. Her eyes rake down my frame, the untucked shirt, the way my hair is slowly falling from the updo I put it in yesterday, and she shakes her head. “You’ve been here all night again, haven’t you?”

I smile bashfully and flutter my lashes at her. “Would you believe me if I said that I was just that dedicated to my work?” I cup the latte she brought me in both of my hands, absorbing every bit of comforting warmth from it that I can. The steam washes over my face as she sets the rest of her items on my already crowded desk. She steps out of her black patent pumps and starts to rummage inside her large designer purse for her small makeup bag.

“I would believe you if you said that you were working this late so that your bear of a father didn’t beat your ass. That I would believe.”

I wave off her comment. “What? Him? Never.” I’m teasing, but we both know damn well that my father would do a lot more than that if I couldn’t solve this problem for him. “I’m more worried about my eyes rebelling and walking out of my head from the strain that I’ve been putting on them.” I take a small scalding sip of the latte and gesture to all the documents covering my space. “I have been over them dozens of times, and I cannot find a single thing that’s going to keep Raul off the chopping block this time.”

Amanda looks uncomfortable, she always does whenever the subject of my father’s empire comes up. I can’t even blame her—it’s not for the faint-hearted. I just don’t have the luxury of ignoring any of it because it would be easier. Given her history with my family, it’s probably cruel that I mention it to her at all. Technically, it’s a conflict of interest to discuss anything with her. I bite down on my bottom lip, feeling guilty even as she walks around the desk to refresh my makeup. I don’t deserve her, I really don’t.

“Sorry,” I mutter lamely.

“For what?” she forces a smile, but I know she’s bothered. “It’s not your fault that you’re terrible at makeup. This is the real reason that you keep me around, don’t even try to deny it.” She loosens the clips from my updo, letting thick brown waves of my chestnut hair tumble around my shoulders. “You look so much better with your hair down, babe. I don’t know why you keep fighting me on it.”

I swat her hands away and clip it right back up. “Because it gets into my face if I have it down… And I have far more important things to worry about, than whether or not the pencil pushers in my office find me attractive.”

“You’re looking at it all the wrong way, babe. Your looks are a thing of power! When you realize the potential in that, you will be unstoppable. Having an ass like yours, with those legs and your exotic features?” She shook her head and swept a brush over my cheekbones. “It wouldn’t matter if you knew this case inside and out.” Her smile softens as she uses her ring finger to blend out the color. “It was part of what made your brother so irresistible to everybody too, you know. At least he owned the perfect face that the two of you shared.”

I pull her hands away from my face and hold them tightly. “True… But you were the one that he chose.”

Emotion swells in her throat, wrapping her voice in sadness. “Yeah well,” she starts. I can tell that she’s about to cry again. Pain and heartbreak like the ones we share don’t ever fade, not really. While we stand on opposite ends of the spectrum, the love that we share for my late twin is equally fierce.  I brush my thumbs over the backs of her hands and she sniffles, looking up to dispel the tears.

“Look at me, blubbering again. I didn’t come here for this. I came here to ply you with sugary goodness and coffee, so you’re forced to listen to me bitch and complain about my new job.”

“I would do that anyway,” I say as I greedily wrap my fingers around the pastry bag and pull it toward myself, rifling through the contents. “But this certainly doesn’t hurt.” I pull out a chocolate croissant, but I don’t give the bag back either.

“My boss is a twat. Worse than your father, worse than anybody that I’ve ever had the misfortune of meeting.  If he hovers over me while I’m working one more time, I’m going to get sued. I’m going to hit him, and then I’m going to get sued and you will have to promise to defend me in court.”

“Assuming that I finish with the litigation of this trial, you have a deal,” I laugh.

“See, if your brother were still alive, he would do it for me. Pull that sexy, scary thing that he always did and make the bastard disappear off the face of the earth—solving my problem and probably getting me a nice little promotion in the meantime. There would literally be no downside. “

“That’s rich coming from a girl who doesn’t want to help me out with the same business you want to benefit from.” My shoulders sag.

I want to ask her to come back for the millionth time. I want to tell her that she needs to be here, fighting these cases beside me. Between the two of us, my father and all of his men were practically untouchable—but I need her. I get why she left. I really do. She couldn’t be here, looking at me every day. I know seeing me hurts her since Alessandro died because we looked almost identical. She couldn’t work for my father the way that she had worked for Alessandro. It was for the best anyway; my father wouldn’t tolerate her backtalk the way that Alessandro did.

All the more reason to get this gun trading deal swept as far under the proverbial rug as I can—and fast. The trial is only days away, and if I can’t find the loophole that I’ve already promised to find, my father will turn all his boundless wrath in my direction.

Yet another thing that had changed since Alessandro’s murder—there is nobody to stand between myself and my father.

Where I have always been the meek one, the quiet one who would rather spend her time in her room minding her own business or reading, Alessandro was a force to be reckoned with. He was the sun and the stars. He was the entire solar system, and everybody was in his gravitational pull. There was nothing that he couldn’t do. Nothing. Like Amanda, I had always seen my twin as this untouchable being, impervious to damage. He was larger than everything, and he knew how to handle everything.

Since his death, the hole in the Martinez mafia has become a giant vacuum threatening to suck all of us in.

“Here’s what you need to do,” Amanda starts, grabbing her own coffee as she’s sat on the corner of my desk, crossing her legs. I know that she’s reading the research papers that I have spread out. And I know that if I make sure to turn them toward her, she’s going to offer me her advice. I desperately need her advice, and quickly, before my father comes into the office and asks for a status report. “You need to get a whole lot of tattoos to cover your perfect skin, and then I need you to get about a foot taller and come to my office and sucker punch my pervert of a boss right in the mouth.”

“You know, with a track record like yours, you could work anywhere, Amanda. You don’t have to stay there if you really hate it this much. A couple of phone calls and you could work at any firm in the city.”

“Not without having to run into your father and begging him for a reference. He’s never going to forgive me for what happened at Alessandro’s funeral.”

I press my lips together to keep from smiling. It isn’t funny, not really. “I don’t think that anyone has ever spoken to my father the way that you did that afternoon.”

“I just said what everybody was thinking,” Amanda says sheepishly. “I shouldn’t have lost it like that. I shouldn’t have yelled at him. I think I remember literally flicking my tears at him.”

I cover the lower half of my mouth with my hand to keep my composure. It hadn’t been funny at the time but looking back at it now… It gets funnier each time I replay the memory in my mind. “Right before he had you physically thrown out of the funeral, you mean.”

“I was upset!” Amanda says firmly. “If it weren’t for him, Alessandro would still be with us!” She crosses her legs once, and then once more. It doesn’t look like she is able to get comfortable. Even with all the time that’s passed, I can tell the memory is still fresh in her mind. “I shouldn’t have called him a bastard. Maybe.” She refuses to look at me. “Just, maybe.”

“Maybe if you just-” I swallow hard. Silence falls between us, and in the distance the elevator dings. I glance at my watch. How has an hour passed? It doesn’t feel real. I curse under my breath and start to gather all the documents into a neat pile.

Amanda huffs. “I’m not going to apologize to him. Over my dead body. Which I’m actually sure he would like very much. The chances of me apologizing to your father are about as high as you growing a pair and standing up to him yourself for dumping everything on your shoulders.”

I shake my head. “He didn’t dump anything on me. It’s my family. I’m happy to help.”

“You were never meant for the spotlight, babe.”

My brow pinches. I want to ask her what she means, but the door to my office swings open loudly and I startle, fumbling the files in my hand. My father presses a formidable aura everywhere that he goes. His domineering presence fills any room he enters.

Amanda swallows, then she squeaks something I can’t understand and hops quickly off my desk. “Mr. Martinez,” she says softly and nods in his direction.

My father isn’t happy to see her. “I see security still hasn’t exterminated our rat problem. Camila, darling, remind me to have words with the boys downstairs.”

“She was here to see me. She wasn’t causing any harm,” I say softly. I want to be braver, to speak up on my best friend’s behalf. “It isn’t security’s fault. They didn’t do anything wrong either.”

My father gives me a severe look and I swear the air in the room thins out. I start to feel lightheaded as he levels me in silent consequence and with the promise of future punishment if I don’t shut up.

“No matter. I’ll have the entire department replaced by morning,” he repeats again, firmly. His mind is clearly made up.

I can feel Amanda’s accusation burning in my chest. I’m too timid to even disagree with him to defend my best friend. I gather the files up into my arms and nod softly.

“Yes, Papa.” It feels juvenile to call him that, but he insists. I tried addressing him by his name once, and it is not a mistake that I’m ever going to make again.

“I’ll see you later, Camila,” Amanda mutters, but I know she’s hurt that I didn’t defend her more. I’m mad at myself about it too, but I do nothing else.

“After security is dealt with, Camila, perhaps we should have a serious discussion about the sort of company that you keep.” His nostrils flare as Amanda grabs her shoes and coffee and sidles past him without making eye contact.  “Now that the trash has been taken out… Sit down, darling.”

“I have a few more things to prepare before our meeting this morning, Papa. Not that I’m not happy to see you-”

“That was not a request, Mija.”

Dutifully, I sit down. I can feel the weight of his stare pressing down on me as I struggle to sit as straight as possible.

“The dealings that I am about to discuss with you must not leave this room, Mija, and they are going to take precedence over every other item on your caseload. So, pay close attention…”

Chapter Two

Camila

This is the part I hate.

I haven’t done anything wrong and yet I feel guilty, almost bordering on paranoia. My father has always had this special power over me, where I feel as though I should just start spewing apologies at random until, somehow, I manage to apologize for whatever crime he thinks I’ve committed. Especially when I haven’t even committed one! I always feel like, if I just take responsibility for something, I can grovel for forgiveness and move on from the situation. This is something Alessandro used to love to take advantage of.

I clear my throat and interlace my fingers on the desk in front of me. I want to look professional; I want to look like the adult that I am—the savvy businesswoman and cutthroat lawyer that I know I’m capable of being. But every time that I’m around my father, that woman ceases to exist. Instead, I’m always reduced to a small child pleading to have something, to get something, to not be in trouble. Always the girl apologizing for her brother’s wicked ways… But Alessandro isn’t here anymore, I have to remind myself.

“Papa, perhaps you will be more comfortable if you leave your wet coat in the hallway.”

Something in my father’s eyes hardens at my suggestion. “If I wanted to leave my coat in the hallway, Mija, then I would have done so. Yet, I have not.”

My father’s condescension rolls over me like slime, leaving heavy residue all over my skin. I refuse to slouch under its weight. “I only meant that, with all of the rain coming down outside, you should be careful not to catch a cold.”

“It is not your place to worry about my health, Mija. I am more than capable of handling a little bit of water. Do you really think I’m weak?”

I can see the trap in his words. It is laid out in front of me, bare and glaring and I have no choice but to walk into it.  “I just do not want you to become ill, Papa.”

He cracks the knuckles on his left hand one at a time. “I don’t have time to deal with your wants, Mija. I have been in this office for only a few moments and already you are wasting my time. If this is how you conduct all of your conversations, perhaps I ought to reconsider how much freedom you have with my clients.” His voice remains flat, and accusation laces every accented syllable that he speaks.

Water from his coat sleeve is already starting to sink into the leather of the armchair. Leather isn’t supposed to get wet like this, or it will mess up the finish. I can’t tell him that. I can’t tell him anything. In his mind, women should not speak until they are spoken to. It doesn’t matter that I am a grown woman, it doesn’t matter that I can support myself and am only working for this firm because of my loyalty to my family—to him!

“Of course, Papa. I’m sorry.” The words are like acid on my tongue.

“You are sorry. Sorry that you have the nerve to speak to me like this. Do I not own this building? Do I not own everything in it? Every floor, every lightbulb, and every person in it. That includes you, Mija, and you should know your place well enough than to goad me about a little water.” He gives me a thorough once over. “How can you even speak to me about rain and coats when you are hardly presentable yourself? You left the house looking like that?”

I can’t tell him that I haven’t slept. I can’t tell him that I’ve been here all night attempting to find a way to cover up for his guns deal that went sour.  Five of his men are facing serious charges for having been caught. Even if it was their own carelessness that got them caught in the first place, it is my job to make sure that they never see the inside of a prison cell. The list of enemies that the Martinez Mafia has is lengthy, and among the names on that list are quite a few members of the present courthouse staff. Three judges are actively fighting for their chance to send any of our men to jail on any maximum sentence they can swing.

I bite down on my tongue. It’s not me that he’s angry with. I tell myself softly. He isn’t angry with you, Camila. He’s just angry at life, and you are within his firing line. It doesn’t make the words hurt any less.

“This is my firm, and I will do as I please,” he continues, pressing a finger into the armchair as he waits expectantly.

“Yes, Papa. I know! I’m sorry.”

Anger pulsates in his jaw, and he’s going to take things one of two ways. Either his temper is going to get the better of him, his rage is going to boil over and this will turn into a full-blown lecture… Or he’s going to sit back and his whole demeanor is going to frost over.

I shouldn’t fault him for the way that he handles things, but it gets harder and harder to not take his anger personally. He has so much on his plate, he handles so much—the task of running the Martinez Mafia is greater than I can fully comprehend. With that in mind, I stay quiet, and I wait.

Mercifully, his shoulders soften, and I can breathe again.

“Clearly, my nerves are fueling my temper, Mija. You will understand, I’m sure.”

It’s far from an apology, but it is the closest thing to one that I will ever get from my father.

“I come with bad news, Camila… Very bad tidings indeed.”

If he didn’t have my attention before, he does now. I push every other thought from my mind as my mouth dries up. I’m frozen in place, dread unfurling in my stomach because I know that he would not be here so early if it wasn’t important. It’s in these rare moments that I can really see him for the man he is inside. He’s more than just the Mafia boss, he’s a man capable of genuine emotion and affection for his children. Tension sets into his squared jawline, and he lifts a hand to pull at his neatly maintained, thick beard. He traces the grain of hair from under his chin, and back up again. Gray specks pepper the thick black hair of his beard and hair.

Alessandro would have looked just like him when he reached middle age.

It feels crazy to say that my father looks uncomfortable. He hardly moves but I can see the subtle change in his expression—the little rotation of his wrist and a change in his posture. He seems to focus on a spot on the wall behind my head, only for a lingering moment so as to compose himself. Whatever he’s about to tell me, it isn’t good.

“Nathaniel Angelo is alive.”

Molten lead burns hot in my belly. My hands flatten out over my desk as the oxygen leaves the room. I feel like a fish out of water, gasping for something, anything.

That man is a monster. I put him behind bars where he was supposed to rot for the rest of his days. He is the only man I’ve felt ever deserved to die, the man who had tormented me since childhood, who had made my life hell, who had stolen the one thing from me that I can’t ever get back. He broke me, fractured something so deep inside of me that I was happy when the news of his death reached my ears.

“He is alive and free. Mija, we have been betrayed.”

This is the worst thing he could have said.

I never would have been able to guess those words would leave his mouth in a thousand years. In a sudden burst of rage, hot angry tears slide down my cheeks as my fingers curl to make a fist. “That’s not possible,” I grind out between my teeth without thinking how the words might be taken.

“It is entirely possible. The snake that we were working with has betrayed us. He must have removed him from the hole he was buried in, all the while telling us that he had died in that cell we fought so hard to put him in.” Papa’s rage was an icy, lethal thing. “He lied to us… He lied to me.”

I put him away myself, and I handled the threats to his family in a way that Alessandro would have been proud of. I handled the whole Angelo family. I left them scrambling to find a head for the family, while I buried Nathaniel in so many charges that he had to serve life sentences. He never would have been a free man. Of course, the prison that I sent the rotten bastard to die in was filled with our men too. Still, even making every one of his final days feel like hell on earth wasn’t enough. It would never be enough to pay for the things that he did to me, for what he stole from me.

The room is too hot. My face feels like it’s on fire. I am burning from the inside out as too many emotions to name roil around inside of me. The pain and hurt only further fuel the rage until it threatens to consume me. I don’t know what to say. My father never makes mistakes. This all feels like the world’s cruelest joke.

I put him away. My father gave the kill order. He was buried in some rat-infested dung heap in France. His bones were rotting in a hole where not even carrion birds would be nourished from him. He paid for his crime… And yet now he hadn’t. He was out? Alive and well? He was walking around this earth, still breathing?

Bile rises in my stomach as the impromptu breakfast threatens to leave me, and I have to choke it back down.

I want to be pragmatic, but all of my higher brain function is threatening to revolt. I want to throw everything off my desk. I want to burn something down. I want to scream, and cry, and curl up into a frustrated version of myself… But I can’t.

“S-so… What does that mean?”

Papa sighs softly. “It means that you have to get out of the city. It means that you have to pack your things and get out of town for a while. At least, until I am certain the coast is clear. I have already made travel arrangements for you to be moved to one of my safe houses. I’m not going to tell you which one, so don’t even bother asking.”

It doesn’t feel right. I know that if he has already decided that this is how things are going to go, there is really no point in arguing with him. But running away with my tail tucked between my legs doesn’t feel right. Of course, Nathaniel would be coming after me. After all, I played a huge part in making his life as miserable as I was able to make it. I don’t know how long he’s been out and I almost don’t want to ask.

“The jet will be leaving this afternoon with you on it. I expect you to have all your affairs in order by then. You are going to pass your caseload off onto your associates as soon as I leave this office. I will be leaving to finish arranging everything, then we will meet for lunch in the cafe by the lobby where you will get your papers. After that, you will leave early for the day, pack your things, and get to the runway. You will do this because I have commanded you to do so, Mija, am I understood?”

Arguing would be stupid at this point. “Yes, Papa. I will do it.”

He’s giving me hours—just a few precious hours to get everything in order so that I can leave my whole life behind for an indeterminate amount of time. I might not ever be able to come back here and pick up my position again. I don’t want to, anyway. I want to know more.

“Has anyone made any threats on our lives?”

The muscles in my father’s jaw tick in irritation. “That is not for you to worry about. Do not get any stupid ideas about looking into this case, and do not start to poke around. You will simply put your life in the care of my many, many security officers and you will go to the safehouse. Understand that if you do not go willingly, Mija, I will have you taken anyway.” His eyes narrow. “I will not lose another child to that monster. I will not allow him to take you… Mija, you’re all I have left.”

My rebellion dies in my throat.

Just like that, I’m defeated.

“I will do it, Papa. I promise I’ll be careful.”

“That’s my darling daughter.” He reaches forward and grabs both of my hands in his larger scarred ones, and he pulls me closer. He stands and leans over the desk to press a kiss into my knuckles. “Then I shall see you for lunch.” I force a small smile, and I nod.

“Yes, Papa. I’ll take care of everything up here, just like you asked. You can count on me.”

He smiles. It’s such a foreign gesture for him to make that I almost don’t trust it on instinct. Can he really be scared of Nathaniel? Can he really be worried that something might happen to me?

I want to tell him not to send me away, that the safest place that I can possibly be is here with him. Nobody is stronger, nobody can take better care of me. For a moment I consider telling him that I will move back home until all of this is done, that I want to see justice for Alessandro too… But instead, I say nothing.

My father stands and leaves without another word. He leaves the door to my office open in his wake. The other associates aren’t going to be happy to have to take on my workload, but each pair of eyes unloading from the elevator turn to give my father a once-over. They all know that he is not to be trifled with. Silence falls over the floor until the elevator doors close and carry my father away.

Slowly, those same curious sets of eyes start to drift toward my open office door. They must now have some idea of what’s coming. They don’t say anything, but I feel it.

How am I supposed to pack up my life in only a few hours? I don’t even know what to pack, what the weather will be like where I’m going. But what I do know is that I have a few hours before lunch… And that means I have a few hours to find out everything I can about the sudden reemergence of Nathaniel Angelo.

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