If the Valentino family weren’t running the streets, it would be someone else, and I’d rather have some control than none at all.
I was good at killing. And sometimes, it felt right to choke the life out of some bastard that threatened my friends and family, or to put a bullet through the head of a sex trafficker. If that meant I was a bad person too, if I was just as broken and deranged, I’d accept that, but I wouldn’t stop.
Ahead, halfway down the block, a couple of people began toward Heaven’s End. The doorman, who had been pretty lethargic for the past hour and I was beginning to wonder if he might fall asleep, suddenly stood up. Tara noticed too, and sat up straight, leaning forward.
I squinted against the setting sunlight, and caught a glimpse of a man coming close. He was tall, chiseled jaw, muscular build. I’d recognize that bastard anywhere.
“Ronan,” Tara said softly.
I nodded slightly. “Yeah, that’s him,” I said, then stopped and stared at her. “How the hell do you know that?”
She looked away from the door and her mouth fell open. I could see the excuses flash across her face like she wanted to lie to me, but couldn’t come up with something fast enough. My hand shot out and I grabbed her wrist, held it tight, and leaned closer.
“Tara,” I growled. “How do you know that man is Ronan Healy? Have you met him before?”
“No,” she said, shaking her head rapidly. “I mean, yes, but recently. Not before all this.”
I clenched my jaw, but released her wrist. I wasn’t going to intimidate her if I didn’t have to, but I suddenly felt a wave of paranoia wash over me. I’d been a target for the other families for a long time, and I wondered how far they’d go to get me.
“I think you should explain,” I said slowly, not looking away from her, and she shrank back away from me, against the car door.
She didn’t speak at first, and she shifted in her seat, uncomfortable, before finally letting out a frustrated sigh. “I meant to tell you,” she said, “but I didn’t think you’d believe me.”
“Tara, what happened?” I tried to keep the edge from my voice, but didn’t manage it.
She flinched, like I’d slapped her. “I went for a walk a few days ago,” she said. “I was so cooped up and you went somewhere, so I thought it would be safe, you know?”
I closed my eyes. I remembered her coming back from somewhere after I went to a meeting with Dean and I hadn’t pressed her on it, but I thought it was strange at the time. That must’ve been when it happened.
“Keep talking,” I said.
She told me the whole story: meeting Ronan in the park, his threats, his attempt at winning her over, the way she ran home. When she was done, her cheeks were flushed, and she leaned toward me again.
“I promise, I didn’t tell him anything,” she said quickly. “He wanted to try to convince me to help them, but I told him to go to hell.”
I nodded slowly and looked back at Heaven’s End. Ronan was inside, and the doorman was back on his little perch, but looked wide awake now. I wondered when someone would come to relieve the poor fucker—he’d been there for hours now.
“That’s it then, huh,” I said gently. “They think you know about your father’s business.”
“I think so, yeah,” she said. “That’s why they’re desperate to take me away, and I think that’s why the Don wants you to keep me around so badly.”
“Fuck,” I said and leaned my head back against the seat.
I should’ve seen this, but I hadn’t realized it until right now. Of course she was right—the test was only part half of the equation. The Don didn’t do anything without having some hidden motive behind it, and now I completely understood why he was so insistent on keeping Tara around.
They wanted her father’s business. They wanted his routes, his methods, his contacts, his girls, his fucking drugs. They wanted it all, because the Don wanted to expand our whoring business.
I felt a ripple of rage and pushed back against it. That couldn’t be right. The Don knew how I felt about trafficking, knew how much I despised selling girls like they were prime rib in some restaurant. He knew I wouldn’t work for him if he grew that side of the Valentino business, and for years it had languished, just one minor piece of the entire puzzle.
Now he wanted to bring Tara into the fold, and to mine her for whatever secrets she held about what her father did for a living.
But she didn’t know a goddamn thing. I was sure of that, surer than anything else, and the Don didn’t realize it. He lay in his hospital bed, thinking Tara held the key to unlocking the sex trade, and all he had to do was sacrifice my dignity to get it.