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I immediately wish that I hadn’t.
My stomach turns, from the sight and the smell, and I just manage to take a few frantic steps away from his body before mine folds over. With my hands on my knees, Link’s gun still tight in my grasp, I throw up all over the floor.
Because I didn’t miss, did I? With Joey so close, I didn’t really think I would, but I wasn’t trying to kill him. I just wanted to get him to back off, and if I had to shoot him to keep him from getting on top of me again, I would.
He’s on the floor. Crumpled, half of his face blown away from the bullet’s impact, I know that I won’t have to worry about him touching me again. He’s obviously dead—and I’m in big, big trouble.
I killed him. I killed my ex.
Groaning, heaving, eyes stinging with sudden tears, I lob the gun as far away from me as I can, tossing it lightly so that it doesn’t accidentally discharge. My mouth tastes vile. I wipe at it with the back of my shaky hand, barely aware that I’m doing it.
He’s dead. My ears are still ringing from the gunshot, and I know one of my neighbors had to have heard it. If they come here, if they check, they’ll find what’s left of Joey on my floor.
I run over to my TV. It takes me a few seconds to snatch the remote from where I left it on the coffee table. My fingers don’t want to work. I’m muttering something under my breath—come on, come on, you stupid thing, he’sdead, oh my God, he’s dead—but all I can think about it getting the damn thing on.
Any channel, any streaming app, it doesn’t matter, whatever it loads on is fine. I press buttons until sound comes through the speakers. Cranking the volume up to fifty, it’s loud enough now that maybe—just maybe—my neighbors might think the gunshot came from my television.
Will that work? I don’t know. Despite being familiar with a few players in Springfield’s seedy underbelly, I’m not a criminal. I only had a gun because… because…
Link.
For fifteen years, I tried not to think about what kind of man my childhood sweetheart became. It’s hard when even the sweet, innocent school teachers in Springfield can still hear rumors about how wicked Lincoln “Devil” Crewes is, but if there’s one man who might know what to do with a dead body in the middle of your living room, it’s my Link.
I need his help. Somehow, without ever meaning to, I found myself mixed up with the local criminals. If Damien Libellula sent Joey after me for some reason, the head of the East End crime family isn’t going to be happy when he finds out that I killed him.
It was self-defense. I had to protect myself. If he hadn’t tried to get my clothes off… if he hadn’t threatened to rape me… I would never have gone for the gun in my side drawer.
But even if I could claim self-defense, would Damien believe me?
Would the crooked police—who everyone in the city knows act like a private force for the Springfield syndicates—believe me?
Wrapping my arms around my middle, trembling as I realize the answer to that, I have one more question: willLinkbelieve me?
I don’t know. The boy I loved when we were both twenty would have, before he broke my heart and walked away, never looking back. The thirty-five-year-old man he’s become since then? I honestly can’t say, but I do know that I don’t have any other choice.
Phone… phone… where’s my—
Ah, there it is.
His number isn’t in my phone. I did that on purpose. It would’ve been too, too easy to call him on those long, lonely nights if all I had to do was pull up his name. But, unless he changed it, I have it memorized by heart.
No way he didn’t change it, I tell myself even as I tap out the number. He had to have—but what if he didn’t?
I have to try. If it’s possible to reach Link, I have totry.
Ring.
Ring.
Ring…
I lose track of how many rings it takes before voicemail picks up. It’s automated, spitting the number back at me, so I can’t tell if it still belongs to Link or not. I have to hope that it does, and despite the late hour, I call him again.
Before I can dial a third time, my phone rings. Caller ID shows the same number I just called.
I answer it on the second ring.
“Hello?” I gasp out. “Link? Is that you?”
