My Tragic Mafia Life | ✔️

73

Josephine barely registered the words. "Isla did what?"

Dante's eyes turned glacial, edged with the dagger of hurt. Regret. "She ran away." He told her.

Beatriz was still, face pale. "She betrayed us. She betrayed the Valencios." She said in a whisper.

The words were deafening. Like a low blow to the stomach. Josephine clenched her hands trying to force the thundering pulse within her to lessen. Blood sang in her veins, and all she wanted was silence.

She had seen Isla not too long ago. Isla, who texted her. Kind and sweet, bright-eyed and ethereal.

Isla, who didn't show up to school.

"She's gone back to the Russos." Beatriz spat despite her trembling shoulders, threatening to harrow in. She looked to Dante, painful eyes now sharpening like swords. For some unknown reason. "Which means that now she's back with Camillo."

"Like before," Dante said.

Like before. Josephine struggled to grapple with the sense of things. It sounded more like an illusion than reality. Isla, her Isla, leaving them all behind. Dante, Beatriz and—Houston. She left Houston.

"What did you expect?" Beatriz said, voice darkening. It was directed to Dante.

"Not this." He lost his hold on the table, straightening in a chilling manner. He had taken a chance with Isla. She was a defector, and those from rival families were hard enough to accept, and now that she's gone...

There would be a new target on her back.

But Josephine wasn't convinced. This—it didn't make sense. And if her suspicion of Valentina's death proved something, it was that her feelings were not wrong to question. There was something off about this entire ordeal.

"Why would Isla betray you?" She said out loud, receiving a stiff face from Beatriz. "It makes no sense."

Josephine forced an eye to look at Dante, the bearer of bad news.

"I know that look." She said, recognizing it as that a piece of the story hadn't been shared with her. More secrets to be uncovered. "What aren't you telling me?"

Beatriz looked away. So she knew too.

"What are you both not telling me?" She demanded. A sharp gleam set over her eyes, wanting one of them to speak. Waiting for it.

Beatriz clenched her jaw, looking more displeased than ever. She said to Dante, "This is your problem. You tell her."

"Tell me what?" Josephine said.

She was not received with an answer as Beatriz walked out of the apartment, the door slamming shut behind her. Now alone with Dante, she turned to him with an impatient look on her face. She couldn't waste any more time.

His mouth thinned. "Promise me you won't get mad."

She would do no such thing. "What did you do?"

"It's not so much what I did, it's what I planned to do."

"What did you do."

A vein in his jaw flicked. "Isla and I had a disagreement over something." A hard swallow. "It might be the reason why she left us."

More vagueness sent her blood racing. "Over what?"

"Over our deal." Dante braced himself once more against the table, yet remained there. Still. His eyes were frozen over, like an icy storm that had already hit. "It didn't go as planned."