Antonio moved forward to see his brother’s eyes. He always knew when he was lying. “I agree, but I do have to ask, will you be telling her before she is handed over?”

“You can’t hand her over, Antonio,” Victor snapped at his brother, once again annoyed at his lack of knowledge. It was why their parents exiled him from the family. He clearly made a new one with K Diamond. “You need to plant someone in her life. Someone from outside our families. Use one of your little—” Victor looked over his shoulder at the young boy standing near the doors. “Experiments.”

“The human anatomy is far from a hobby, and if it wasn’t for what I do, brother, a lot of people wouldn’t have organs now would they? Since the system would rather see people die.”

“Oh, don’t act like you’re God. You kill more people than the system.”

“Also true,” Antonio said smoothly. “However, don’t worry. I will have it handled. She will be seventeen. I will put someone into her life that their main mission will be to bring her to me. Get close to her.”

Victor’s eyes fell on Antonio. He knew his brother. He was deceitful, but he trusted him with this because he knew he needed Ruby. “Whoever it is cannot be linked to the Cosa Nostra, or any mafia, underground outlaw. He must be a simple person with a simple life. One I can pierce into. They’re easily manipulated.” Victor stood, wiping his hands down his suit and nodding at his brother. “You will have your daughter back, even though I should kill both you and Pearl for doing what you did.”

“I want her too,” Antonio said just as Victor was about to leave the room. “I want her dead. You know if I don’t get these things, La Rosa, that I will entice a war so heinous not even you could escape. You can’t run from me…” Laughter cackled through the haunted building.

The phone slips from my fingers as I turn back to Papa, unable to grasp the scene that played out in front of me. “How could you…”

His face changes from trying to get me to believe him to complete and utter disgust. “Because you are not my daughter. Because you are the product of your mother’s deceit!”

Wicked clucks his tongue. “I’d be really fucking careful with your next words, Papa La Rosa.”

“But—” I squeeze my eyes closed. “I don’t understand anything.”

Mik pipes in from the back, and the smell of metallic and rotting flesh engulfs me. “Your dear Papa, I mean the real one, was a lot smarter than your fake one gave him credit for. Placing you in the home of—my—parents, ordering Wicked to kill them to gain the attention of Victor, and Victor thinking this poor innocent civilian could be led blindly…”