Page 93 of Velvet Vaughn

“You don’t understand what he was about to do.” The words cracked around the edges. The bluster was gone. “Vic was going to blow the whole thing up. Everything we’d built. Years of work, and he was going to walk into some reporter’s office and hand it over because his conscience wouldn’t let him leave it alone.”

“So you killed him.” Leo’s voice had gone cold.

“I didn’t have a choice.” Brad rubbed both hands over his face, missed one cheek, and gave up. “You think I wanted to? We paid him. He took the money. That was supposed to be the end of it.”

“Paid him for what?” Anja asked.

“To stop digging.” His breathing turned ragged, the words beginning to outrun whatever judgment the whiskey had left him. “Some pitcher’s mother went crying to him about a gambling debt that disappeared. Vic started asking questions, following money he had no business pursuing. We offered him enough to forget what he found, and he took it.”

“But he didn’t stop,” Leo said.

“No.” Brad gave a broken laugh. “Apparently, taking the money gave him a guilty conscience. He couldn’t sleep. Couldn’t live with himself. Whatever. So instead of enjoying the payday and leaving well enough alone, he kept digging.”

“And found the rest of it,” Anja finished.

“Enough of it.” Brad stared at his hands. His eyes had gone glassy and unfocused, the whiskey and the confession loosening things he clearly never intended to say out loud. “The whole thing runs on nobody talking. Athletes throw a game here, blow a call there, and money moves through channels nobody can trace. That’s how it was supposed to work. Everybody gets rich, and nobody gets hurt. That was the deal. That was always the deal.”

“Vic wasn’t part of your deal,” Leo bit out.

“He took the money.”

“To stop investigating you.”

“Same difference.”

“No,” Leo snapped. “It sure as hell isn’t.”

Brad flinched.

“How did Vic end up in Kansas City?” Anja asked.

Brad clamped his lips shut.

“Brad?”

“We gave him something he couldn’t resist.” He swallowed. “A whistleblower. Somebody claiming to have proof of the entire operation and willing to turn it over.”

Leo stared at him. “There was no whistleblower.”

Brad shook his head.

“The hotel room was a setup.”

“I was supposed to get whatever he had.” Brad sighed. “Find out how much he knew, where he put it, and who else he’d talked to. I drugged his drink to keep things calm. It wasn’t supposed to be that much.” Brad looked down again. “I just needed him out long enough to search the room, find the burner phone we contacted him with, and figure out what he’d done with everything.”

“You killed him,” Leo repeated.

“I made him shut up.” Brad swallowed. “Permanently, I guess.” His face crumpled for half a second before he dragged it back under control. “That part wasn’t the plan.”

Leo narrowed his eyes. “And then you made it look like suicide.”

Brad didn’t respond. He didn’t need to.

“And Danica?” Anja’s eyes found his in the mirror. “What was your plan for her?”

Brad flinched at the name. “She’s a blabbermouth. She asked questions she had no business asking, about things she shouldn’t have known enough to ask about in the first place.” He scowled toward the windshield. “I told her to shut up. She was fine with everything for years, and then suddenly she gets all chatty at a wake of all places and starts asking your girlfriend about break-ins.” His eyes cut to Anja. “That’s on you, you know. If you hadn’t been standing there, she’d still be alive.”

“Don’t,” Leo growled.