“So should you.”
He leaned back in the chair.
She sighed. “How much longer do you want to keep up the war?”
“Some things are inevitable.”
The sadness on her face intensified but she nodded. I knew she missed Fabiano and especially Aurora. She left with a shuddering breath. I hated knowing that she would be crying over the situation.
Dad got up. “I’ll talk to her.” At the door he paused. “Maybe you should go back home.”
“Where is that?” I asked with a bitter smile.
“I want to go home, Nevio,” I whispered, shivering, rubbing my arms.
I usually loved Vegas by night, but this part of town had a starved, greedy feel to it that made my pulse speed up.
Nevio sank down in front of me, dark brows pulling together.
“Now?”
“Now,” I whimpered. I should have never asked them to take me with them, even if Nevio had promised that they were only looking for a caravan to buy tonight. I hadn’t dared ask him why they needed the caravan. I’d learned to keep my questions limited when it came to my brother’s nightly activities. Some things were better left unsaid, like what happened the night he kidnapped two women and Amo saved me from the floods. My stomach clenched. Nevio had carried me back to the car that night, cradling me against his chest like a child. He hadn’t spared a single look at Amo as he did.
Massimo gave Nevio a sign from his position on top of the fence surrounding the scrapyard.
“Just one more stop, all right? They don’t have what I’m looking for here.” Nevio searched my eyes. “You’ll get over him.”
“I know.”
Nevio stood and held out his hand, which I took and let him pull me to my feet. “Come on. All that matters is our family, Greta, and we’ll always be by your side.”
I didn’t say anything. I didn’t want to talk about Amo with Nevio. I hadn’t talked about him to anyone. It hurt enough that I saw his face in my dreams every night.
Nevio pulled me away from the scrapyard as Massimo jumped down from the fence and Alessio got back behind the steering wheel.
Nevio wrapped his arm around my shoulders as we settled on the backseat.
“Where are we going?” Alessio asked from the front seat.
“Let’s go to Ivanov’s. When I drove past there last time, I saw a Campervan I liked.”
One corner of Nevio’s mouth pulled up in a way that meant trouble. Usually I would have tried to be the voice of reason but today I felt like chaos myself. I wanted to be consumed by Nevio’s frenzy until it blasted away everything that ached inside of me. “If your Dad finds out Greta is here with us, he’ll skin us alive.”
“He knows we can protect Greta.”
Massimo shook his head but neither he nor Alessio tried to talk Nevio out of it.
We eventually arrived in an even shadier part of the city, on the outskirts, at a car dealership which looked as if it mainly dealt with other things.
Alessio parked in front of the rundown building.
The men who sat on chairs in front of the illuminated garage spoke in a Slavic language I didn’t know. It wasn’t Russian because I had decent knowledge of it. Maybe Bulgarian or Albanian.
They all got up when we approached them, exchanging looks and condescending smiles.
“They don’t know who we are?” Alessio said with a hint of excitement.
“Seems they don’t have a clue,” Nevio said with a grin.