“So he set you and Minka up to do it?” I sit tall on the couch, shuffling my ass back and setting my elbows on my knees, sandwiching Minka’s feet between my legs and torso, though I’m careful not to crush them. “Heknewwhere the girls were, and heallowedthem to be discovered. So, what then?”
“He wanted me and Mayet to do this for him, but without saying the words. Even with the autopsy, it didn’t matter how the results came back. It was all a show. He knew who killed Agosti. He orchestrated it.”
“Yet, you so freely admit to being used,” I sneer. “I thought you were the smartest person in the room, Solomon? I thought you were always ten steps ahead of everyone else.”
She sighs. “Well, I suppose life experience has gotta count for something, and Cordoza’s seventy-odd years of being the biggest motherfucker in New York bought him a step or two.Now I’m scrambling, trying to figure out his end goal. Aubree agrees, so?—”
“How do you know?”
“I listen to everything, remember? She’s got those foo-foo bullshit brain powers, right? I don’t know that I’m a complete believer, but everyone else is, and everyone else says she knows what’s up. She thinks Cordoza’s playing with everyone, too.”
“Jesus.” I need to sleep. I need to fight. I need to get up and pull my fucking hair out, and maybe, if I’m lucky, find Cordoza’s secret diary tucked away somewhere nearby. He might’ve written his plans in black and white. “You’re saying some big shit, Soph. This is next level,the city’s going to war, my whole fucking family will probably die if you’re wrongshit. What the hell do you think I can do about this?”
She slumps in her chair. Wherever she is, whatever she’s doing, she sits back with an unhappy grunt. “I don’t know. Like you said, this is big, and if I’m right, he already got one over on me. I’m in no position to storm the castle until I know more. But all that aside, I’m saying you were wrong for sending Minka away on Tuesday. This is the week she needs you most, but instead of having her back, you split.”
“I splitbecauseCordoza fucking told me to! He said she was at risk, and word of what she’d done was making the city unstable. That I had to create space to spare her from retaliation, since, in this instance, she’s being considered a Malone acting against another family, not an independent person who killed a man. I’m not Aubree, so I don’t get tofeelpeople’s feelings, and I’m not you, so I can’t just listen in on private conversations. I’m running with theonlyinformation I have, and in my spare time, I’m hunting these?—”
Stunned by my own stupidity, I snap my lips closed and stop breathing. Stop moving. I sure as fuck stop speaking, and if I could, I would choose this moment to stop existing.
“Hunting these, what?” She’s a tomcat, and I’m the foolish mouse trapped in a tight corner. “Huntingwhat, Detective?”
“Nothing.”
“MihalisSalonen,” she breathes. “HildebrandDirkse. LindonTsiklauri. ZikmundMelvin. Even Poul Abate. Fuck, you knew she was looking for them, so you swept them up and took them out of play.”
“I’m not willing to comment on?—”
“Am I speaking to Detective Malone right now? Or Archer Malone, the son of a mobster?”
“Soph—”
“Did you put them on planes and whisk them into protective custody, saving them from a painful—and beautiful—death by the vigilante? Or did you give them the ol’ Malone one-two? One swipe of your blade to their lungs makes it so they can’t run. Another swipe to the eyes makes it so they can’t see.”
Why does she sound impressed by the latter? And why the fuck do I let her hang out with the one woman on the planet I want to keep safe?
“You killed them,” she decides, smug in her conclusion. “Alive and in custody means they can talk, and cop or not, you’re your father’s son. You know better than to allow such a silly loose thread to blow in the breeze. I gotta say, Detective. I’m impressed.”
“Don’t be,” I bite out. “None of this would be necessary if not for yo?—”
“You know that’s a lie.” She hums in the back of her throat,entirely too pleased with the direction of our conversation. “The vigilante existedlongbefore Minka and I were on a first-name basis. I didn’t bring this war to her, Detective. I just happened to meet her on the front line. Turns out we share the same thirst for a pedophile’s painful demise.”
“Sophia—”
“She’s gonna do whatever she wants to do, no matter our opinion on the subject. But I make hunting safer for her. I make it so she’s got a soldier,or several soldiers,watching every step she takes. I caution you to find some respect when you speak to me, Detective. I’m an ally you’ll want to keep.”
“I can tell you to go fuck a cactus, and you still wouldn’t pull your troops away. I can say whatever the fuck I want. You’ll watch her back, regardless.”
“True.” She exhales a soft, whimsical sigh. “She’s my sister now, too, and you already know what I do for my family. But that doesn’t mean I can’t mess with you on the side.”
I narrow my eyes and stare straight ahead at the end of the movie, as the credits roll onto the screen and music flows with each line of text. “Mess with me how?”
“It’s department policy within the Copeland City P.D. to have two years experience as an officer before you’re eligible for promotion, right?”
“I did my two years in uniform. I didmorethan two years before I stepped up.”
“Yeah, but it sure would be a shame if it turns out your promotion was a clerical error,” she snickers. “Computers are notoriouslybuggy, and if, hypothetically, it turned out your file only has eighteen months of documented time in uniform, it would be Lieutenant Fabian’s duty to pop you back down to thestreet, wouldn’t it? Gotta get those hours up, champ. Make sure all the i’s are dotted and the t’s are crossed.”
I slide my tongue along the front of my teeth, anything to trap my vicious words deep inside my throat. When that doesn’t help, I grab my hair and pull. I pull so fucking hard, I risk scalping myself.
