Page 45 of Corrupted Sinner

“That’s a pretty big accusation,” I said, shifting enough to keep an eye on both Deo and Vito. It came as a bit of a shock to realize that I trusted Greta wouldn’t put a bullet in my sister’s head, but that was about as far as my trust went.

Deo scrubbed a hand over his jaw, eyeing Leeri consideringly. “She’s been with Domínguez for at least a year,” he said with a furrow between his eyes. “If she was informing on him, why wait until now to serve him up? This isn’t the first, or even the biggest, deal he’s made in the past year.”

“Because I’m not an informant, you asshole,” Leeri snapped.

If Vito took one step closer to her, things were going to have to get ugly.

But Greta nodded. “A rat would not have wanted to stick around any longer than—"

She stopped talking mid-sentence and went eerily still; I think she stopped breathing.

“She’s not,” she whispered, then she shook her head slowly. “Fuck, she’s not an informant, Brute,” she said, her voice gaining volume and speed with every word like she was finding traction and digging in.

She looked at me apologetically, then over at Leeri, shaking her head. “It was your job, wasn’t it? That’s why something about you just felt off. It’s why you wanted Brute to get the hell out of here.”

Leeri rolled her eyes. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

But she knew. Some things about Leeri had changed, but I could see the caught look in her eyes as clear as day.

“You’re a fucking fed,” I snarled, fighting the urge to slam my fist into the wall. “My own goddamned sister.”

I don’t know why it bothered me more than thinking she was a rat. Maybe because rats tended to do what they did to save their own asses. A fed, though? They did what they did on purpose.

Leeri stared back at me, lips pressed into a flat line.

Deo and Vito were both silent, but they’d stood up straighter, hands fisted at their sides. If one of them took a swing at my sister, I’d have no choice but to put them down.

Hoping to avoid the need to pound in their skulls, I walked down the short aisle, putting myself between Leeri and Vito.

Leeri opened her mouth but no sound came out. Her shoulders deflated, and any lingering doubt I’d had vanished. She’d betrayed us; she’d betrayedme.And that shit fucking hurt.

Greta laughed coldly. “Fucking feds,” she said, coming closer. “You tried to serve us up on a silver platter because you’re so fucking focused on guns and drugs, right?—that’s the only thing you feds see.” She shook her head. “I can’t believe you screwed us over for a measly shipment of guns.”

Leeri sat up straighter, shoulders stiff. “I was supposed to sit back and just let you run your guns, keep on selling drugs because you’relooselyassociated with my brother?”

It almost looked like lightning flashing in Greta’s eyes and her chest was back to heaving. “You were supposed to keep your goddamned nose out of our business because we weren’t there to run guns. That was a fucking cover,” she yelled, hands bunched in fists so tight, they shook.

“Easy, darling,” I said, putting a hand on her shoulder. She looked angry enough to bite it, but so be it.

“Like it or not, I had a job to do. I had to choose,” Leeri said, making me wonder if there was duct tape anywhere on this plane. With all the anger and betrayal flying around the cabin, the only hope this flight had of making it home without bloodshed was if my sister shut the hell up.

Instead of snapping back at her, Greta sighed and unclenched her fists. I could see bloody marks on her palms where she’d dug her fingernails into her flesh. She suddenly looked exhausted.

She shook her head slowly, like the weight of her head on her neck was too heavy. “You chose wrong, Leeri.”

It would have been the perfect time for my sister to relent, but of course, she didn’t. “Of course, you would think that. You—”

“Enough,” I cut in, cutting off whatever bullshit Leeri had to say. “Greta’s right.”

Leeri barked a laugh. It was such a cold sound. “In bed with the mafia, Brute? Both figuratively and literally, huh?”

I leaned in, hands on either side of her armrests, getting right in her face. “You talk about Greta again, and I’m going to step out of the way and let her deal with your traitorous ass any way she sees fit,” I said, calm and slow. “These people,” I said, nodding to Greta in particular, “are good people—no matter what you think of them. They didn’t deserve what you tried to do to them, and the blood that comes from it, it’s on your hands, Valeria.”

She didn’t want to be Leeri anymore? Mission accomplished. Because this sure as hell wasn’t the sister I once knew.

***

“Maybe we should just put her on a plane back to Lázaro Cárdenas,” Vito suggested as the plane began its descent over New York. “Tie a bow around her and send her back to Domínguez?”