Page 104 of The Mafia Enforcer's Temptation

“If you want to know, I was trying to buy information about whether or not anyone was close to finding this long-lost relative of mine,” I say. “But then Olaf killed the guy who was going to help me. I didn’t know him, I didn’t know any of them, really. You think I was in with Paddy, but I wasn’t.”

“That’s an easy answer.”

I turn and look at him and my heart contracts. “It is, isn’t it? Because he told me you killed Stan. And it was easy… to believe him and to hate you. But all I’ve ever wanted is my heritage, my bratva.”

“The Semtex?” he presses.

“I didn’t do that.” I clench my hands. “I wouldn’t even know how. I did the flash bombs and the small one that was going to blow up a car and cause a distraction. Because guess what? I’m pissed off with Romanov, too. I don’t trust him and he?—”

I stop, swallowing the words that were just about to tumble out.

“He what?”

Has my little sister who’s more his kid now than she ever was my father’s, and she doesn’t even really know me.

But I can’t tell him any of that.

How would it sound?

I already know Seamus doesn’t think much of me, but to be the person who admits it’s better to leave the child with my maybe enemy?

Even I wouldn’t like me.

“Nothing,” I say, my voice tight.

“I don’t trust him, either,” he says quietly. “Anything you have would help.”

“There’s nothing.”

His sigh says it all.

“Seamus…” I stop and swallow, unsure of what it is I want to say. “Do you think we’ll find whoever it was behind the killing of my friend?”

Maria hasn’t called me. And Onyx… he doesn’t have my number.

“Selena Diaz didn’t seem to have family here. But the police are searching, according to what Torin traced.”

I frown, heart thumping. “Selena? No, her name was Claudetta. Her sister Maria’s a fighter. I don’t… Wait,Selena?”

He looks at me, very carefully, eyebrow raised. “Explain why you went to meet her.”

“She sent me a text to meet. So I went.”

“And this Claudetta, did she do that often?”

I still can’t wrap my mind aroundSelena.What the hell? Was that actually her body outside of the diner? I didn’t see it so I can’t— “She worked there when we were teens, and we kept in touch. Before she died, Mama thought I should have some kind of real-life job, even if it was after school.”

“And,” he says, “now?”

“Sometimes she’d drop by to see me. It wasn’t often she’d want to meet, but… I didn’t think…” My heart jumps. “I haven’t gotten a call from Maria asking if I’ve seen her. And she hasn’t called to let me know she’s dead. Seamus, do you think she could be alive?”

“After last year, anything’s fucking possible,” he mutters.

I frown, but he just shakes his head.

A story for someone he likes and trusts, I guess. Not that I care.

“Here’s what I have so far,” he says. “A mystery bomber and Semtex with some Irish involvement. This means either zero or something. There are a lot of people out there who sell explosives, from the Italians to the Serbians.”