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  The nearby Pacific was no match for the sweet Gulf air that constantly blew through and around Sarasota. Here, with the valley to hold it, smog tinged the sky a brownish hue that you rarely saw in Florida, unless there was a nearby brush fire. Even those were rarely a bad thing in Florida, without the vicious Santa Ana winds to drive them down hillsides into canyons filled with homes.

  They had no canyons in Florida. And Florida hills were barely California speed bumps.

  Catching himself daydreaming as a way to avoid doing this, he mentally shook himself and aimed his feet up the front walk. The day he’d moved out, he’d silently sworn he’d never darken their door again.

  Ever.

  If it wasn’t for feeling responsible for Fi, he wouldn’t be here now.

  Taking a deep breath, he punched the doorbell and waited. Somewhere inside, a yappy little dog went batshit, soon followed by a second.

  That was unexpected. His uncle had been against having pets when he was living here.

  He saw a shadow moving through the small, high window set in the door, then heard the sound of a deadbolt unlocking. Through the bars of the screened security door, his gaze fell onto his aunt for the first time in more than fifteen years.

  Her bold auburn hair spoke to her still active coloring regimen and did nothing to hide the deep lines and wrinkles in her face. She had to be in her seventies, but she looked nearly ninety.

  She looked confused. “Yes? Can I help you?”

  “Aunt Julieta, it’s me. Cristo. Marcos and Mariana’s son.”

  Her drawn-on eyebrows lifted in shock and surprise. “Cristo? Oh, my word, I haven’t see you in—”

  “A long time. I need to speak with you.”

  “Who is it?” a weak man’s voice called from within the darkened house.

  If that was his uncle Gonzalo, perhaps the old adage about living well being the best revenge was true after all.

  “It’s Cristo,” she said as she unlocked the security door and opened it for him.

  “Who?”

  “Cristo!” She locked the security door behind him, closing the front door before grabbing his arm and leading him into the depths of the house.

  His uncle sat in a recliner in front of the TV. In his lap, two small dogs, Chihuahua mixes, if Cris had to guess. His uncle also wore an oxygen cannula. The tube snaked down to the floor and across the room to where an oxygen concentrator sat plugged in against the wall.

  The man’s rheumy eyes narrowed behind his glasses. The last time Cris had seen his uncle, he’d had a full head of mostly black hair, and had been strong for his age.

  This man looked like that man’s frail great-grandfather.

  “What do you want?” he asked Cris.

  “Stop being rude, Gonz,” his aunt chastised as she steered Cris toward the couch. “He’s here to visit. Forgive your uncle. He’s had three heart attacks, and he gets grumpy now that he can’t get out like he used to.”

  Cris sat, remaining perched at the edge of the couch. “I’m afraid I have some bad news for you.”

  Julieta gasped. “Is it your mother? I haven’t talked to her this week. Oh, I knew I should have called her!”

  “No, Aunt Julieta, it’s not Mom.”

  She frowned. “Then what is it?”

  There wasn’t any good way to say it, to soften the sting of the blow. “Sofia contacted me last week. She ended up back in jail because her probation was revoked for a violation. She…died in the jail this morning. I don’t know all the details yet.”

  His aunt looked stunned.

  Cris wasn’t honestly sure, at first, if his uncle had even understood what he’d said, until the man finally let out a disgusted snort.

  “Bound to happen sooner or later.”

  Julieta gasped. “Gonzalo!”

  “We lost our daughter years ago,” he spat back. “The only time we’ve seen her in the past, what, fifteen years was if she needed money or was in trouble. What was that last visit? Six months ago? Claimed she was pregnant and in legal trouble and needed money. Threw her out. Not paying for any bastard abortions, or her legal fees. Probably all a lie, anyway. Would have gone to drugs.”

  Well, it was strangely comforting, in a sick and twisted way, to see some things hadn’t changed. That went a long way to alleviating his guilt. “She didn’t have an abortion. She had a baby. Almost three weeks ago.”

  “What happened to it?” Julieta asked.

  “We have her,” Cris said. “She turned custody over to me.”

  His uncle sat forward. “That’s a joke. You can’t raise a baby, you worthless—”

  Cris stood up, fighting the urge to slug the man. “We have custody, she named us guardians in her will, and we’ll take care of paying for the funeral arrangements. I’m going to have her cremated and take her back to Florida where she belongs. That’s where she should have been all along, and maybe she’d still be alive if I’d talked her into it.”

  He walked over to the kitchen counter and scribbled the old cell number, the one that forwarded to his current phone. “If you want to call me, there’s my number.”

  His aunt had followed him. “Can we…can we see her?”

  Cris wasn’t sure which “she” she meant. “Sofia’s body is going to be autopsied, and then we’ll have a funeral home take care of her.”

  “No…the baby.”

  Cris glared at her. “Honestly? I don’t want that man anywhere near her. She’s mine now, and I plan to raise her as far away from all of you people as possible. I don’t want her to know any of you. The way Uncle Gonzalo used to beat me, god only knows what he did to poor Fi.”

  His uncle shakily pulled himself to his feet, the two little dogs jumping down and nervously staring up at him. “You listen to me—”

  “No, you listen to me, old man. I have money, I have friends, and I have a hell of a lot more fight in me than you do. I’ll be damned if that baby will ever be tainted by the bullshit of this family. She’s going to grow up loved and cherished no matter how different she wants to be, and we’re going to support her and not abandon her.”

  “You don’t know anything!” the old man raged before a coughing fit took hold, forcing him back into his recliner.

  “I know that the last thing I want is for her to grow up like you.” Cris stormed his way to the front door and unlocked it, fighting the urge to slam it behind him as he strode down to his car.

  When he looked back, his aunt stood in the doorway, one hand at her throat and staring at him.

  He got in, cranked the engine, and pulled away with a squeal of tires without even bothering to fasten his seat belt.

  At the first intersection he stopped and buckled up, even as his rage made his hands tremble.

  That went well.

  He hadn’t honestly expected anything else from his uncle, but he had hoped perhaps the years would have mellowed the fucker out.

  Nope.

  Cris was almost to the office when his personal cell rang. He sent it to voice mail without even looking at the screen. Whoever it was could wait. It wasn’t Tilly or Lan, because it didn’t ring with their special ringtones.

  When he got there, he went straight to Landry’s office, shutting and locking the door behind him. Landry was on a call, but he nodded at Cris in acknowledgment.

  Cris set his laptop bag down, walked over to Landry’s side, and knelt, placing his head against Landry’s thigh. He shuddered as Landry’s hand settled in his hair, tenderly stroking.

  There were no interior windows in Landry’s office, so no risk of anyone seeing. Only an expansive fourth-floor view that looked out to the west.

  Cris released his mind, shutting down his thoughts, his anger, breathing in the scent of his Master, focusing on the feel of Landry’s slacks against his forehead, Landry’s fingers caressing his scalp.

  He needed to check out for a few minutes.

  Desperately.

  It was a long fifteen minutes while Landry finished the
call. Cris knew he wasn’t dragging it out on purpose—it was a business call. When he hung up, Landry let out a sad sigh.

  “Was it that bad, love?”

  Cris nodded without speaking. He didn’t want to open his eyes just yet.

  “Sorry. Perhaps I should have insisted upon going with you.”

  “No, it wouldn’t have changed things.” Cris finally sat back on his heels and looked up at Landry. “It wouldn’t surprise me if we have a fight on our hands with them.”

  Landry frowned. “Why?”

  “Over the baby.”

  “Ah. Well, they can try, and we’ll countersue them for legal fees. I talked to Dale Waters again this morning to update him. He insists that even if they try to sue for custody, since it was a voluntary arrangement on Sofia’s part, it will stand up in court.”

  “I hope so.”

  “He’ll take care of making the arrangements for Sofia as well. I told him we wanted to take her cremains back to Florida with us.” Landry held out his hand for Cris to take and helped him up. “Try not to think about this today, if you can.”

  “I suppose Tilly told you what happened at her office this morning?”

  Landry chuckled. “I do so love Loren. I’m glad she’s here. I’m afraid we might have been bailing Tilly out of jail for real had Loren not been there for her.”

  “Yeah.” Cris’ personal cell rang again. This time, he looked and didn’t recognize the local number. Once again, he sent it to voice mail.

  “Who was that?”

  “I don’t know. I’ll see if they left a message. I’ve got one voice mail to play that came through while I was driving.”

  Cris unlocked Landry’s door and headed for his own office down the hall. He had the corner office, but it wasn’t as large as Landry’s. Landry had given him the choice. Cris preferred the more panoramic view than Landry’s offered.

  He sat down at his desk just as a second voice mail notification came in.

  Here we go.

  It turned out to be from Santino, his aunt and uncle’s oldest son.

  “Hey, Cris, it’s Santino. Please give me a call. I want to talk to you about Sofia’s baby. My wife and I want to adopt her.” He listed his number.

  Over my dead body.

  Cris jotted the number down anyway.

  Whether or not he added it to his blocked list remained to be seen.

  The second caller was his mother.

  “Cristo, please call me. You cannot raise that child and you know that. Santino and Paula have been trying to have children and can’t. They would be amazing parents, and she should be placed with family. Call me, please.”

  What am I, chopped liver?

  Oh, wait. To them, I am.

  He jotted down her number, which was different than the one he’d remembered. Must be a cell.

  He was going to delete the voice mails and then decided to keep them. He might need them.

  It was interesting how they’d all written Sofia and him off, until they realized she had a baby they might be interested in and he had custody.

  He’d laugh if it wasn’t so sad.

  As he looked at the time, he realized it wasn’t even one o’clock yet. Hell, it felt like a week had passed since he’d gotten up that morning.

  He received three more calls before four o’clock, one each from Santino, his mom, and his aunt.

  He sent them all to voice mail. His mother sounded far more strident in that call. At least his aunt and cousin had sounded reasonably…sane.

  Against his better judgment, he called his cousin back. The man answered on the first ring, almost sounding out of breath. “Cris?”

  “Hello, Santino.”

  “I…” The man faltered. “I want to talk to you about Sofia’s baby.”

  “You don’t even know her name.”

  “Look, please. Paula and I have tried. They said she can’t have kids. We want to—”

  “My wife can’t have children, either,” he said.

  There was a long moment of silence.

  “What?” Santino finally said. “I thought you were gay?”

  “No, I’m bi. That’s what I kept trying to tell you people, and Uncle Gonzalo tried to beat the gayness out of me. If you think I’d let any of you have custody of her, think again. Sofia called me. She reached out to me. I was the only one who’d help her. She went to your mom and dad a few months back. Did they tell you that?”

  He hesitated. “No.” Now he sounded uncertain.

  “Your parents told me that this morning when I went to break the news. They turned their backs on her then and they knew she was pregnant. What makes you think I’d let a child be raised in that family, huh?”

  “Cris, I—”

  He knew he shouldn’t let his emotions run away with him, but he couldn’t help it. “We have money, Santino. A whole lot of money. We have a successful company, and my wife works for a movie producer making a good salary. You want to come after me, then bring it. I’d love to have it on official record how your father beat the crap out of me when I was a kid.”

  “Don’t paint me with that brush, Cris.”

  “Why not? Every one of you except Sofia painted me with one. Well, except Dante. He was decent to me. Did you know he brought Sofia to my high school graduation so she could cheer for me?”

  “No, I—”

  “Sofia called me. She wanted to change, wanted to get her life together. She gave us custody of the baby to protect her not just from people in her life, but from all of you. She specifically told us that. Especially from your father.”

  He went silent again. “She…she did?”

  “Yeah. She did. You can ask my attorney if she did. It’s part of the official transcript of the hearing. She told the judge herself she wanted us to have custody so that none of you could get custody.”

  “Cris, please. She’s family.”

  “Yeah? Well, I’m tired of all of you forgetting that so am I. And so was Sofia, until she became an inconvenience. My attorney’s name is Dale Waters. He’s here in LA. Your attorney can talk to him. Be prepared to spend a lot of money for the privilege, because I’ll tell him to drag it out for years, just for fun.”

  Cris punched the button to end the call and fought the urge to slam the phone down onto his desk.

  When it immediately rang again from the same number, he sent it to voice mail.

  He was done talking with them. He hated feeling the slightest bit guilty about how he’d spoken to them, but it pissed him off that they didn’t give a shit about Sofia until there was something they wanted from her. That she’d been disposable until she was useful.

  That he’d been disposable.

  Before his father’s death, his mother had tried to argue that the brothers were products of their upbringing, that their mother and father had been raised like that in Spain. That when they moved to the United States, that’s how their children had been raised.

  That Cris should be a little more understanding and just try to get along better.

  He was done making excuses. If he had his way, he’d make sure they never set eyes on that baby.

  Ever.

  Chapter Eighteen

  That evening, when Tilly was finally ready to leave work for the day, Loren insisted on going down first and taking everything except the baby. She made Tilly wait inside the lobby, within sight of the front door.

  There were no signs of paparazzi, so Loren pulled up in front of the building. Tilly dashed out, quickly got the carrier fastened into the car seat base, and jumped into the passenger seat.

  She glanced behind them as Loren sped off toward the Interstate. “No one, huh?”

  “Nope.”

  “How pissed off is Ross at me for getting you into this?”

  She grinned. “He actually told me he was proud of me for how I handled it.”

  Dale Waters had one of his partners dealing with the mess. The photog had already bonded out and a restraining order had been issu
ed against him for both their condo and the office premises. Tilly knew that’d hold him for about one day, until he figured a way around it or joined forces with another photog.

  “They’re like damn cockroaches,” Tilly grumbled. “You stomp one, five more jump out of the woodwork.”

  “So what did the little fucker do that pissed you off in the first place?”

  “I’d gone to a deli a few blocks away that we order from a lot. Apparently, he followed me there. I went to use the bathroom after I ordered, and by the time I got out my order was ready and he’d grabbed it. He was holding my fucking hoagie hostage for a goddamned quote about Nick’s next movie.”

  She snorted. “Seriously?”

  “Fucking seriously! I told him to go fuck himself and walked away without my goddamned food. Which I’d already paid for, by the way, so I was doubly pissed off. I got back to the office and ordered something to be delivered and watched the little fucker drive in and park and wait.”

  “And then?”

  “It escalated quickly,” she said. “He was waiting downstairs when I left. I shook him on the Interstate—”

  “Freeway.”

  “Seriously?” She gawked at Loren. “It’s a goddamned Interstate.”

  “Anyway.”

  Tilly took a deep breath. “Anyway. He was waiting there for me the next morning. I walked in the front door of the building and he followed me but the receptionist threw him out after I told her who he was. So he hung around the front door. Which, as you noticed, you cannot see the parking lot from the front door.”

  “Oookaay?”

  Tilly examined her nails. “He might or might not have ended up with four mysteriously flattened tires from sidewall punctures.”

  “Amazing how that sometimes spontaneously happens.”

  “They can’t fix those, either.”

  “Pity his bad luck.”

  “Well, he shouldn’t have been parked in our building’s private lot. It’s clearly marked and specifically says tenants and clients only, all others will be towed. It fails to warn against mysteriously flattening tires, however. I had the building receptionist call a tow truck and the cops issued a trespass warrant against him.”