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“I don’t know the full story, but apparently, Carlos just showed up, wanting his birthright and being pretty fucking aggressive about it, from what I hear. Sal ran the DNA, but not much else he could do about it.”
“So either Dominick killed his arch nemesis’s son, in which case, I’m guessing Sal will be pretty POed, even if he didn’t like the kid. Or someone, maybe even Sal himself, sent Carlos to his death on Dominick’s turf. It sounds like the beginning of a mob war,” I comment and shake my head. “And I got a look at the ugly mug who did it. Great.”
Shane’s face pales as he looks at me. “You might be the only one who did, too. Allie was near the edge of the sofa, right? And she had blood on her chest and face, so she couldn’t have seen from that angle. She’d have been facing Carlos, her back to the door. But you saw the hitman face-to-face. Could you identify him?”
I nod, biting my lip. “I feel like that’s a question you should automatically say no to when you’re talking mob hitmen, but yeah, I’d recognize him anywhere. That face, the squinty eyes and cauliflowered left ear . . . I could probably sketch him for you, if that’s helpful. I’m not an artist, but it’d be close enough.”
“Yeah, we’ll see if we can get a pencil and some paper because we need to know who the hitman is so we can figure out who hired him,” Shane says, sighing. “I can’t believe we’re talking about your sketching a hitman.”
“But why can’t we go to the police? They could help us,” I ask, almost pleading with him, and Shane laughs harshly. “What? That’s their job!”
Shane looks at me with pity in his eyes and smiles bitterly. “Both families have the police in their pockets. The only way to be a cop above Desk Sergeant in East Robinsville is to be friendly with one family or the other. If we go to the cops, we’ll likely never be seen again because they’ll turn us over to whoever wants us the most.”
“As in?” I ask, fearing the answer even before Shane says it.
“Meaning whoever’s willing to pay more for our silence. Knowing some of the cops in this town, they’d do the job for the families and might even try to collect from both of them if there’s money in it.”
Hating that answer and needing more, I run through the whole evening again in my head, something wiggling at me, but it’s not until I see the blood spatter on Allie’s favorite costume that I realize what it is.
“Hey! What about the cameras? The security? How’d the hitman even get inside without being seen? He should be on cameras all over the place. There should be all sorts of images of him, not just my memory.”
Shane nods but gets up to pace the carpet. “Yeah, but that’s only helpful if it’s Sal’s guys fucking with Dominick. If Dominick did this, he’d erase the recordings. All it takes is a single button push on his system. That’d leave him just one last loose end to clean up.”
Shane gives me a pointed look, and I realize he’s telling me that if Dominick is behind this, he’ll want me killed. If Sal did it, Dominick won’t hurt me, but Sal probably will. I’m messed up either way. “So, where does that leave us? You’re Dominick’s guy.”
I leave the question as to whether he’ll hurt me unasked, but he knows that’s what I need to know. Shane walks to the curtained window and glances out before turning to me, looking at me from across the room with intense eyes that burn with . . . something.
“It’s more complicated than that, but I swear to you, Meghan, I would never, ever hurt you. I work at Petals for Dominick, but I’m not in the mob, not one of his guys. I promise with my very last breath to keep you safe.”
“And how do you plan to do that?” I ask, my heart pounding as the intensity of Shane’s words hit me. In another light, another situation, they’d be the most romantic thing a man has ever said to me. I feel the sting of tears in the corners of my eyes, but refuse to let them loose, even though this is all so overwhelming.
Shane doesn’t have the magic answer I was hoping for, instead being a bit vague. “We’ll figure it all out.”
For a moment, I think about telling him that it’s even more complicated than he realizes because I’m not just a cocktail waitress at Petals, but an undercover reporter using the job to get stories for a celebrity tabloid. Part of me wants to tell him everything, because deep down inside, I feel this almost instinctual need to be totally honest with him.
