Page 87 of One Filthy Kiss

“I’m listening.”

“I’d have been a fucking goner. Is that what you want to hear?” For a guy with a gun pointed at his head, he has a whole lot of attitude bunched up around his shoulders. Too much attitude some might say.

“What I want to hear is you telling me that you’re not working for The Fish.”

Silence.

It would give me great pleasure to take Bruno’s gun and shoot Tommy Romano straight through the skull myself but killing him without answers isn’t going to save my Meggie and Amber.

I cup my ear. “I don’t hear you.”

“The Fish made a little problem disappear for me a while back. It was before I came to LA. Before my career started to take off. Ever since then, well, I’ve been waiting for him to call in the favor, and this was it.” His eyes flicker to the photograph.

“Problem?” The guy fucking owes me.

“I accidentally killed a man in Italy. We were on vacation in Puglia. He was hitting on my girl, and I lost it.”

“Doesn’t sound like an accident to me. Sounds like you got angry, started a fight, and went too far.”

Tommy shrugs. Yep, a shitload of fucking attitude.

“What was Nikki’s role in this favor?”

“I needed her to look like her friend so that no one questioned me being in her room.”

I grind my back teeth. “It must’ve taken some persuasion to get her to agree.”

“Nah, she was easy meat. She’ll do anything for fame and fortune.” He snickers, and there’s no mirth in the sound. “Shower a woman like that with some attention and they’ll do anything. I don’t even like her.”

My fist connects with his jaw before I canstop myself.

The car screeches to a halt. Bruno drags Tommy Romano out of the backseat and deposits him at the side of the road. He’s still yelling at us, his wrists bound, as we drive away.

My phone vibrates. I check the Caller ID and flex my sore fingers when I see Ric’s name.

“We have a problem, boss. The shark is still biting.”

19

MEGAN

Amber is still asleepwhen we head back inside. The loaded pizza dough is ready to go into the oven, but my appetite vanished somewhere during the confrontation outside the cabin. Was Nikki aware of what she was doing when she called mystery-guy, or is she so loved up that she isn’t thinking straight?

She put our lives in danger though, the rational voice in my head is shrieking at me. She put Amber’s life in danger.

Nikki stands by the living room window peering out at the mountains. She’s still clawing at her hand with her natural acrylics, scraping bloody skin without even realizing what she’s doing.

This isn’t the Nikki I know and love.

This isn’t the girl who stood by me when things were tough at home with my stepdad.

She flew out to LA only a few weeks before me and Amber. How has this guy gotten under her skin so badly that shecompromised our location for a telephone conversation with him because she couldn’t bear not hearing his voice? Nikki has always been the first to call out a toxic relationship, so I can’t believe that she has fallen into the same trap as other women we know, especially with a guy who wants to keep their relationship a secret.

It’s a gigantic red flag bopping her on the head, and she has simply brushed it aside and accepted his excuses.

“Why did you call him, Nik?”

The TV is still playing in the living room, the sound turned down low while Amber is dozing, and my voice sounds too loud.