Mila looks like she’s about to vomit. “Shit.”
Taking a shot at Seamus Sullivan isn’t just reckless. It’s suicide.
That party was crawling with his allies, so whoever pulled the trigger had nerves of steel. Either that or a death wish.
Mila frowns as she shakes her head. “I don’t get it. How did they get away? That room was packed.”
The cab screeches to a stop beside us, and I quickly usher Mila into the back seat before climbing in beside her.
The driver glances at us in the mirror. “Where to?”
I spit out Mila’s address before turning my attention to her. “Only if that’s okay?”
She squeezes my hand and offers me a reassuring smile. “It’s more than okay.”
The drive to Mila’s is no more than thirty minutes, but it feels like hours.
I stare out the window as the city lights blur as we drive past. My reflection in the glass looks pale and haunted, a far cry from the girl I saw in the mirror when I was getting ready only a few hours ago.
The countless glasses of champagne on an empty stomach are only adding to my nausea, so the moment we arriveoutside Mila’s building, I’m practically climbing out of the cab while it’s still moving just to get some air.
I dig around in my clutch for some money and toss a few crumpled bills at the driver through the window. “Keep the change.”
Not that I can afford to be dropping fifty bucks on a cab ride, but I’m too wound up to care.
I follow Mila up the front steps of her building then inside.
Her building always smells of dust and wood polish, but I’ve come to find it comforting, though that might have something to do with the fact that I spend more time at Mila’s than I do my own place.
My feet are burning by the time we reach the third floor, so the second Mila unlocks her door and I step inside, I kick off my shoes and limp across her tiny studio apartment then collapse onto the couch.
“Jesus, Ciara.” Mila kicks off her own shoes and heads for the liquor cabinet. “You look like you’re about to pass out.”
I don’t respond.
I can’t.
Because all I can see is blood.
Not Seamus Sullivan’s, but my father’s.
I close my eyes and lean back against the couch, trying to breathe as the memories of that fated day come flooding back.
The desk chair was facing the window, just like it always was. My father couldn’t stand staring at a wall while he worked.
He used to say his job was depressing enough as it was, so why make it worse?
When I close my eyes, I’m right back in that moment.
It was early spring, so the sun was streaming in through the window, bringing the study to life in shades of yellow andgold. My father had been locked away in his study all night, the door still closed when I came home from Mila’s in the early hours of the morning.
Eventually, when it got to mid-morning, I decided to interrupt him by taking him a cup of coffee in the hopes of getting the lecture about being out past curfew over and done with.
But the lecture never came, and my father never did drink his coffee.
My footsteps against the hardwood floor as I headed up the stairs, his name on my lips as I called out to him, and the sound of the door clicking open when I got no response still haunt me.
I think some part of me knew what I was going to find. Maybe that’s why, when I spun the chair around and saw my father was missing half of his skull, I didn’t scream.
