Page 92 of Between Passion and Revenge: Part One

At that bomb, I snap my head up to stare hard at Riale. “What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”

Riale stays silent.

I rush up on him, getting in his face. “What thefuckis that supposed to mean, Riale?”

Still calm, always fucking calm, Riale pushes me back with a firm hand to the chest.

Something in me snaps, and I wail off, punching my best friend in the face. When my knuckles make contact with his cheek, he grunts, his head snapping to the side, but my fury only doubles.

This is not how it’s supposed to go. This is notthe fuckhow this is supposed to go. At all.

“That’s your one shot, Sandoval,” he says, touching his lip and checking his fingers for blood.

I turn away from him, stalking back to the island. “You’re talking reckless about my pops, man.”

“Storm.”

“Don’t ‘Storm’ me, nigga?—”

“Storm, get your head out of the fucking clouds and see Chuck Sandoval for who he is!”

At those words, I swipe my arm across the counter, shooting the glass fruit bowl to the hardwood floor where it breaks into a million shards.

“Well, since you know every fucking thing, why don’t you tell me who the hell my father is.”

Riale chuckles, but there’s no humor in it. “Well, for starters, your father is a goddamn human trafficker.”

I blink at him. Once. Twice. Images of my father teaching me to play chess in his office flashing to the front of my memories.

So with that in mind, I laugh. I guffaw.

I release the insane, unhinged tension that’s ballooned over the hours since the Feds picked me up.

“I’m serious, Storm.” Riale’s voice is quiet in the face of my hilarity. “Not always, but the last few years, he’s got tied up in a bad way with some people out of D.C.”

“Riale. C’mon, man. My dad is a lot of things, but you’re trying to tell me that he’s some wannabe Pablo Escobar?”

Riale doesn’t respond, but I feel dread replace the amusement.

“Riale….”

He lunges forward, meeting me at the island.

“Listen, Storm. I know a lot. I’ve been working for your dad for more than a decade, now. I have access to information you don’t. You know how I was in China this summer? I was there because your father had a shipment that needed to get from Asia to the Caribbean, undetected.”

I take a step back.

“A shipment…of people? And you helped him with that?”

His face morphs, fury and disgust finally cracking through his expression.

“Fuck no,” he presses. “I have never and would never help him with that shit. But I knew what was happening, and I knew if I weren’t there, someone else would be. So I went. And I sabotaged the shit out of the operation. Which brings us to now.”

I shake my head, letting the rush of information settle into some kind of order in my mind.

“You’re working with the Feds?” I rasp, and suddenly, I feel very fucking tired.

“No. But I’m working with some people to make sure this shit stops here.”

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