Page 31

“It didn’t look like nothing just now.”

I sigh and look up at the ceiling, praying for the patience I need to keep up with this conversation. I don’t know what Dante will think if he finds out I slept with Luna. For some reason, it matters to me what he would think. It matters a lot.

“Where’s Cesar?” I ask.

“He stepped out. Tell me you can keep your cool through this. I can’t have you losing your shit when it matters.”

“It won’t happen again.”

“Ahhh… but you can’t guarantee me this.”

“It was a moment. It’s fine now. I’ve got this.”

Itwasa moment. One I never want to relive again. Hearing that Coyin Castillo planned to auction off his daughter struck at something deep inside my soul. I didn’t think I had it in me, but I found that I cared. I care what happens to her, and I care that some dirty old bastard won’t think twice about bidding on her. If the circles that Castillo moves in are any indication, there will be only perverts and monsters at that auction. The thought makes my blood simmer and I have the urge to kill someone. To kill them all; every last man that attends that auction with the intention of defiling Luna Castillo.

“It’s not a weakness to feel, Attila,” he tells me. “We’re men made of steel and grit and power, but we’re still human. I’d be more concerned if youdidn’tcare.”

“I shouldn’t care.”

Dante shakes his head and disagrees.

“Think not what you should or shouldn’t do. But how you can change the situation.”

“She means nothing to me,” I say, but I sound like I’m trying to convince myself more than I’m trying to convince him.

“Regardless. Any one of us would be considered morally vacant if you don’t care what happens to her.”

32

THE JEKYLL

Iknow how he feels. How could I not? I once had a wife that I was madly in love with. Watching him torture himself took me back to my own savage days after I lost Sisely. If anyone understands his pain, I do. Even though I still don’t understand when he had time to develop feelings for the girl.

It could’ve happened on any of the stakeouts when we were watching her. It could’ve happened as he watched her face down the man harassing her friend that night. It could even have happened that first time he saw her sitting in the window of the coffee shop when he first laid eyes on her. All without his knowing. If I recall correctly, I’d loved Sisely since we were children playing together, but I’d never realized it until her brother pointed out the obvious. What I couldn’t see, everyone else could.

A man like Attila… a man like that would prefer to spend his whole life alone rather than admit he grew feelings for a girl. I understand it. Definitely. It’s the armor we wear to protect ourselves; if I hadn’t developed feelings for Sisely, losing her wouldn’t have crushed me. It would be so easy to say one would rather save themselves the pain and suffering of such a huge loss. But I would take knowing and loving then losing her any day over never having known her at all. Over never knowing the feeling of that all consuming passion that we shared.

When I finish the call with Maria and hang up, I head inside and find Attila and Dante in the kitchen eating cheerios. Like nothing happened. Like a pair of schoolboys enjoying a quick snack after school.

“Showtime,” I say, sitting at the bench and pulling up a plate. Grown men doing little boy things.

“Changes?” Dante asks.

“We’ll have to fine tune our plan, but I think I have a way to get us in to the party without a problem. Castillo will be there.”

“So will every other dirty bastard this side of the criminal world,” Dante points out.

“This is our best shot to finish this.”

I don’t know how I lucked out with Maria, the Castillo maid for more than thirty years. If I know anything about her, it’s that she despises Castillo. Loves the kids, but couldn’t stand the patriarch, and would literally do anything to see him fall. She is the one who told me all about the masquerade ball which would double up as an auction for the sale of Coyin’s daughter. Maria’s the one who originally set me on to Luna’s location, believing I was actually helping to keep her away from her father. She fed me the information about Luna’s mother and her death at Coyin’s hand. And she, of course, told me what not even Luna herself knew — that the girl in fact wasn’t Coyin’s biological daughter. This had come from information she’d overheard through the years which pointed to Luna being the child of the affair her mother had. I never doubted Maria’s eagerness to help me; the horrors she had seen in that house over the years told me she had more than had enough.

“Maria will get us into the house via catering. It’s a masquerade ball and Castillo has insisted that everyone wear masks.”

“That’s going to make things a little difficult to identify people, don’t you think?” Attila asks, his concerned eyes raking over me.

“It does. But it also gives us the anonymity we need. That’s paramount.”

“Ok, so we’re in. Then what?”