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“Ihave a new plan.” I stride straight past Dana’s desk the next morning, and nod my approval as she hurriedly sets her coffee down and bounds up from her chair.
She scrambles to collect files. Papers. Notes. Pens. But while she does that, I charge into my office and leave the door swinging as I cross to my desk.
Sitting down as Dana toddles into the room with her arms overflowing, I power up my computer and wait for the screen to light up. “I received a tip overnight about Savannah Towers’ involvement with the mafia.”
Well, not really. But as a journalist, I get the privilege of pretending I’m protecting my source’s identity.
“She trades in innocents. Racketeering. Murder.”
Dana dumps her things on my desk and watches me, her eyes comically wide. “Is she with Malone?”
“No.” I open a new Word document and wait a mere second before it powers up and provides a fresh new canvas for me to work with. “Pastore. I’m going to write the story, and I’m not running it by Davis first.”
My assistant’s cheeks pale. “You’re not? You’ll just… print it?”
“Front page, top of the fold. But…” I tap my keyboard, typing at the top, ‘Espionage, Murder, Secrets, and Coverups: The truth behind a successful gossip’s life’. “I’ll give her the chance to read it first.”
Give her the chance to leave this city, go on with her life somewhere else, and leave the Malones alone.
“It’s professional courtesy,” I lie. “I’m about to destroy her entire business. The kind thing to do is give her a heads-up.”
“Uh…” Dana sets her hands on my desk and leans across to read what I write. “If she’s mafia, do you think it’s a good idea to threaten her?”
“You said the same thing when I wrote about the Malones.” I keep typing, my mind sprinting faster than my hands can move. “Worked out with them.”
“Did not! He accosted you at a party. Assaulted you! Felix Malone threatened you, Ms. Cannon.”
I wrinkle my nose and continue writing about the woman who has conspired to kill a man. The woman who has infiltrated their home and fed secrets back to the enemy.
I write about the woman who acts for revenge, not missing the irony that I’m exactly the same.
Iinfiltrated their home.Ifed information to the enemy.Iacted for revenge.
I’m not better than that sewer rat Ms. Towers. But I am more honest. And I know when a deal is off.
“The Malones aren’t so bad,” I finish my thought out loud, glancing up to a frantically speed-reading Dana. “Felix is the protector of his family. He comes with a name that makes people believe they know who and what he is, even before actually, genuinely getting to know him.”
“Oh my god,” her face drains of all color as I write about my stay at the Malone estate.
She didn’t know that. No one does. But I’ll blast myself all over the front page, too, if that’s what I need to do to keep those brothers safe.
“Shewantedme to stay with them,” I type and speak at once, “even using my father as leverage, a pawn, and threatening to tell him what I’ve done to keep me on a leash.”
“Cato?” Dana gasps when I get to that part. Then her eyes swing to mine, her throat bobbing as she swallows. “He’s your nephew?”
I nod. “My sister’s son.”
I type that, too. Because people deserve the truth. Felix deserves it. And Cato.
“There are still articles circulating, to this day, searching for my sister. It’s been eighteen years,” I murmur, my heart breaking, repeatedly, as I mourn not only the best person I ever knew, but my father, too.
“I should talk to the doctors about his condition,” I ponder. “Did his Alzheimer’s accelerate because he wants to forget? Or is it a PTSD thing?”
“Y-your father?” she stammers. “He?—”
“He’s not on an extended vacation, Dana. He’s right here in the city,” I look up from my keyboard and give her a small, gentle smile. “He was placed in a care facility earlier this year.”
“Alzheimer’s?” she questions. “He doesn’t remember you?”
