Ciara looks up at me under her lashes, which are damp with tears and stuck together in clumps.
“There was a camera.”
“Impossible. My guys swept the place…”
Ciara shakes her head. “Max hid one in a place he knew no one would look.”
Fuck.
“How long have you had the footage?”
“I didn’t know it existed until today. Mila found Max’s laptop in a hidden compartment in his wardrobe, which accessed the hidden security feed. I didn’t even know what we were looking for until…” Her voice falters. “Until we saw it.”
“You and Mila watched it together?”
She nods, and I ball my hands into fists.
This is not how I planned for Ciara to find out about the part I played in Max’s death. In truth, if I had it my way, she never would have found out at all.
“What else was on there? Does it show the hit?”
“Yes. All of it, from beginning to end.”
This video could bury me, or it could be the answer I’ve been working so hard to find.
“I need to see that video,now.”
For once, Ciara doesn’t push back. She turns and hurries into the closet before returning with a laptop. Settling on the bed beside her, I wait with bated breath as she opens it up and loads the camera footage.
“This was Mila’s idea.” Ciara’s voice is barely above a whisper. “Max was paranoid, always watching his back. Shethought he would have set up hidden cameras that would have been missed by your guys, and she was right.”
I don’t want to watch this, but I have to. I owe that to Max and to Ciara.
The air is so thick with tension that it feels suffocating.
Ciara presses play, and the grainy footage flickers on the screen.
I watch as my fists hit Max’s face and ribs. Each blow hits me harder than the last, but I can’t look away from the brutal reality of my anger. When I finally walk away, Max is left broken and bleeding on the floor, his chest barely rising and falling.
The silence stretches on, and it claws at my gut as Ciara sits motionless beside me.
I can’t bear to look at her and see the hurt in her eyes. There’s nothing I could say right now that could even begin to heal the damage I’ve done, so I stay quiet and watch as minutes later, Max starts to come around.
A while later, while he is talking on the phone, three figures clad in black with balaclavas come into view, and my body stiffens.
Ciara stiffens. “That’s them. I don’t recognize any of them because of the balaclavas…”
I’m barely listening, my attention on the distinctive Celtic knot tattoo on the back of the hand slamming against Max’s face.
“I have to go.”
Ciara’s eyes burn into my back as I make to leave. “What is it? Do you know him?”
I don’t offer her an answer. Not when I can barely comprehend that not only do I know Max’s killer, but he’s also a guy I thought was dead.
Until now.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
