hina'
llion dollars for smelled like s
e building's doorman had given me an odd lookwasn't I supposed to be at my wedding?*-
r was u
leather couch was shoved crooked against the wall. Someone had knocked over the floor lamp I'd found at tha
ting charts, menu tastings, flower arrangements. Ripped apart. Pages scatte
ike a trophy. She was wearing my diamond tennis bracelet-the one I'd le
oked up when
lla s
ic di
round her waist, possessive and casual. "Thought you'd be at the venu
going to be
me eyebrow I'd kissed a hund
on the screen-Dominic on his knee, ring ex
t for a second. Then it was bac
ted his head, studying me the way you'd study a broken appliance-mildly inconvenienced, already mentall
ne dropping into still water. Ripples o
y of it
ad that thing where you'd laugh at everything I said like I was the funniest guy in the room." He shrugged. "Then you got comfortable. Started talking about flower a
d them flat against my thighs,
y thousand I put into your first shipment. The ten I gav
ic la
the belly, the laugh of a man who'd ju
to the wall safe, spun the dial with practiced
door sw
epped
ghting. Where the velvet box of my grandmother's jewelry should have been. Where the deed to my hal
t gentle. The voice he used when he was
ughter. Marco's laugh was the loudest. I'd picked Marco up from the emerge
cheap plastic. At the man I'd
't known was still alive-gave a smal
ed to
e edge of the gl
rystalline explosion that silenced the laughter. I went down hard,
omewhere behind my eyes. Blood welled between my fingers-so much blood, impo
kind of quiet that mean
palm. At the blood running down my wrist, soaki
ed at
in his jaw, a brief crack in the mask. Surprise, maybe. Or the firs
" His voice was flat. Clinical.
ingertips. I looked at him-really looked, the way you look at a door you're w
steadier than I'd expected. "U
lked
to let me pass. Down the elevator. Through the lobby. Out into the freezing night where the wind cut through my sweater and th
was waiting
d when they saw my hand-years of training cracking fo
er one's voice was tig
out of
leather cold against my skin, and the door closed
tinted window. The SUV accelera
't loo
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