I paused it and narrowed my eyes at George. “What? What the?—”
“Go on,” he said, urging me to let the recording roll.
“You shut the fuck up with those lies,” George warned, his voice coming in from the background on the recording.
“It ain’t lies,” one replied. “Sergei’s the one who killed that bitch’s husband. He arranged the hit down on that block and some civilians were too close for their own good. Like over a year ago now.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” George demanded.
“Sergei’s the dumb fucker who set up that sting. He’s the one who came into that warehouse where the Cartel was setting up to package drugs. And he’s the reason some civilians outside the building were killed. That woman’s husband, Fitz something, was one of them that got caught in the crossfire.”
Blood drained from my face. It sank, pooling in my stomach as I replayed the recording again and listened to the Popovs taunting about this fact I hadn’t been aware of.
I knew exactly what sting they were talking about. I had been in charge of setting it up. Mikhail wanted to send a message to the Cartel to quit messing with our drug business. It was always them, the Cartel wanting to oust us or the Giovannis trying to compete with us.
I had set up that sting near the Cartel’s location, and I recalled how a few civilians had been outside the building when the gunfire erupted.
Fitz?
That was the name of Natalie’s dead husband.
“How did you not know…” I shook my head at George, the one who was supposed to search for intel about her.
“It was there.” He cringed. “In the first reports I sent you, the name was there. It’s been so long since that incident happened that the surname didn’t ring a bell.”
The urge to punch something—or someone—filled me until I was practically vibrating with anger.
He was right. That deadly night was from a long time ago, long enough ago that the name wouldn’t have stood out to me.
“I didn’t realize. And I knew her spouse had been killed, but there was so little intel to find about him. It didn’t make me think back far enough that…” George shook his head.
I pressed my lips together and exhaled a hard breath through my nose. Ramifications of what this could mean rocked through me.
I had been in charge of the violence that killed Natalie’s husband.
It was my fault that those guns had been fired. I’d arranged that sting and I had been a participant, if not the perpetrator, of those innocent lives that were taken. My aim was the Cartel. My bullets were meant for my enemies, never the random strangers who shared this city with us.
Things happened. Violent skirmishes were how these things could ruin others.
Fitz was one of them.
I shook my head slowly and stared at my right-hand man. George didn’t react. He was too trained and hardened to wince in sympathy or ask me any stupid questions. He watched and waited, giving me the time and space to let this sink in.
I was responsible for the death of Natalie’s husband. Indirectly, I’d played a part in why she was an overwhelmed and scrappy bartender who feared men and couldn’t fully get her footing in the world as a widowed single mother.
Me.
No one else.
Only me.
I’m at fault.
“She can’t know,” I muttered, unsure whether I was telling myself or George.
As he stared me down with something like worry, I dreaded the day that this truth could come to the surface and scare Natalie away from ever wanting me in her life again.
20
