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“I can’t promise you anything,” I tell him quietly. “I’m not going to offer you money. I’m not going to threaten you. Anything you tell me, I’m going to want you to say again, to the police, with your own lawyer sitting next to you. I’ll find you one if you need. A good one, who’s got nothing to do with me. But if you want to tell somebody the truth, Tommy… I’m here. And I’m listening.”
It takes a while. I give him water. I give him tissues. And then it all comes out.
He never saw Declan that night. He wasn’t even on that street… He was a bookkeeper with a gambling problem and a big debt to the wrong people, and one day a detective named Mallory gave him a typed statement to sign. It said where he was supposed to have been, on what day, at what time. Mallory coached him on it for weeks. And the man who came with Mallory that first time, the man who said the debt would disappear if Tommy was a good boy on the stand?
“Keane,” Tommy whispers. “Niall Keane. He works for the Callaghans.”
My pen stops.
I’ve seen that name. It’s in Mallory’s files. It’s in several of Mallory’s files.
Oh, my God.
I keep my face perfectly still because I’m a professional. But inside I’m doing fucking cartwheels. I’ve got a dirty cop, a bought witness, and a name that ties both of them to the family that’s been stealing Declan’s territory for years. It’s not just a crack anymore. It’s a fucking door. Baby, we’re getting you out!
* * *
I’m still buzzing when I get back to the office. I’m typing up my notes ninety miles an hour when my assistant buzzes.
“Zahra? Simone is here, and she says you stood her up for lunch.”
Oh, shit. Lunch!
Simone’s been my best friend since our first week at law school, when we were the only two Black girls in Section C and she leaned over during Contracts and whispered, “If that man says articulate to me one more time, I’m going to jail.” She’s five-ten, dark-skinned, gorgeous, with a platinum buzz cut and cheekbones that could slice bread. She’s also an Assistant District Attorney, which means technically we’re on opposite sides. We don’t talk about work. It’s the only way we’ve stayed friends.
I haven’t seen her in six weeks. I’ve been ducking her calls. Because how do you tell your best friend, the prosecutor, you married a mob boss?
She’s standing in the lobby in a red power suit with her arms crossed and one eyebrow up.
“Six weeks,” she says. “Six! I thought you were dead. I was about to call your mama.”
“Please don’t call my mother.”
“Then you better start talking, because I’ve been hearing some wild shit around the courthouse, and I told everybody, nah. Not my Zahra.” She leans in, and her eyes go huge. “Bitch. Is that a bond mark?!”
“Okay, lower your voice…”
“Is that a BITE? On your NECK? Zahra Amy Cole!”
“I’ll explain everything! Over lunch.”
“Oh, you’re buying, girlfriend.”
I’m grabbing my bag when Cillian comes out of his office.
He’s reading something on his phone, not looking where he’s going, all six-foot-three of him in a gray suit and that four-hundred-dollar tie. He glances up. And stops dead.
I’ve worked for this alpha for three years. I’ve seen him stare down federal judges, deal with freaking organized crime. I’ve never, not once, seen him look like that. Like somebody just hit him in the back of the head with a shovel.
His nostrils flare. His whole body goes tight. And for about one second, his eyes flash a color I’ve never seen them go.
Then it’s gone. The mask slams down so fast I almost think I imagined it.
“Ms. Baptiste,” he says. Cold as ice.
“Mr. Quinn.” Simone’s voice could freeze a goddamn iceberg.
“I wasn’t aware the District Attorney’s office made house calls.”
