Page 133 of The Fates We Tame

Ale:Should I be worried why you’re messaging me at two in the morning about it?

Me:Just answer the question.

Ale:Yeah. Lunch after mass. What’s going on, Sophia?

Me:I think I’ve found what made me run.

My phone rings, and I don’t need to look at it to know it’s Alessio.

“Do I answer it?” I ask Theo.

“We’re safe here in the clubhouse, so yes.”

I answer the phone but put it on speaker so Theo can hear. “Alessio.”

“You can’t trust phone lines. They aren’t secure.”

“I found something though.”

“Come see me tomorrow. I’ll send you my address.”

“No,” Theo says. “Neutral ground. I’ll send you the location. And you come alone.”

“That’s one hell of a guard dog you got, Puparu,” Alessio says.

Theo grins at that. “I’ve been called worse, pizza boy. Send Sophia the time and I’ll send you the place.”

Alessio ends the call.

“Pizza boy?” I ask.

“Meh. Not my best insult. Niro would have done better. It was pizza or pasta. Urgh, I should have gone with ‘dough boy.’And I’m proud of you, piecing all of this together.” Theo pushes a lock of hair behind my ear. “Beauty and brains. Mighty powerful combination, Sparrow.”

Despite the situation, I melt a little at his words. “I feel like someone hit the beauty and brains with a dimmer switch of late, but I’ll take the compliment.”

Theo kisses me. “Take it. I mean it. You’re still badass. I’ll need to take this to my club in the morning though. Tell ‘em what we’re doing. What we know. Since the vote, they’ve done nothing but support us. I’ll fire a message to King to bring him up to speed, so he knows.”

I think about what Theo is saying. “Can we talk to Alessio first? Make more sense of it all?”

“It’s the talking to Alessio I’m nervous about. Not as much as I was, given this really incriminates your dad. But I’m smart enough to know that a guy who bragged about having drone cover is most definitely not going to show up tomorrow alone. It would be foolish to attempt to handle this on our own when we can have backup.”

I shut down the laptop and tap the lid. “I suppose it would be foolish to take this with us too.”

Theo nods. “We can ask Vex to make a copy of the drive. Maybe a virtual one and we give Alessio the link. Or put the data on a portable device or whatever.”

I want to push back, but I can’t identify why. Maybe it’s because there’s a deep-down part of me that knows I’m a Viscuso and I know the old me wouldn’t have wanted an outlaw motorcycle club to know our business.

But I’m also now a Reavis. Theo’s wife. Catalina’s aspirational partner-in-crime to reform the club. I’m a friend to the old ladies.

“Okay. Let’s talk to the club in the morning.” I let out a sigh.

Theo rubs circles on my back. “You okay?”

“In a way, I’m relieved.”

He crouches next to my chair. “In what way?”

“When I thought this was about the arranged marriage, it felt like my whole family thought so little of me. That I was an asset to be used and traded. But I think I understand why I might have been okay with it in the context of who I used to be. If I thought Papà was stealing money, being married to the godfather’s son would have given the family some stability after Papà was found out. It feels like a balance sheet I would have been okay with.”