"I didn't want to do it like this. But you made things difficult."
I back up a step. Anything I can reach that would hurt—
"You know what happens when you fuck up a job for Venetti?" He rolls his shoulder, casual. "The two guys who shot up that safe house? Dead within a week. Venetti doesn't tolerate failure."
His hand moves to his thigh. The one that was wounded. The one I've been feeling guilty about for three weeks.
"So you shot yourself. To look like a hero."
"I shot myself because you got away." His gaze goes flat. "That was my failure. Venetti was going to put me in the ground for it. But a wounded cop who tried to save the witness?" He almost smiles. "That's not failure. That's bad luck."
He takes another step toward me. Doesn't even flinch at the pain anymore.
"So I took the bullet, played the hero, and Venetti blamed the hitmen instead of me."
Another step. The limp barely slows him down now. Adrenaline, maybe. Or just the cold focus of a man finishing what he started. "You were supposed to die in that house, Eden."
"The mole." The word scrapes out. "It was you."
His hand slides under his coat and comes back with a gun.
"Give the writer a prize." He doesn't follow me. Doesn't need to. The gun is pointed at my chest and the door is behind him. "I've been Venetti's man for years. Good arrangement. He feeds me information about his rivals. I make arrests. We both benefit."
"The safe house—"
"I gave them the location. Told them exactly when to hit it. Which room you'd be in, which door to breach." He shrugs. "Should have been clean. But you had to crawl out a fucking window."
The night comes back in flashes. The gunfire. The glass. The officer who threw himself over me—
Not to protect me. To save his own skin.
I'm still backing up. The counter is close now. If I can get to the knife block—
His gaze follows mine. He shifts left, putting himself between me and the knives.
"Carver trusted me. The DA trusted me."
I trusted this man. I thanked him.
"And Carver." He sighs. "He was getting too close. Started pulling phone records, financial records. Started asking the wrong questions. Started looking at me." His mouth twists. "You know he only put up with you because he wanted to fuck you, right? All that patience, all that hand-holding—that wasn't respect. That was a man waiting for his shot."
Liar. Carver wasn't like that.
"He would've figured it out eventually. And he never would've let me get to you." Daniels shrugs. "Had to remove him from the equation."
The blood on his coat.
Carver died because of me.
The floor tilts. My stomach heaves.
And suddenly—horribly—I know exactly why Diesel let me go.
"Had to handle that this morning." Bored, almost. Like he's recounting an errand. "Caught him before dawn. He didn't even see it coming."
Carver. Carver is dead.
My knees want to buckle. I lock them.
