Chapter 6: The Zoo

Rafael's hand went still on my back.

Above us, the study window slammed shut.

We stood in the garden and listened to Lorenzo's footsteps cross the floor.

Rafael was already reaching for his phone.

"No," I said.

"Vera."

"No."

"He just hired a man to kill you."

"He did that eight years ago too." I took his wrist. "And nobody ever found out, because it happened in the dark."

His jaw was tight.

"I can make him disappear tonight. Nobody will ever find him."

"That's what he did to me."

That stopped him.

"If Lorenzo disappears, he's a sad story," I said. "My mother lights a candle for him for twenty years. Carina tells everyone the Mexicans did it."

"I don't care what Carina says."

"I do."

I looked up at the study window.

"I want him seen. By Mom. By the Marchettis. By every man at that reception who shook his hand."

Rafael looked at me for a long time.

Then he put his phone back in his pocket.

"Then Hector sleeps in front of your door," he said. "And you don't go anywhere without him."

"Fine."

"And the kids don't go anywhere without two of us."

"Fine."

"And you kiss me again."

I laughed for the first time since I'd crossed into Illinois.

I kissed him again.

The kids had been promised the zoo.

I'd promised it in Missouri to stop Beni from kicking the back of my seat for four hundred miles.

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