“He was a kid back then,” I say quietly, looking into her deep brown eyes. “You really think he set up a car bomb?”
She shrugs, chewing on her lip. “I know this will sound crazy, but he was good at chemistry. He basically did our whole lab when we worked together. Is it such a huge leap to imagine he could make a bomb? I mean, that sort of stuff was all over the internet back then, right? It wouldn’t have been hard to figure it out, not for someone already good at that sort of thing.”
She’s not wrong: the internet was the Wild West ten years ago. Now all that stuff’s been moved to the dark web, but it’s still accessible for someone clever and dedicated enough. Danil’s both of those things.
“What did he have to gain though? Danil was in high school when that bomb went off.”
“But he’s acting like he knows something we don’t.” Her knuckles turn white as she digs her fingers into the mattress. “I know it’s stupid, but what if he has something to do with it? What if everything that’s happening now, the attack on Fynn, everything else, what if it’s all because of that bomb ten years back?”
I want to tell her to let it all go. I want to tell her that I’ll handle it, that I’m already hunting Danil for what he did, that he’ll be nothing more than a sticky red smear on the pavement soon enough, but it won’t matter. She ran away to Mexico to pursue a lead, it doesn’t matter what I say at this point—she’s going to keep moving forward.
For her brother. Just like I’ll keep pushing forward for Fynn.
I reach out to her. She doesn’t flinch away when I touch her cheek and I feel a swirl of conflicting emotions threatening to rip me to shreds. Tears spring to her eyes, but she blinks them back—god, she’s so strong, it breaks my fucking heart. I touch her softly and she nuzzles against my palm.
“I hated you for a long time,” I say quietly, and that only makes her face scrunch up as if fighting harder not to cry. “For so many years, I blamed you for everything wrong in my life. Back then I wanted to go to college. I wanted to become something more than a mafia thug. I had plans, Olivia, and they all involved me graduating from high school with good grades and a perfect resume. I worked hard in school, even when all I wanted to do was fuck every girl possible and act like a king. Instead, I studied. I was so close, but it was all ripped away when you told the administration that I was selling tests, and they expelled me.” I smile bitterly as she reaches up and takes my hand from her face and holds it tightly. But her eyes are wide and her lips are tugged into a deep, confused frown.
“My father beat me so bad I couldn’t walk for a day after we got the call from the principal,” I say, remembering the way he cursed me and hit me with a switch and shouted in Italian and told me I was nothing but a worthless, filthy wretch, how I wasted all his time and money on that silly private school, and he was right. “I tried everything I could to get reinstated. I begged and pleaded and coerced and bribed. It was true, I was selling tests, but so the fuck what? Why is that worth ruining my life? I knew it was you, Olivia, I always knew, and I hated you so goddamn bitterly for so goddamn long because of it.”
I close my eyes, trembling. I can’t look at her now, but the pressure of her fingers on my hand increases. I took her virginity at that party and she ran out on me. I always assumed because she was too damn angry. Then two weeks later, I get kicked out of school. It was obvious, so damn obvious what happened. Olivia knew about my scheme. Olivia had motive.
“But, Casso, I didn’t tell anyone about you,” she says, so softly, so quietly, I almost don’t hear.
My eyes open. “It’s okay,” I say, running my fingers over her smooth skin. “It doesn’t matter anymore, you know. I’m not angry. I understand why you did what you did, and I might’ve done the same in your position. God, after the way I treated you, I deserved it and more.”
“Casso, really, I’m not lying. I didn’t tell the administration about you selling tests.” She shakes her head, looking even more confused. “I swear it, when you got kicked out of school, it was a surprise. I had no clue anything was going to happen. I was happy it happened, don’t get me wrong, but I wasn’t involved at all. Why would I lie now?”