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“She wasn’t fighting,” I emphasized. “She gave up on proving him innocent right away?—”
“Are you joking?!” Selene gasped. “She’s still on the case! She’s fighting right now!”
“ENOUGH!”
We all froze. Once again Dad, who rarely raised his voice, shouted. When he roared like that, the obedience was instinctive. He was the biggest shark in the water, and that didn’t change just because we knew he’d never bite us. He glared up at all of us firmly, bags dragging down his eyes. For a moment, all that existed was silence.
Then he spoke. “Grow up,” he said. “Rich made an egregious error and it cost him his girlfriend, that happens. It sucks, and I’m mad at him, and I’m sorry for him. But Fabrizio is in prison. He could stay in prison for the rest of his life, and I can’t believe any of you are willing to fight about a breakup right now.”
Breakup. That word sounded so stupid and juvenile. It didn’t feel old enough. It was only at that moment that I realized that I really liked Lauren and that I could imagine waking up next to her for years to come. But she was gone.
I wasn’t the one who broke us up, she was. If she’d stuck around until this morning, I would have apologized to her and made things right, but she didn’t even give me the chance. I knew I’d said some awful things, things that I now knew triggered some seriously bad memories for her, but I couldn’t help but feel hurt by how quickly she had jumped ship.
“We need to be focusing on Fabrizio and how to help him,” dad continued. “Nothing else matters right now. Nothing.”
I pursed my lips together. He was right. All of this was for Fabri, and I was going to get him out of there. The best way to do that was to obtain a confession from the real killer, and torture was something I had always taken to with gusto.
Lauren would have to wait for her apology, but I hoped she’d understand. She probably didn’t want to see me just then anyway.
“I’m going to find Declan Baron,” I announced, pushing my chair back in front of my untouched plate. “He’s behind this, I know he is.”
I turned from the table and stalked out of the room, ready to pin all my energy on this, no matter what anyone said. “Richard—” Mom started, but Dad put his hand on her shoulder with a shake of his head.
“He’s not going to listen,” I heard him say, almost mournfully, before the door closed behind me. He was right, I wasn’t. I knew what I needed to do, and I was going to do it.
I dialed Mark’s phone, and when he picked up, I grinned with all my teeth.
“Wake up, Mark, we’re going hunting.”
“Again?” he asked, groggy. He must have been sleeping in. “I have to restock my camping cooler…”
“Not that kind of hunting.”
Chapter Thirty
LAUREN
Four days of half-melted ice cream, crying on Jen’s shoulder, and Pride and Prejudice on endless repeat had to pass before I was able to haul myself out of my blanket nest. I was puffy-faced and haggard, and my chest ached with heartbreak, but I had a job to do. There was a good man sitting in a prison cell right now, and it was up to me to make sure he got out as quickly as he could.
Jen, bless her, knew my process well enough to jump into the case with me without questions. She knew I wasn’t okay and that I still had a lot of processing to do, but I also couldn’t sit and agonize about it anymore. The part of me that was still, eternally, looking for validation from people around me was crushed by the cruel things Richard had said to me in the heat of the moment, and that didn’t go away overnight. Not when he was someone whose words mattered to me.
How silly was it that I fell so utterly head over heels for a man in less than a month that he could shake me up like this? I was notorious for being slow to open up, but here I was. The frozen heart of the Ice Queen practically shattered at Richard’s feet.
Well, no longer shattered. I was putting myself back together like I always did, and eventually, I’d move on. First, I had to win this case, not only for Fabrizio but so I could cut ties with that family.
That hurt. I liked the Marinos, they were kind to me.
Selene was still texting me, actually, letting me know anything she found that might help Fabrizio’s case, as well as letting me know that Rich got his ass chewed up and spit out by the whole family for yelling at me like that. I should have known using the case as an excuse wasn’t going to hold water, but hey, I’d tried, right?
I’d asked her not to tell me any more about Rich, and she had agreed wholeheartedly.
So, while Selene went hunting using the Marino’s power, Jen and I hunkered down on her couch to pore over security videos. I was certain I could bring this charge down to manslaughter in the first degree, possibly even involuntary manslaughter if I could prove that Claire was in imminent danger and Fabrizio was acting in her defense. I had told this to the partners of my firm, who had begrudgingly agreed to let me take the case given my latest, very successful and public victory. For that, however, I’d need the camera feed from the bar—which, thankfully, they gave willingly when I contacted them. Apparently, they were all very shaken up by the incident, which made them cooperative.
We split the video feeds between us, with her taking the front door and restroom hallway cams and me keeping my eye on the bar and the dancefloor. I wanted to be able to verify where Tobias was every second of the night and where Claire was at that same time.
It was grueling work. Unlike in the TV shows, there was no fast-forward button—not unless you wanted to risk missing something that could change your whole case. So we sat and watched the whole night’s footage from beginning to end, from four different cameras, and we did it multiple times. It was mind-numbing.
At the end of it, though, we had a solid picture of the night. Tobias arrived with Claire at 7:43 pm, hand around her waist, and promptly made the rounds. He went up to several tables, all of which seemed to be packed with people he knew, and he kept a possessive arm around her the whole time. Fabrizio was right, it did look like he was taking her just to show her off. He was also right when he said Claire didn’t look too comfortable there.
