I pat her back awkwardly as I try to wrap my head around this new information.
I look at him wide-eyed. Years together and he never once mentioned he had a sister. “Why would you keep this from me?”
“It’s complicated,” he answers tightly.
I snort, now pissed off for a different reason. “Complicated? Nothing about having a sister is complicated, Luca.”
Mia smiles. “I like her.”
Luca ignores her and steps into me. His jaw set in a hard line. “I don’t expect you to understand.”
“Try me,” I challenge, looking back at his … sister. She’s smiling at me. His fucking sister! My eyes go back to his.
He opens his mouth, but one of my new bodyguards interrupts him. “Luca?”
“What?” he snaps at him.
“The perimeter is clear.”
Luca steps away from me, turning and walking over to the guy before they walk away together.
“I’m sorry …” Her pretty face falls. “I …”
“It’s not your fault,” I tell Mia.
She’s been hidden, kept a secret for how long? Luca said she was born six years after him, and I’m two years younger than him so that would make her twenty? Possibly twenty-one? “How long have you lived here?”
“Since I was thirteen,” she answers.
I sigh, running a hand through my hair. “I … I’m trying to wrap my head around this.”
“Here.” She grabs my hand and walks me over to a lounge chair by the pool. I plop down like a pig falling into mud while she sits on the one next to me with the grace of a fucking queen and crosses her right leg over her left.
Removing her hat, she pushes her glasses on the top of her head. My breath gets caught in my lungs when my eyes meet hers. They’re the same silvery blue as their mother’s. They make her look exotic with her tan skin and dark hair. She looks so much like their mother, it’s scary.
“What do you want to know?” she asks me.
I blink, trying to wrap my head around what is happening. And how open she is going to be about it. “Luca hasn’t told me a single thing regarding you.” Well, that’s a lie. I heard about how your mother begged to keep you. I don’t think shipping her only daughter away was her wish.
“Not surprised.”
“Why aren’t you in Vegas?” I ask the first thing that comes to my mind.
“My father shipped me here on my thirteenth birthday because he didn’t want anyone to know about me.”
“But why?” I ask confused. Why does she have to be a secret?
“The Mafia life is a dark one. I know what my father and brothers do. And who they go after. Luca actually talked our father into sending me here.”
My jaw tightens. “Luca is the reason you were exiled?”
She gives a soft chuckle. “It was best for me. To keep me safe.”
I run a hand through my hair. “Are you really in that much danger?” The guys don’t live here. Well, the twins have been gone for years, but I never really cared to ask where they were or why. Do they stay here with her? Were they shipped off as well?
She looks over at something, and I see Nite walk by us. She averts her eyes and inspects her red painted nails. “I was responsible for hurting him.”
“Hurting him?” I ask confused even more. “Hurting who? Luca?”
“Nite.”
My brows pull together. She isn’t making any sense. “How did you hurt him?”
Her silver eyes meet mine, and she tilts her head to the side. “He hasn’t told you.”
I shake my head. “No one has told me anything.” I don’t know if she is referring to Luca or Nite. But I’m pretty sure everyone is aware that Nite hasn’t spoken since their senior year in college.
“Have you heard of Alberto Rossi?” she asks.
I nod my head. “Yes.”
She sighs. “He’s my father’s biggest rival in Vegas. It’s been an ongoing fight for years. But they were once friends. Somehow, word got out that Rossi wanted me. He knew my father and brothers wouldn’t give me up, not if they went to such great lengths to keep me hidden all that time, so he thought he’d be able to buy off a member of my father’s crew.”
“Who?”
“Oliver Nite.”
I don’t like where this is going.
“He was approached, and I’m not sure of those details, but whatever he said or did didn’t sit well with Rossi. And for some reason, they thought they could get it another way. A week later, Oliver Nite was taken from his house. He had gone missing.”
I remember when he missed school for a few weeks. When he came back, he never spoke again.
She looks down at her shoes and softens her voice. “He was tortured.” My chest tightens. “They wanted intel on me, and he refused to give it. His loyalty to my family didn’t waver.” She shakes her head as if keeping her a secret was the stupidest thing he could have ever done. “They cut out his tongue for it.” I gasp, and my hand comes up to cup my mouth. “They dropped him off at Luca’s front door. A week later, Nite, Luca, and one of my father’s men went after Rossi. Although he was not found, they did brutally slaughter six of his men in retaliation for what they did to Nite.”