“So, blackmail and cheating?” Allie’s voice was much softer now, but held a hard edge.
“Yeah. Ya happy about that?”
“No. Worried.”
Ellie straightened in her chair. Her eyes drifted from Allie to me. “What are you going to do about this?”
I gritted my teeth. It is one thing to plot murder in your mind, another to mention it out loud. “First, eliminate the price on my head. These photos prove I didn’t kill Adelmo Conti.”
“You sure about that?” Ellie’s tone was familiar. I slid my gaze to Ringo, narrowing my eyes.
He raised his eyebrows at me. “She’s got a point. Her lawyer didn’t catch photos of Mr. Pornstach actually doing the deed.”
“It is his car, no?” I pulled a wide angle of the accident scene from the pile. The grainy photograph had been secured from a traffic camera at the intersection. A man and an accomplice exited the car that had hit Adelmo’s vehicle. “It is him in the pictures, correct?”
The close-up of Johnny standing next to Adelmo’s car was too grainy to positively identify the face accurately, but it was most definitely not me. With Ellie’s confirmation that she’d had Johnny followed, I was cleared.
“There’s still the fact that you snubbed Don Conti’s daughter.”
Ringo was not helping.
“You know I’m right. Don Conti would have put a hit on your head for that alone.” He held out his empty hands.
Ellie’s jaw tensed. “Why did you marry my sister?”
Allie went rigid under my arm.
The unvarnished truth was terrible, and very unromantic. But everyone needed to hear this—even my bodyguards.
“I was injured.”
“Fuck! You and your damned bleeding heart. Allie!”
Now it was my bride’s jaw that tensed. “I wasn’t getting a refund from the venue because there was a justice of the peace there forcing the ceremony through. Why?”
Ellie slumped. “That was my fault.”
“What?” Both Ringo and Allie’s voices rose.
They stared at Ellie with utter shock, and perhaps a bit of disgust on their expressions.
“Tell me why?” I’d taken a page out of Allie’s text book and softened my tone.
Ellie glared at me. “If you must know, I thought Johnny was going to get cold feet after I showed him the prenup.” Her jaw stuck out.
“A prenup?”
Ellie shifted to her sister’s question. “Yeah, one that said that Johnny could touch none of my money, legal or not. And, he had to stop hanging around with those friends of his or else the wedding would be instantly annulled with only my signature needed.”
Allie’s tension slacked, and she wavered on her feet. I guided her back to the couch.
“What? Do you think you’re the only one who can plan ahead? I protected my money and made sure he couldn’t blackmail me anymore.”
My wife processed that.
“Where is this prenup?” I asked.
Ellie scooted off her chair and dug into the binder of travel plans. She tugged it out and handed it over. “Did you sign a prenup, Mr. Valentini?”
