But she understood it now.
Her mother had hated her because every time she’d looked at Ana, she’d seen Ana’s father, the man who’d left her. She’d hated Gloria for the same reason, despite the fact that their fathers had been different men.
And she’d hated them both until the day she’d died, naked and filthy and bleeding, left by some john for Ana to find.
Ana was getting dressed when a piece of paper on the floor caught her eye. It looked like it had been slipped under the door when she’d been in the shower.
Hell, someone might’ve put it there when she’d been examining herself in the mirror. Swiftly, she stepped over it, unlocked her door, and jerked it open.
She looked right and left, but the hallway was empty.
Shutting and locking her door, she stood next to the paper and looked down at it.
Her body trembled. Slowly, she bent, picked it up, and turned it over.
Then, Ana Martin did something she’d never done before. She smiled, a huge, genuine, heartfelt smile of joy that had Eliana Garcia’s memories all over it. Until she looked at the photograph more closely. Then her smile dimmed.
It was a picture of Gloria.
She’d grown into a beautiful adult, but she had the same light brown hair and dark eyes she’d always had.
Yet despite what Ty had said, she didn’t look happy. She looked sad. Desperate. As if she was the Disney princess that Ana had always wanted to be—one that urgently needed rescuing.
Ana’s heart squeezed with regret. She’d seen that expression on her sister’s face before. It was one she’d perpetually worn after she’d come back to Ana, a shadow of the young, happy girl she’d been. As it had turned out, her grandparents had given her a home of privilege, but not safety. While Gloria had always managed to avoid being molested by their mother’s “friends”—Ana had seen to that—she hadn’t escaped her grandfather’s wandering hands.
“I couldn’t take it anymore,” Gloria had said when she’d shown up back in the Bronx at fourteen. “Not even for all the wealth he provided. I knew you’d protect me. You always protect me.”
And so, even though she was only seventeen herself, she had done her best to protect Gloria. She’d brought her into the gang, thinking that safety would come in bigger numbers. And then when she’d realized that she and Gloria would be better off on their own, that they needed to start fresh, she’d tried to leave the gang and take Gloria with her.
Instead, the “jump out” had turned into a bloodbath, with members from the Devil’s Crew coming in, guns blazing. Ana had ended up grabbing a fallen gun and shooting her own sister in the shoulder in order to propel her body to the floor, away from lethal shots.
Yes, she had tried her best to protect herself and Gloria, but she’d made one mistake after another. In the end, she’d failed them both.
This time, I won’t fail again.
Ana finished dressing.
When Ty knocked on her door, her doubts were gone.
She was here. She was staying. And she was finding Gloria.
CHAPTER
FOURTEEN
As Ty led Ana through the Belladonna compound, Ana’s nerves got the best of her. Normally at ease with silence, she found herself gesturing to the stone hall and mullioned windows and blurting, “This building is really something. It’s so old.”
He smiled slightly, as if he understood why she suddenly wanted to make small talk. “The main house is part of an old plantation. Over the years, the property has gone from a timber farm to a tobacco farm to a rich family’s vacation estate. We’ve added on. There’s an Olympic-sized pool. An airplane hangar we’ll be using to train in. Even a parlor for, uh, soirees. I think that’s what they’re called.”
“I wouldn’t know. So do I have to learn to walk with a book on my head? Am I going to play the ignorant gangster girl to your Professor Higgins?”
“I want you to walk with a book on your head? Yes. You’ll do it. Remember that when you’re having your conversation with Carly, will you?”
Fury swelled within her, but before she could retort, he’d let her into a large office off the foyer and pointed at some fancy phone equipment.
“Sit down and we’ll start the conference call.”
She snorted in disbelief. “You’re joking. So what is this? Your take on some cheesy seventies drama about three women and a guy named Charlie that they never get to meet?”
“Three hot women,” Ty said mildly. “Don’t forget that part of it.”
“Even more reason why I don’t belong here.”
Ty tsked. “Now, now. That’s not fair. Throw a challenge out like that and I have no other recourse but to prove exactly how hot I find you, do I?”
“I wasn’t challenging you,” she said quickly. “But come on. I don’t get to see Carly face-to-face?”
“No.”
Ana cocked a brow at him. “Do you?”
His face remained impassive. Too impassive. “Yes.”
“Then why can’t I?”
“Because, Ms. Martin,” a seductive female voice spoke from the intercom box on the table beside them. “Ty’s proven his loyalty both to me and to Belladonna’s cause time and again.”
Ana hated the woman instantly. Carly’s voice, like Ty’s, conveyed money and good breeding, although Ana couldn’t place Carly’s accent. Unlike Ty’s, Carly’s also dripped with condescension. Ana’s emotions must have been all over her face. When she looked at Ty, he dropped his gaze, the faintest hint of a smile on his lips.
“I thought this agency just opened,” Ana replied for lack of anything better to say. “So how could Ty have proven his loyalty already?”
“Ty and I knew each other before this agency was even a thought in my mind.”
The depth of that knowledge was obvious from Carly’s tone. Fine. The two had fucked one another—so what? Irrationally, it just made Ana madder. “So when I prove my loyalty, I see your face. Must be un maravillosa display.”
“It is. And yes, when you prove your loyalty, you might get to judge that for yourself. Until then, if you saw my face, I’d have to kill you.” Carly waited a beat before her laughter overrode Ty’s sigh. “That last part’s a joke, by the way.”
Ana gritted her teeth. “Not a good one. And I don’t like playing games. The blindfold was bad enough, but—”
“Please don’t blame the blindfold on me. That was strictly Ty’s decision.”
She shot a wary glance at Ty. “Does he often do things you haven’t approved of?”
“All the time. But I try very hard not to interfere with my employees’ freedom of expression, especially when they’re bringing in a new operative. Hopefully you’ll discover that for yourself.”
“I’m not an operative.”
“Of course not, Ms. Martin. Not yet. But you will be. And you’ll be asked to teach others to be operatives.”
“Will I be asked, or am I being asked?”
“This one’s slippery, isn’t she, Ty?”
“Not really,” he said. His voice was neutral but his implication clear, at least to Ana—that he’d managed to grab hold of her at least once. She glared at him and he raised his brows at her as if to ask: What?
Ana suddenly felt like a puppet being yanked between two very careless kids. “I was told I was being offered a job. I wasn’t aware I had to interview for it. If that’s the case, then olvídese esto.”
“Excuse me?” Carly asked.
“Forget this,” Ty clarified.
“Oh. Well, you are being offered a job, Ms. Martin. If you’ll sit down, I’ll tell you the basics and you can ask questions from there. How does that sound?”