Page 118

Nico nods.

Teeny is stunned silent.

“I’ve been CIA the whole time, Teeny. But Dad? He took himself down,” Nico starts to explain, but he’s cut off by Mike.

“Nico. What the fuck?”

“Don’t, Mike. Don’t even. I played nice. I played by your rules. I let you investigate my sister, even though I fucking knew she was innocent. But right now? I’m not keeping shit from her. I don’t give a shit. She deserves to hear the truth.”

For once, I don’t hate Nico at all. For once, we’re on the same fucking page. For once, Mike doesn’t say anything else.

“Teeny, this is Dad’s mess,” Nico says. “This is his doing. Everything, and I mean, everything he built has been built on other people’s blood. He has never once given a fuck about anyone else but himself and his fucking need for greed and power. Not me. And certainly not you.”

“I . . . I . . .” A sob bubbles up from Teeny’s throat. She puts her face in her hands while she shakes her head back and forth several times.

I move toward her, the vision of her pain too much for my heart to bear, but when I get just a foot away, her head jerks up and her eyes meet mine.

“And what about you?” she yells, tears streaming down her cheeks in her ire at me. “How do you . . . how do you know who my family is? What are you even doing here? I thought you were an ex-cop? You said you got fired. You said you were handymanning. Fixing things. This doesn’t look like handyman shit, Shane!”

I crush my lips together, barely opening them to speak. “Metro PD on special assignment.” Every word feels mined from mud.

“So, you’re still a cop?” Her eyebrows pull together. “Not an ex-cop?”

“I was, uh . . . undercover. The whole time. The ex-cop bit was . . . my cover.”

“But . . . but . . . why were you in my condo building? Why were you . . .” She pauses, and her eyes turn big and surprised. “Oh my God . . .” She puts a hand to her mouth. “Us meeting wasn’t coincidence, was it? You were supposed to meet me, weren’t you?” Her eyes shine with moisture. “I was just part of your assignment, wasn’t I?”

Fuck. This was the messy part Dom was talking about.

“It’s more complicated than that, Teeny, I swear,” I clarify, guilt and shame and sadness churning in my stomach. “My job was to clear you of involvement. But the rest of it was not my job. Not even close.”

Tears pool in the corners of her eyes, and I scrub a hand down my face, desperate to touch her, hug her, somehow make any of this better than it is. “I can’t believe this.” Disappointment and heartbreak are ripe in every word. “It was all a fucking lie. Everything.”

“No, it wasn’t. It was—”

“Shut up,” she says through fresh tears. “Just shut up.”

“I’m sorry, Teeny. Truly. I’m—”

“Don’t call me that! Don’t you dare pretend you’re some savior. Some knight, saving me from—”

A flash of light glints in the distance behind Valentina, pulling my attention from her face just in time to see the shimmer that only comes from a barrel of the gun.

And whoever he is, he isn’t running. He’s hunting.

I don’t think, I don’t hesitate. I move.

“Shooter!”

With two steps and a dive, I throw my body over hers just as the gun goes off, shoving her toward the floor and making my body as wide as possible. The bullet hits me in my left side, the piercing pain burning white, searing hot for a split second before it’s nothing.

I roll to my back on the ground, the chaos of footsteps around me echoing in my ears as I pull my bloody hand away from my side.

Fuck. I’ve been shot.

“Nooo! Shane!” Teeny screams.

And then everything goes dark.