“Laina—” I started.
“Upstairs,” Fang said, appraising me in the most curious way possible, with his head cocked and his eyebrows slightly raised. “She’s still in shock, I think. She wasn’t ready to talk to any of us, but maybe you’d have luck.” When he talked, I noticed the oddness of his canine teeth, and it took me a few moments to realize they appeared odd because they were too long.
Too long, too sharp, and too silver, unlike the rest of his teeth.
Ah, now I understood where he got the name from, as I always highly doubted he was born with it.
Laina definitely had an interesting group of boyfriends.
Mike leaned against a wall a good fifteen feet away from me, his arms crossed over his chest. He watched me warily, eyeing me up like he didn’t trust me—and I supposed he had good reason not to, given everything. “How do we know you didn’t do this?” he questioned, his voice hard, rough. Everything about the man was intimidating.
But I’d been around a long time. I didn’t get so easily intimidated.
“Killing the mayor is a huge job. I solve problems, but I tend to steer clear of high-profile assassinations,” I said, hoping the rest of the room believed me. “I’m not perfect in any respect, but I’m no goddamn assassin.”
“He’s telling the truth,” Fang said, the only one who was quick to jump to my side. “He didn’t do it.”
Another man strolled into the room behind me, joining us. I turned to meet the blue gaze of a blond-haired man wearing a crisp suit. He had a phone in his hand, though he wasn’t currently making any calls. “Jason Miller,” the man said. “I’ve done a lot of research into you.”
“Sylvester Luciano,” I greeted him gruffly. “I’ve done the same.”
Sylvester studied me for only a few moments before he looked at everyone else. “I’m with Fang here. I don’t think Jason did it.”
It was Kieran who muttered, “Tessa. She did it. Whether or not she pulled the trigger herself…” He ran a hand along the side of his face. “She could’ve bugged the house, known Laina was going to be away. She knew the camera system. After everything blowing up in her face over and over, I wouldn’t put it past her to need to do it herself.”
He wasn’t wrong, about any of it. A person could only take so much before they snapped, and it was very likely Tessa had reached the breaking point. Then again, in a city like this, there were surely countless of men she could’ve hired to assassinate the mayor for her.
Unless Tessa confessed, it was very likely we would never know the full truth.
“Semi-related,” Sylvester said, “I have a meeting with Dr. Barnes Monday. I imagine I can… persuade him to talk. We’llfinally know whether or not she’s really pregnant. From my sources, I hear he’s the doctor you call when you need someone to sign off on something that’s not strictly true. Prescriptions, insurance fraud—Dr. Barnes has been sued half a dozen times.”
Yes, that definitely didn’t sound good, but there was no point in discussing any of that now.
“Where upstairs is she?” I asked.
“My room,” Lola said. “Second room on the left.”
Kieran stood. “I’ll go with you.”
I gave him a look. “Pat me down if you want. I don’t have any weapons on me.”
He scoffed and muttered, “She’s practically in a coma up there. You wouldn’t need any weapons—”
“I’m not going to hurt her,” I said, emphasizing the words enough I hoped he’d believe me. I wasn’t lying. The last thing I wanted to do was hurt that girl—unlike some members of the family, when faced with problems, my first instinct wasn’t to have them killed. It was why I spent so long watching her, getting to know her. None of this I took lightly, but at the same time, I understood why he didn’t trust me.
Still, as Kieran stared at me from across the room, I could tell he didn’t quite believe me.
“Kieran,” I spoke his name, “you have my word. I’ll never hurt her.”
That, finally, got him to stand down, so to speak. If you could not trust a man for his word, you couldn’t trust him at all. He was useless. He might as well have been an enemy; it was something I thought I’d taught to both my children when they were young.
Words mattered, as did actions. Lying was a coward’s tool.
With a sigh, Kieran sat back down and waved me off, saying, “Like she’s going to want to talk to you, anyway. If she didn’t talk to us, no way in hell will she talk to you.”
Fang chimed in, “Sometimes it’s difficult to open up to those closest to us.” His words earned him a hard glare from my son, but I had already tuned out of the conversation.
I left the room and went toward the stairwell—though it was more like a grand staircase, the wide kind with fancy wooden railings all the way up. I took the stairs one at a time even though I could’ve easily taken two, mostly to take my time in walking up as I tried to think of what I should say.
