“What does the name Rico Martinez mean to you?” he asks me while looking at the screen on his phone as it vibrates in his hand, choosing to ignore it.
My eyebrows pinch together, wondering what a sex trafficker has to do with anything. Of course, I know who he is. The man has been wanted by the FBI for thirty something years and then vanished twenty years ago. I read my dad’s case files on him when I started at the bureau.
“Good, you’ve heard of him.” The Omen continues, “Rico is a smart, dangerous man and a desperate one at that. Combine all of that and you have yourself a deadly concoction of fucked up. I’m guessing you read Joey’s files on him.”
I nod once still confused and my patience wearing thin.
“Your father joined the FBI because his older sister had been picked up and sold in the skin trade. Without my ties to the underground, we wouldn’t have even known that much. Martinez is a slippery motherfucker, but he
My heart slams to the floor as The Omen pauses, his hand dropping to his side and he stares out of the window, lost in a memory.
“Around the time Xana was born,” my body goes still at his mention of my sister’s name, “Joey had a breakthrough in the Martinez case. Women, men, and kids were disappearing off the street left and right. With your father getting close to bringing him down, along with my help, he retaliated and took your mother.”
The Omen pauses and lets out a shuddered breath before continuing. “He had Nadya for months. Raped and tortured her, your father drove himself mad trying to find her. You spent a lot of time with me during that period.”
My heart hammers in my chest at the revelation.
“Martinez sent your father a video of her being assaulted and he was able to pinpoint a general area of where she was being held. He called me and I tried to get him to wait, for us to gather men and a plan, but Joey’s love for Nadya overruled his senses. I wasn’t able to get to him soon enough before he shot Joey in the chest while he was holding your dead mother.”
The pain on The Omen’s face of the truth of my parents’ death mirrors what has my heart in a vise grip and threatening to shatter. My pulse throbs in my ears, drowning out all sounds while my world crashes around me. If this is the truth of how my mother and father met their end, then I understand why The Omen did what he did. And even though the emotions he shows radiates truth, I can’t trust him. He’s always been the enemy and it will take more than a sob story to earn my trust.
But there’s one thing I’ve learned that my parents’ love for each other proves:
Love makes you reckless.
“What does this have to do with anything?” I rasp, my throat tight and bile rising from the realization of the situation.
The Omen shifts his gaze to me and blows out a breath it seems he’s been holding. The tension in the room has shifted and the air feels heavy and thick. I don’t want to hear more about my parents. I need to see Malia and make sure she’s alive, even though her father says she’s fine.
I’m suffocating from my own heartache, and I need to know she’s fine so I can breathe again.
“The bombing I believe was a threat from Martinez,” The Omen says. “Malia and Donovan captured a couple of his men a few months ago. Two of the men were his little minions and the other a big buyer. He took a hit with losing them and he’s now, once again, retaliating. Both you and Malia were at the club, so I’m unsure of the intended target, but he wanted one of you dead.”
“I need to see her,” I blurt out before I can stop the words.
The office door slams open and we both look at the intruder. All pain and sadness leaving The Omen’s face, replaced with a hardness he’s not shown me before.
Donovan stands in the doorway, face flushed and breathing ragged. His eyes scan me briefly before they narrow on his father.
“Malia found out we have the bomber,” Donovan says through gritted teeth. “She’s heading down to the basement.”
The Omen spins on his heel without a word and turns to the bookshelf behind him and removes a statue of a crow. The sound of bolts unlocking filter through the room as the bookshelf moves to be side revealing a door.
“We’ll cut her off,” The Omen says while pressing his hand against a palm scanner. The door unlocks and Donovan crosses the room to enter first, his father turning to me and smiles. “If you want to see your girl, then follow me, but be warned. You haven’t actually seen every piece of her, if you come down there then there’s no going back.”
With that he turns and walks down the concrete stairs. The sound of his shoes reverberating off the walls. I hesitate, knowing if I follow him down to the basement there’s a side of Malia—the real Malia—that I may not want to know.
I puff out my breath and follow behind the men that descended down the stairs.
“Malia.” I hear Nate say as I near the bottom of the stairs. His voice is clipped and there’s a warning in it.
I pick up my pace and when I come to the bottom, I nearly slip off the bottom step when I see her. Malia stands with her gun pressing against Donovan’s head, The Omen flanks his son, staring down his daughter. There’s a coldness I’ve never seen in her beautiful face.
“You can’t kill him, Mal, we need him to talk,” Donovan spits, she smirks and it’s enough to send a chill through my body.
As if she just realized I am here, she turns her gun on me, but I don’t back away.
“The fuck ishedoing here?” she asks, looking at her father who stiffens when she keeps her gun trained on me. The Omen might be unsure of whether his daughter will pull the trigger or not, but I’m confident Malia doesn’t have it in her to end my life.