I turned the corner and kicked one of the double doors open all the way to find Gia standing in the middle of the bloodstained floor, shattered glass all around her, her face the image of fury.

“You!”

She sneered at me, her lip curled, her eyes hard. No fear, not at seeing me. Not at seeing the pistol I held cocked and ready to kill.

“It was you.”

She picked up the bottle that still sat on the dining-room table from that night. Franco and Roman had been drinking it. She raised it.

“What’s going on, Gia?” I asked, holding out one hand, palm flat, while I de-cocked the gun and slid it into the back waistband of my jeans.

Déjà vu.

Except I hadn’t disarmed the pistol that night.

She threw the bottle at me, rage burning her face as I sprang to the right. Glass shattered at my feet, sticky liquid staining my jeans.

“Calm down. What’s going on?”

“He was your friend.” She looked around the room for the next thing she’d chuck.

I moved toward her slowly, watching her take aim with one of the crystal tumblers on the table.

“My father took a bullet for yours. He was supposed to protect us! He pledged it the day my father died for him!”

She threw it. I sidestepped, and the glass smashed against the wall behind me.

“And you…you were Mateo’s friend.”

“Gia.” I kept my voice calm, moving in closer, trying not to look at the stain on the marble floor, the splatters on the wall I’d ordered no one to clean.

“You like your little masks, don’t you?” she asked, looking around the room, finding nothing left to throw and facing me again. “Tell me, was it you who branded Mateo? Was it you who branded me?” She sucked in a breath and pressed the heels of her hands to her eyes. “I never saw your faces. Everyone but Victor wore a mask.” She looked at me again. “You sick fucking asshole.”

“Gia,” I said, close enough now to take her wrists as she tried to hit me. “Gia, stop.”

“Did you kill him?”

“No.”

“Were you there? Did you hold him down? Did you—”

A sob cut off her words, and she bowed her head into my chest.

“Did you chop off his tongue?”

“No.” Christ. She’d seen that?

“I know who you are. I know.”

I let go of her.

She sank to the floor, her face in her hands.

“Gia.” I squatted down.

“Don’t touch me.”

She shoved me away and sat with her back leaning against the blood-splattered wall. I sat across from her, watching her come apart.

“Don’t…” she started, but her words trailed off to nothing.

“The brand was a setup. Part of Victor’s plan, Gia.”

“Mateo was trying to do the right thing.”