My hands shook uncontrollably as the full weight of what I’d overheard crashed down on me. This wasn’t merely some overheard argument I could pretend never happened. A man was going to die, and I was the only one who knew.
I had to do something. As much as I hated the thought of Gia being trapped in hell with this psychopath, there wasn’t much I could do to prevent the wedding from happening. Besides, if I understood correctly, Gia’s father was some kind of bad guy as well, so maybe she should’ve known better.
However, I couldn’t let Carlo kill an innocent cop. That was where I drew the line, and it was a sharp one, an obvious one. But who would believe me? Who could I even tell without putting myself in the crosshairs of whatever criminal empire Carlo was clearly a part of? My breath came in short, panicked gasps as the voices finally moved away, leaving me alone with the terrible knowledge that unless I did something, a man would die.
Somehow, some way, I was going to have to find the courage to stop it.
TWO
EAMON
To his credit, Charles didn’t panic when he heard what Carlo had planned. He also didn’t react impulsively and storm off to someone—anyone—to share what he’d overheard. No, he stayed hidden until Carlo and Chan—Carlo’s right-hand man was nicknamed Chan because he resembled Jackie Chan—had walked away. And even then, he stayed hidden for another few minutes, though that might also have been because it took that long for his heart rate to come down and his knees to stop shaking. I could see that even on the surveillance cameras I was watching him through.
Poor lad.
But like I said, credit to him because he’d passed my first test. Not that I didn’t protect stupid people. Trust me, I wished that were the case. Michael, my previous boss, had sicced me on the utterly moronic and-or incompetent on more than one occasion, like people who thought it was a grand idea to pet buffaloes, who decided that walking alone through dark alleys while flashing expensive jewelry wasperfectly safe, or my personal favorite, the eejit who thought he could outrun an angry mama bear.
I’d never been able to figure out if the assignment of these disasters-waiting-to-happen had been punishment on their part for some transgression of mine, or if it was sheer coincidence that I kept getting landed with Darwin Award candidates. I suspected the first, especially after that incident with the man who tried to take a selfie while hanging off the edge of the Empire State Building. Michael definitely had a sense of humor, and apparently, it was at my expense.
Anyway, now that everything had been set in motion and Charles’s life would indeed be in danger, it was time for me to make my grand entrance into his life. Gabriel, who was Michael’s boss and reported directly to El, gave us a lot of leeway in how we did our jobs. Over the years, I’d learned to keep it simple. Mainly because I couldn’t be bothered to learn all the ins and outs of whatever role I had to take. Too much effort, man.
Usually, the easiest way was to pick a profession or role that would allow me to stay close to my protectee. Since Charles couldn’t know I was, you know, angelic, I only had one viable option. Our powers as angels were limited in our human forms, but one thing we could do was create a make-believe, a sort of glamour, if you will. It allowed us to take on a persona, and no one would be the wiser.
In this case, a cop.
So when Charles reached out to the NYPD—and credit to him for having the sense to skip past the local gobshites who fancied themselves real cops in his wee town—I was there to take the call and set up the meeting.
“Detective Eamon O’Rourke.” I introduced myself,offering Charles a firm but not too dominant handshake. I needed to build a rapport with him.
“Charles Garrity.” He sat gingerly across from me in the family room I had booked for our conversation.
“What can I do for you, Mr. Garrity?”
“Charles.” He bit his lip. “Charles is fine.”
“What can I do for you, Charles?”
Jesus, he was cute, even if he was abusing that plump bottom lip of his with his teeth. Blue eyes the color of the Irish Sea on a stormy day, pale skin sprinkled with freckles like someone had dusted him with cinnamon, and blond hair that held just a touch of ginger. A little button nose that crinkled when he was thinking, shoulders that spoke of honest work rather than gym posturing, and a compact body that filled out his clothes in all the right ways.
And sweet mother of god, that luscious, curvy arse that made me want to grab him by the hips and show him exactly what three hundred years of experience could do for a man. The kind of arse that was made for gripping, for?—
Right. Professional. I was supposed to be professional here.
Charles raised his chin. “I want to report a possible attempted murder.”
“A possible attempted murder? Color me fascinated. Tell me more.”
I leaned back in my chair and sipped from the godawful excuse for coffee this precinct served—and immediately regretted it. Holy Christ, that should be a crime in and of itself. I’d tasted bog water in Ireland that had more flavor than this swill. How a country that ran on caffeine could serve something this tragic was beyond me. Sure, I’d lived through centuries of questionable beverages, but this was an insult to coffee beans everywhere.
Meanwhile, Charles adorably fumbled his way through the story, but he covered the main points, and by the time he was done, he’d confirmed what I’d already seen on the surveillance footage.
“Carlo Ricotta is a crime boss,” I told him. “And your bride Gia is the oldest daughter of Renzo Mangioni. He’s old school Italian mob.”
“M-mob?” He paled. “I didn’t… Did I do anything illegal by making her wedding cake?”
“Not unless you put poison in there.”
He looked almost offended. “Of course not. That cake was a masterpiece.”
