Page 35 of Corso DeLuca

“Later,” he says, opening his arms. “When we don’t have an audience.” He gestures to a stone-faced Joseph and Milana.

“Ugh, don’t be kind to me when my life is fucked up!” I scream. On bare feet, I trip into his embrace, sighing when his big arms encircle me. We stand there, with me clinging to him, afraid if I let go, he’ll morph into someone unrecognizable. And right now, I need familiar comfort.

“You’re still you, Jessie.” He places a kiss to the top of my head. It’s tender, yet disarming, as it scales my defenses, pulling them down, letting Corso inside. Here I am, the tough special agent depending on Corso to support me at my lowest. Somehow, in a short time, I count him reliable. A man who’s there for me good or bad.

“Yeah, but Josie’s a part of who I am.”

“You and Josie are genetic replicas, but character is revealed in the choices we make as individuals. Not by birthright or family name.”

And hadn’t he shown me the exact thing he’s explaining? The DeLuca name no more made him evil, as the NuCalla lineage made me righteous. Our mother instilled the same values in Josie and me, but as women, we made different decisions that defined us as people.

Corso doesn’t rush me, instead he allows me to use him as a hulking pain reliever.

“And to answer your question. I believe after Greg suspected your sister’s connection to Mattia, he wanted to protect you. Even if it meant withholding information that could hurt you.”

“I’d like to think that.” It’s true. Fond memories are what I remember most about Greg. I can’t bear to think he never cared at all for me.

“Five years is a long time to share an apartment with a loudmouth harpy. Even when she has nice tits.”

Raising up on tipped toes, I tilt my head back, dropping a kiss on his lips. “Boyfriend Corso is not funny,” I mock scowl.

He releases a hearty laugh.

Corso’s phone rings. Pulling it from his front pocket, he stares at the screen, his features harden before my eyes. He ends our conversation with an abruptness that stuns me.

“Who is this?” he growls in the receiver.

“Hello, Corso,” comes a female voice, arrogant and full of bravado.

I freeze. Though I haven’t heard her speak in sixteen years, I’d recognize her sultry alto in a packed arena. Josie.

Corso doesn’t look at me. Steely is the only way to describe his gaze directed at the other two people in the room. No doubt, he’s communicating a message that only the three of them can decode. Menace wafts off of his rigid spine in blasts, one after the other, filling the voluminous space with an invisible fog.

“Tell my sister she has twenty minutes to exit The Governor. The Espositos are taking over. Anyone we see, buys a bullet to the brain.”

Corso chuckles, his eyes darkening. “Twenty minutes is a lifetime for a DeLuca to make shit happen, Josie. Before I slit your fucking throat, say goodbye to your sister.” Corso tosses the phone to me and storms away.

“Where are you going?” I call after him. “You can’t kill my sister, Corso DeLuca.” Fuck, talk about hating your in-laws. Not that we’re there—yet, but. I have to find a way to protect them both. There has to be a way to keep the man I want and rescue Josie.

Corso doesn’t respond. His broad back recedes as Joseph and Milana fall in step bringing up the rear.

I hear him say, “Milana, tell Dani I want one of her creative interrogation techniques, now.”

Placing the phone to my ear, I exhale all my doubts about Corso. In a voice more confident than I feel, I say the words that were denied me sixteen years ago.

“Josie… you’re alive,” I sob, my heart hammering in my chest. “I’ve searched. Missed you so much.” The words are sharp, broken, heartfelt, and agonizing as the truth pours from me.

“I haven’t heard that name in more than a decade,” she says, voice lacking emotion. “I’m known as Jacobella.”

“All I had to hold onto was your name, Josie!” I scream, pain driving me to unleash all the devastation her disappearance brought in my life. “I’m not calling you some other fucking name.”

“Shh, sister,” she coos, like her rebirth after vanishing on me is a happy day. Dedication to searching for my sister, for persuading the truth, has led me to a lie of Josie’s making. “Lock yourself in his bedroom, baby girl. I’m coming to get you.”

Reality slams into me, sucking the air for my lungs, siphoning the blood from my veins. Mourning grips the very beat of my heart. My Josie died sixteen years ago, burned away by this stranger who calls me baby girl, just like Greg on his deathbed. This isn’t my sister on the phone, it’s Greg’s killer.

I disconnect the call.

My gut is churning, but my legs propel me forward. I’m running through the hall, my feet slapping against the cold tile. One thought powers my speed, another enters the complex equation of what’s happened in the last seven months. I have to warn Corso they know about the tunnel. Someone in his inner circle works for Mattia and Josie.