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“Lie down, Avery, or I’ll tie you down instead.” Sean has a wicked gleam in his eyes. I’m sure he’s not kidding and I’m also sure he’d like the opportunity.
“Sean,” Marty taps his watch, “time. The hour is almost up.”
Sean rises and grabs his hair, tugging it in frustration. He runs his palms down the back of his neck and makes an aggravated sound in the back of his throat. Finally, he turns to look at me. “It was fake. The whole thing.”
“You’re not hurt?” He shakes his head. “But I saw you get shot—I saw the blood. I saw Marty with the gun.”
“It was staged, Avery.”
“What? How? I saw Marty holding the gun and I saw your blood. I thought you were going to die, Sean. You were barely breathing. Are you saying that was all an act? Are you saying I saw an exploding ketchup bottle?” I glance at Marty and back at Sean. “I know what I saw.”
Sean’s voice is soft and patient. “No, you don’t. No one knows what they saw that night. It was a concert, Avery. There was smoke and flashing lights forcing your eyes to refocus every second. Marty held up his gun so they’d see him clearly raise his weapon. The rest was theatrics and luck. The strobe lights tricked your eyes into seeing something that didn’t actually happen. The fog machine covered me after I fell, the dye packs were top of the line, and the people in the ambulance and at the hospital were paid off. Avery, it was all fake.”
Chapter 5
My jaw is hanging open. “Why? Why would you fake being shot?” I can’t believe this.
“Marty’s boss put a hit on me. I did something that pissed him off and the hit was his version of payback. We orchestrated the shooting and tipped off the press to create media frenzy in the aftermath, making them think Marty took the shot. Avery, we did it all to make sure you didn’t end up in the ground next to your parents.”
My body goes cold as the remaining tension slips from my face. Shock makes my jaw drop. “My parents?” I think back to my mom’s note and fear pierces my heart. What does he know? “What’s going on? Gabe keeps warning me to run. If you don’t want me to take his advice, if you want to see my face tomorrow, you better tell me—”
Marty cuts me off, “Or what, Avery? You’ll run away? You’ll punch me in the nuts again? Thanks for that, by the way.” Marty squirms in his chair. The room is too dark to see him clearly.
Anger surges from within me. I turn to Sean. “You promised me no more lies. We were supposed to tell each other the truth, and this is what you do?”
“I know.” His voice is level, stoic.
“You promised me! You said you’d tell me everything, and here’s your chance. What about my parents? Tell me why the hell Marty is here with you. What the hell is going on, Sean?” My heart is thumping in my chest, threatening to explode against my ribs. My stomach sours and regret fills my mouth. “You said you were through lying to me, Sean.”
My rage turns on my friend, “And Marty—what the fuck? You let me think you tried to shoot the man I love? You let me think you stabbed me in the back? How could you? Both of you! How could you?” The two of them have been using me, tossing me around like a rag doll, as if their actions won’t affect me in the slightest. My anger fades. This is so Sean, so classically Sean Ferro. I gave him my heart and he’s still hiding from me.
What is he so afraid of? What’s behind those dark eyes that he can’t let me see?
“Because I–” Marty cuts off what he was going to say and jumps to his feet. His hands fly through the air frantically, as he searches for the words to explain. “It wasn’t supposed to be this way. I was supposed to get close to you, get what I needed, and then get the fuck out. Instead, I met you and I liked you.” He glances at Sean like he couldn’t care less what the man thinks. “Avery, I want to protect you from all of this, but you’re right in the middle of it and that’s the worst place to be. I won’t let them hurt you. Not now, not ever. Please believe me. I’d tell you the truth, all of it, if I could, but I can’t.”
Glaring at him, I don’t know what to say. His words swirl in my mind like a gust of wind. I can’t hold onto them without wanting to cry. He sounds sincere, but I’ve been jerked around too many times to believe him anymore.
“Who are you? You’re not a college kid with no money if you own this house—it’s worth over a million bucks, easy. And if you’re working for someone who puts hits on people, you’re what? An enforcer? A mercenary? Do you take orders and kill people?” I push up on my elbows and lean against the back of the chaise, finally able to at least sit up. I already knew Sean was into some messed up shit, but Marty’s involvement blindsides me. “Who are you?”
Worry is pinching his face. I hear it in his voice as it tightens and gets higher. “I’m the same guy you met on campus. I’m the same guy who held you while you slept. Avery, you know me.”
Sean glances at me, shocked. “You slept with him?”
“Are you serious?” I blink at Sean. “With everything that’s going on, that’s what you think is messed up here?” Sean doesn’t answer. Instead, he looks away.
In two steps, Marty crosses the room and shoves Sean aside, trying to take my hand.
I push further back into the chaise and away from him. “Don’t touch me. Either of you.” Fear taints my voice and tightens my chest. Every muscle in my body is strung tight, ready to snap.
Marty’s golden eyes look away as he gives up and steps back. “Avery, I’d never hurt you. You just beat the shit out of me and I didn’t even fight back.”
Fear gives way to anger. It drips down my spine in a wave of hot pain. Working my jaw, I finally manage to spit out the words. “I trusted you! I trusted both of you and told you everything. You,” I say to Sean, “only tell lies, and Marty—you’re just as bad.”
“You don’t understand.” Marty says, looking horrified. He glances at Sean, silently pleading for help. “I can’t say no. I can’t tell them I won’t do it. It’s not an option and now I’m in this so deep I’ll be lucky if I come out alive. Thanks to Sean, I might—we might all survive.”
Marty steps toward me again, careful not to touch me. He kneels and places his hand on the arm of the couch. Eye to eye, he says, “Avery, they’ve been aiming for you. The hotel room, the pilot, the other dead hookers—every murder was an attempt on you. They think you know something, and they won’t stop until they either get what they want or you’re out of the way.”
“What are you talking about?” At first I have no clue, but then I realize what this is about. Somewhere in the back of my mind I’ve finally connected the dots and, consequently, terror turns my stomach into knots. “Who wants me dead?”
Sean finally speaks. “Victor Campone.”
Chapter 6
“What?” My voice squeaks. That name brings a fresh dose of fear, dousing me.
Sean explains, “Your mother got into some serious shit with his men when she was younger. Your father protected her as long as he could. The night they died, you were supposed to be in that car with them. They found your family and once they had you in their sights, decided their most effective course of action was to eliminate you all. But you stayed home that night and they didn’t know. Someone told them there were three people in the car. Someone lied straight to Campone’s face for you. That same someone also pretended to be gay to get near you.”
Shocked, I gape at Marty, unable to speak. Marty looks away, holding his hands behind his back. Campone is a drug lord and into shit so dark it makes night look like day. My stomach feels like it’s suspended in a free-fall.
I glance at Sean. “And what about you?”
“What about me?” Sean stands rigid next to Marty, who has resumed his frantic pacing. Marty stops and watches Sean. They’re both on edge, tense and ready to fight.
I laugh coldly and shake my head. I’m so stupid. Never in a million years did I think that someone killed my parents. They weren’t murdered, they were in a car crash. It was one of those freak things that happen
s without purpose. I should have been in the car that night, but I had bitched to Mom that I didn’t want to go. I’m supposed to be in the ground with them.
Swallowing hard, I find my words and say to Sean, “It wasn’t a coincidence that you stumbled upon me that day when my car got jacked? It wasn’t by chance that you were at the diner? It wasn’t just happy luck that you were my first client at Miss Black’s either, was it?” That’s what Gabe has been trying to tell me all along, but I couldn’t see it. That’s why he hates Sean—he knows all this and probably more. I spit out my suspicion before I lose my nerve. “You were using me to find out whatever Campone wanted? You were just trying to get the information first, weren’t you?”
“Perhaps.” Sean stares at me with those intense blue eyes and his lips pressed into a hard, thin line.
I wish he’d say something. I wish he’d wrap his arms around me and tell me this is all a horrible joke, because I can’t accept what it really means. Lip trembling, I force out the question. “So Marty cares about me, and you don’t? You were using me to get what you wanted. Say it, Sean. I know it’s true. You used everything I told you against me.” In that instant, I think of the hospital. Of everything I told him, everything we did. “You even pretended to be in pain at the hospital when I kissed you. It was all fake, all of it.”
