“Oh, you know Alberto.” Tía Lupe scoffed. “Always holding on to the romantic notion that my dear nephew will someday stop being a disappointment. Honestly, Xavier, if your mother were alive, she would hate—” The rest of her sentence cut off with a shriek when I grabbed her by the front of her shirt and yanked her toward me. “Do not ever talk about my mother,” I said, my voice deceptively soft. “You may be family, but sometimes, that’s not enough. Do you understand?”
