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A bailiff keeps pace behind us, using a respectable distance between us. He doesn’t give me the safe feeling one of Luca’s men does, but since my husband trusts this judge, I’ll trust his men. Even if he gives off alarming vibes that have my icky meter going off. He doesn’t feel pervy, he just has me unsettled.
“Ignore it, ignore it,” I chant to myself.
“What was that?” Shaynie asks me.
Not wanting to freak her out, because my radar may be on the glitch, I decide to play off my weird sensations. “Nothing, lady. I’m just ignoring my bladder.”
“Wish I could. That’s next to impossible these days,” she jokes, lovingly rubbing her palm across her lower abdomen. She’s going to be such a good mom.
She claims her stall the second our bodies make it through the threshold, and I hold back my mirth. That woman can move fast when my niece or nephew is pressing down on her bladder. Quickly, I choose the stall closest to her and take care of business. When I’m flushing the toilet, I swear I hear the door open and shut, and the lock engaging, but I’m so lost in making sure I don’t touch anything inconspicuous—most especially, the toilet handle due to nasty germs seeing as some people are gross and don’t wash their hands, that I hardly notice and shrug off what I believe I overheard. It’s not important, the bathroom is a public one, I can’t force others out just because I don’t want strangers in the small space with me.
“When are you and Julius going to get married?” I ask as I pull up my stockings, and make sure my dress isn’t tucked into the back of them.
“We’re going to wait until after the baby is born. I don’t want to be swollen and fat during our photos,” Shayne answers.
“We didn’t have a photographer,” I grumble, suddenly sad that I won’t have them as a memento to tuck away into an album.
“You did too. You just didn’t see her,” Shayne rebuts over the sound of her toilet flushing.
“Huh,” I hum as I open the door and head toward the sink. “Guess I need to get better about paying attention to my surroundings.”
“I’d say so,” a beautiful Latina lady recommends. “If you had, you may have noticed I have a gun pointed at you.”
“Shayne! Stay in the stall!” I holler, now that she’s pointed it out, my eyes stay glued to the round end of the gun, praying that it isn’t loaded while hoping that a bullet doesn’t shoot out of the chamber’s barrel. “Who are you, and what do you want?” While asking these questions, I begin to wonder where our damn escort is.
“Looking for someone? Possibly my brother? You see, when he let me know that the man who murdered my Vir, my husband, was going to be in the courtroom he patrols, I knew this would be the best opportunity I’d have to ruin his life, the same way he ruined mine. Your husband is a hard man to get alone. Always someone guarding him like he’s the president needing the secret service at his back or something.”
Squaring my shoulders, refusing to let her know that she’s gotten to me, I ask, “Who’s your husband? Luca’s killed many men, so you’ll have to be more specific, sweetheart.” My taunting has her face scrunching up in anger, and she sneers. “I’m sure that Luca didn’t take your husband out for the hell of it, he must not have been a good guy.”
Her face contorts into that of a monster. The next words out of her mouth sends a wave of disbelief through me and has my body shivering with cold chills. “Graham was the best man! He didn’t deserve to die because he was earning a living. He was taking care of me!”
Sliding my head sideways, because surely, she did not call that rat bastard a good man, I ask, “Graham? Crumley?”
“Ah, so I see you knew him? He was glorious, wasn’t he?” This bitch has fallen off a cliff and smashed her skull, it’s the only reason I can come up with for her thinking Graham was anything but evil. Perhaps the fall caused some kind of traumatic brain injury because the man she’s describing and the one who manhandled me are not one and the same.
I’m so confused right now hearing her positive words about that evil man. Maybe she needs psychiatric intervention because this bitch is as batshit crazy as they come. “He was a disgusting human being. Do you know what he did? What he and his brothers did for a living? Did he smack you over your head with a hammer or something?”
“Don’t talk about him like that! He was my life!” she spits. Literally. I know because some of her flying spittle lands on my face. “I’ve decided.” She then nods her head as though she’s having a discussion in her mind or something, because her last statement makes zero sense.
“You’ve decided?” I parrot, wanting to keep her talking and distracted until I can find a way out of this unstable lady’s confrontation.
“That I want him to hurt the same way as I am,” she continues saying. “And the only way I can think that he’ll suffer the most, is by taking the love of his life away from him.”
“Oh, shit.” I hear Shayne cry out. “Shit. Shit. Shit.”
I want to laugh since this is the first time Shayne has said anything that shouldn’t be said in polite company. I’ll make sure to bring it up later, now is obviously not the right time to pester her. Not with a gun directed my way.
“Lady!” Shayne bellows. “You were married to my brother?”
“I was. I’m your sister-in-law, I apologize for us meeting this way. I promise, as a Crumley, you’re safe from this altercation. You will live, sister. I wish I didn’t have to hurt you by shooting your friend, but I’m a believer in an eye for an eye.” This bitch is speaking like they're having a festive reunion after familial introductions have been made between long lost family members, not like she’s fixing to break Shaynie’s heart by putting a bullet into her best friend’s. Her real sister.
“Huh. I could’ve sworn Luca said you were his mistress, not his wife,” I say, wanting her to focus on me, and not Shayne.
“Looks like the mighty Widowmaker doesn’t know everything, huh?” she asks, gleefully smirking at me as if she’s got the upper hand. “We married years ago, only we had to bury it so his brothers didn’t find out. He didn’t trust them not to come after me if he did something they didn’t like. That’s how much he loved me.” The gun in her hand shifts through the air until the barrel is now aimed at her chest.
I don’t think.
There’s no time for rational thought.
