Jesus. Don’t kill me, Nonna. I say it fondly. Fifty times a day. “We’re going. We have to compile this for Mrs. Luiz tomorrow morning. Come on, peeper.”

Bekah begrudgingly drops the binoculars and follows me down the tree. “I just wanted to see how it works.”

“Presumably the same way heterosexual anal sex works,” I retort dryly. “If you’re that interested, I’ll get you a subscription to PornHub or something for your birthday, okay? Then you can watch all the gay porn you like—on your own time.”

“But—”

“I am not payin’ you to watch gay porn.” I switch my Chucks out for my shiny, new Prada heels. Yes, my car is shit, but my shoes are sexy. A girl has to have her priorities.

Bekah pulls a face and gets in the driver’s side of her Mercedes.

Rebekah Hough has been my best friend since I was five and Jean Thomas pushed me off of the monkey bars. Bekah saw her do it, and when Jean swung upside down and showed all the boys her panties, Bekah pulled her off of the bars and into the sand.

I knew right then that the carrot-haired girl in the tartan dress was my soul mate.

Of course, now, her hair is more of a dark auburn than carrot colored, and I’m more accident-prone than I was then—despite my permit to carry a deadly weapon (or several)—and we’re some twenty-three years older than we were in kindergarten, but I was right.

She’s my soul mate, best friend, and faithful cupcake buyer. And out of the three, the latter is by far the most important. She drives to Austin to Gigi’s Cupcakes three times a week just so I can get my cupcake fix. That’s true love right there. Who needs a man with a best friend like her?

Of course, my other employees also do it, but I have to pay them gas money for that. Bekah does it for a bottle of wine on a Saturday night, and that’s way cheaper.

She parks outside my office building. The two-story, painted-white building is a converted four-bedroom house that works perfectly for our needs. Besides me and Bekah, I have two other PIs, Dean and Mike. Dean is an ex-marine, and Mike an ex–FBI agent, so between us all, we have a wide range of experience.

So I’m still waiting for Bekah’s experience as a sales assistant at Forever 21 to show itself, but you never know in this job.

Aside from my badass boys as I call them, there’s Marshall, a twenty-two-year-old college graduate with the hacking skills of an alien. The guy can find out anything I want, whenever I want it, and it’s perfect. All I have to do is give him a name and I have their life stories on my desk within the hour. Then there’s Grecia, my secretary-slash-receptionist-slash-assistant. My little Mexican girl makes killer nachos, so she’s basically hired until she quits, retires, or dies. And she has her own little space—so it has no door and I think it used to be a bathroom, but don’t tell her that—so she’s happy.

If my employees are happy, I’m happy.

I also get paid, which makes me even happier. Because getting paid means more shoes. But shush. My family think I’m saving for a deposit on a new house.

I’m not. Since I already own my house, I’m kind of saving for a vacation I’ll likely never take, but I only buy expensive shoes when they’re on sale, so it doesn’t really count. Everyone does that.

Don’t they?

I drop into my office chair with a sigh and plug the small digital camera into my laptop. Every other private investigator I know—which is a grand total of two—have big-ass Polaroid cameras or fancy professional cameras. Fact is, my little Samsung camera has a kickass zoom and hasn’t failed me yet. It also fits in my purse for the times when I need to go from heels to Chucks and vice versa. My purses are Mary Poppins style for that reason and that reason only.

God bless you, Coach.

Taking my mind away from the sale I know Coach is having thanks to this morning’s e-mail, I highlight the best photos from our trip to the Luizes’ and send them to print at my picture printer. That’s right. My picture printer. I’m too lazy to change the paper to photo paper every time I need to print them, which can be a few times a day, so I have two printers set up in the corner of my office. Everyone laughs at me, but it’s just one of my quirks. It goes along with the adorable trait I have for randomly appearing bruises all over my body.

What can I say? I’m a catch, and it’s a wonder I’m still single.

I dial through to Grecia and ask her to call Mrs. Luiz to set up an appointment at her earliest convenience. Minutes later, Grecia returns my call and tells me that Mrs. Luiz will stop in after work tonight at around four p.m. It’s a little sooner than I’d like, especially since it’s Friday and Friday night is family dinner night, but it’ll do. I have to write a report out of necessity, but all she’ll have to do is look at the pictures for her confirmation of Mr. Luiz’s sordid activities.

Telling someone that their spouse is cheating on them isn’t nice. I’ve seen every reaction possible over the last two years. It doesn’t matter to the person in front of me that they walked into my building, into my office or one of my employees’ offices after hiring us. It just matters that we’ve proved what they didn’t want us to.

Some go crazy. Like call-the-mental-hospital crazy. Some cry, and that varies from hysterical call-the-mental-hospital to silent tears. Some nod, thank me for my time, and hand me my check. I like the last ones the best. Simple.

I have the horrible feeling, though, that Mrs. Luiz won’t be a nodder and a thanker.

I thought right.

Mrs. Luiz yelled a number of curse words in Spanish. So many, in fact, that I had to do a quick Google translate on some of her obscenities. Needless to say, I have a brand-new vocab to piss off my Nonna with. Add that they’re in Spanish and not in Italian and I’m set for a fun hour of discipline on how I’m disgracing my family legacy by speaking another language.

Ignore the fact that my name is derived from French and it makes total sense.

Of course, my name’s being French is no coincidence. My mom and nonna get along like oil and water, so my mom took it upon herself to name all four of her kids anything but Italian names. My father, half Italian and more than accustomed to the dressing down my nonna can give someone, attempted to convince Mom to give at least one of us an Italian name.

It didn’t work. Obviously.

Mom argued that, since she did the baby-growing and the whole labor thing, she was damn well picking our names. And I gotta say that it’s really freakin’ hard to argue with logic like that.

Add to this whole situation that my mom is your perfect Southern belle who uses “bless your heart” the way I use the word “fuck” and my nonna wishes she could disown all of us.

It makes Friday nights fun. Not wine-and-nachos kind of fun, but fun all the same.

I push the door to my parents’ house open quietly, biting my bottom lip as I wait for the standard greeting.

“No!” Nonna screams. “You cook-a the pasta for longer!”

I’ve no sooner shut the door than I rest my forehead against it. Here we go again. Fucking pasta.

“Dang it, Liliana!” Mom shouts back. “One day, you will leave me to cook in my own kitchen!”

“Pasta! From-a a bag!” Nonna follows it up with a stream of Italian.

Honestly, the woman has lived in the States for almost fifty years. You’d think she’d give up the accent, but nope. She’s as stuck on Italy as she was when she came here. Which explains the pasta disagreement.

I run past the kitchen and into the living room before either of the crazy old bats notice me and drag me into the pasta debate. I’ve been there way too many times, and it’s never pretty.

My little brother, Brody, is relaxing on the couch next to my big brother, Devin.