“I had a friend, Tony, the brother of my girlfriend. We hardly knew each other. I met Tony at her house. He’d recently moved back to town. I had dated a couple of times and it always ended in disaster. Once it turned out to be an undercover cop, and another time I found out the man I was dating had been paid by Elijah to take me out.” Utter humiliation clogged her throat. “I don’t think I can remember a man having an interest in me as a woman. The police wanted information to convict Elijah, and I guess they thought they could send in an undercover man to romance me. Armando wanted a way to get close to Elijah again to be able to kill him. He was so furious, so absolutely furious with Elijah. He’s done everything he can to try to kill him.”

“Tell me about this man.” She was avoiding it. Rio knew her now, knew her every little sign of agitation and distress. She was burrowing deeper into his body, trembling, her breath coming in hard gasps of despair.

“I didn’t tell Elijah about Tony because I knew he would never allow me to go out alone with him. I couldn’t go anywhere alone. He seemed a nice man. Marcia, his sister, and I were good friends. He moved in with her and when I went to visit, he was there. At first we just talked, played Scrabble, that sort of thing. I just wanted a few ordinary hours, a place I could go where I wasn’t Elijah Lospostos’s sister. Where no one carried a gun and plotted to kill each other.”

She dragged her hands through her hair. “I wasn’t in love with Tony. I wasn’t sleeping with him and telling secrets. I would never sell Elijah out. I’d never give him up. I saw all those years when he was forced to do terrible things. I can’t tell you how often Armando threatened me. How many times he would shove a gun in my mouth and scream at Elijah, how often I wanted him to pull the trigger just to take the pain and rage off Elijah’s face. It was a hellish existence until Elijah was strong enough to move against him. But Armando got away. And then the war started, and it was hell all over again.”

“Why would Elijah object to your friend’s brother?”

“I don’t know, but I didn’t want Tony to know about that part of my life. Marcia didn’t know. We met at the library one day, ended up having coffee and became good friends. She didn’t know who I was and I didn’t want to tell her. She was a nice woman from a nice family.”

“What does she do?”