Bound To You

Chapter 13

Crush or not, I would deal with it later. I had more pressing problems at the moment.

The gradually restoring calm of the Lopez family was still a work in progress - one that had just begun to make headway. Gloria still glanced around cautiously, looking as if she was expecting an attacker to jump out from around the corner. Carlos, on top of tightening security around the estate, had also ordered a ridiculous amount of extra security to be placed at every corner of the estate the night of the party. And Juan . . . Well, he claimed he was okay and not scared anymore, but I could tell he was more shaken by it than he was letting on.

The fact that I wasn't shaken as much as they were told me I'd become too used to being in situations like these - which only brought home how sad my life had been. The only reason they were so shaken is because they were well protected and safe most of the time. An apparent privilege Carla and I hadn't been afforded.

But having these situations be a constant part of my life had also given me enough experience to form a protocol of sorts to deal with the aftermath.

Step one: tighten security.

Well, Carlos had certainly taken care of that.

Step two: make sure everyone is doing alright.

I'd already done that to the best of my ability. We were now at a point where it was up to them to deal with what happened as they would. The house was still on high alert, which told me just how not used to the situation they were.

Step three: prevention.

This was a multi-faceted one. I had go detective on every aspect of everybody's life, something that had proved quite awkward in Carla and my case - the perpetrator was usually a boyfriend we hadn't told the other about, one that we had stupidly trusted with every detail of our lives because we fell for their sweet words, romantic gestures, cute behaviour and 'genuine' feelings. Never making that mistake again, but it took a few tries before we learnt the hard way not to trust any man more than we trusted each other.

In this case, though, I had a feeling I wouldn't need to go through that painfully awkward process at all - the Lopez family, from what I had seen till now, were the most honest people I'd ever met.

Nevertheless, it was going to be awkward - I was still a new member of the family, and one that hadn't been around for long enough to warrant asking questions about anything whatsoever.

But as it turned out, it wasn't awkward. Gloria and Carlos were more than happy to tell me anything I wished to know. From what I gathered, they had led relatively uncomplicated lives for the mafia - they didn't have feuds with anyone, no debts, no loose ends, nothing.

Which was . . . pleasantly strange.

Juan was the same as his parents. From what I gathered about his life, it had mostly consisted of partying and casual dating. Nothing really major.

Which meant the threat was entirely external, disconnected completely from the family.

This was again strange, but unpleasantly so. It meant I was on limited time before the perpetrator struck again. No one knew who it was, so there was no way of predicting what they would do or how they would do it. And it also left me with virtually no place to begin.

Great. Just great.

Well, I did have one place to start.

* * *

"So the threat isn't from the inside . . ." Carla trailed off.

"Nope."

"Makes your life difficult, huh?"