Chapter 11 – Painful Betrayal

“You better git yer ass over there,” Jonathan informed me.  “I didn’t get the deets, but Mario was on edge and Rinaldo wasn’t sayin’ a damn thing.  I read through his email but didn’t see nothin’ there.”

“You hacked the boss’s email?”  I rolled my eyes at the phone as I slid into the back seat of the bus.  “Are you crazy?”

“What?  It ain’t hard – the password’s always ‘Luisa’ with a number after her name.  He just increments it every month.”

“Why does he do that?”

“I told him it was safer to change it every month instead of leavin’ it the same.”

Another eye roll before I hung up the phone.  I could have sworn he did that kind of shit just to prove he could get away with it.  I remembered that I hadn’t given him the Save Ferris T-shirt yet and made a mental note to toss it in my car when I got home.

It was the first really hot day of spring, and the jacket I wore to conceal my Beretta was too warm for the afternoon sun.  I rolled the sleeves up, but I was still sweaty and uncomfortable.  I wished I had driven myself for once, but I jumped off the bus and walked the three blocks to Moretti’s office.

Mario was there and Terry was just leaving.  Rinaldo was standing behind his desk, waiting for me.  He motioned for me to come in the office, and Mario stood just to one side of Rinaldo’s desk chair.  He gave me a nod, which I returned as I stood at-ease in front of them both.

Moretti didn’t waste any time.

“You want to tell me why you decided to take out a pimp on my payroll?” Rinaldo asked simply.

“No, sir,” I replied.  I wasn’t surprised by the question – I kind of assumed it was why Jonathan had told me to high-tail it over here.  The only real surprise was that it had taken a week for him to call me out on it.  I’d made two other kills for him during that time and had been glad to get back to sniping.

“You know his whole stable is all over the place now – a bunch of trained birds scattered to the winds and looking for a cage to nest in.  It’s not my favorite line of business, but now some of his property – property I had a vested interest in – is lost.”

I looked up at him carefully but couldn’t see any actual anger in his face or posture.  He wasn’t thrilled, but he wasn’t all that pissed off, either.  I hadn’t expected him to be, but I had still prepared myself for the conversation.

“My apologies,” I replied.  “You want me to pay for it?”

Rinaldo laughed, and the tension in the atmosphere died down.

“No,” he said, “I had another task in mind.  Something more along the lines you’re most comfortable with achieving.  I’ve received some troubling information that a woman has been giving information about my business to Greco’s men.  No one seems sure exactly who she is, and I’ll need you to find that out and take care it doesn’t happen again.”

“Yes, sir,” I replied.

Rinaldo handed me the picture, and I tried not to show any reaction in my face as my mind starting jumping around and doing flips in the air.

“You sure this is the target?” I asked.  I tapped the edge of the picture with my forefinger.  “This girl?”

“You think my sources are unreliable?”

“No, sir,” I replied.  “I’m just…not sure what they’d want with her.”

Rinaldo stared at me through narrowed eyes.

“Evan, do you have something to tell me?  You know this bitch?”

I was going to have to play this very carefully.

I kept my expression completely lifeless, shrugged one shoulder one time, and then looked to Rinaldo’s face as I tossed Bridgett’s picture back onto the desk.

“I’ve been fucking her,” I said simply.  “So finding her isn’t an issue.”

Rinaldo’s eyes narrowed and his eyebrows tried to meet each other in the middle of his head.

“Explain,” he said quietly.

“She’s a hooker.”

“A hooker?” he repeated.

“Yes, sir.”

His face darkened, and his jaw tightened.  He took a step over to his desk chair and sat down heavily.

“She belonged to that pimp you killed, hmm?”

“Yes, sir.”

Rinaldo leaned forward over the desk and pulled at his cuffs to straighten them.

“You better tell me everything,” he said quietly.

I didn’t like the tone of his voice, not in the slightest.  It sounded way too much like the tone he used right before he exiled me to Arizona, and I did not want that happening again.  The very thought of him being pissed off – disappointed in me – made my skin crawl.

“There isn’t much to tell you, sir,” I informed him.  “I’m one of her regular clients.  I pick her up on the street; she comes to my apartment. I fuck her, and she leaves.  That’s it.”

“Until something happens and you kill her pimp.”

“He crossed a line,” I replied steadily.

“Beat her up, huh?”

I nodded my head once.

“Is this the same girl I hear you took out on the town?”

Fuck.

“Yes, sir,” I admitted.

“Sounds like she’s more than just a hooker you fuck.”

“No, sir,” I replied.  “That is all she is.”

He eyed me meaningfully for a moment, and I couldn’t help but see it for what it was – fatherly concern for me.  I liked that he did that, even if it was annoying at the same time.  I had the feeling it was the way fathers were supposed to behave, and it made me feel strangely warm inside.  I’d seen him do the same thing with his daughter on occasion.

And with Nick, for that matter.

“We’ll see,” he finally said.  “Regardless, there’s been talk that this girl is feeding information to one of Greco’s boys about heroin shipments coming in from up north and about the Russian connection who came up dead the other day.  Information you are privy to hearing.”

My eyes met his, and I knew immediately what he was thinking.

“No,” I said definitively.  “No, sir.  I do not discuss business while I’m fucking whores.  Absolutely not.”

Our eyes remained locked together as he seemed to be deciding something – most likely my fate.  His chest rose as he took in a sharp breath and then huffed it out through his nose.

“All right, Arden,” he said.

I hated that he was back to calling me by my last name.  I glanced towards the door to make sure my face didn’t show how I felt about it.

“You find out what’s going on here,” Rinaldo said, and he tapped his finger against the surface of his desk.  “If what I’ve been told is correct…”

His voice trailed off, and I leveled my gaze at him.

“I will take care of it,” I said.

I tried to keep my voice completely steady – completely normal.  I didn’t though.  The very last syllable dropped as my throat went dry.  It was enough for him to notice.

“Getting close to a girl,” Rinaldo said, “can be a good thing.  If you were someone else – someone less complicated – the worst that can happen is you don’t work out.  You’re a complicated man, Arden, and you are in a complicated position.  Bitches make it even more complicated.”

“I’m aware, sir.”

“You’re aware,” he mocked.  “Will that change anything when someone finds out you give a shit?  What better to hold over your head than a warm cunt, huh?  You take better care not to show your affection for her.  You’ve done a shit job on that front with that pup of yours.”

His dark eyes darkened further as we stared at each other.

“You know Greco will use what he can to get at me,” Rinaldo reminded me.  “You are a good way to get at me.  One of the reasons that makes you ideally suited for your job is because you have no attachments that could be used against you to get to me.  You were always careful not to show your affection for the dog in public.  You aren’t as careful anymore.”

“I’ll remember that,” I said to him, “but that still won’t happen.”

At least my voice stayed steady this time because if I thought about it deep inside, I wouldn’t give Odin up.  Not a fucking chance.  I’d blow them all away first.

“You like this girl,” he said.

“She’s a whore,” I replied.

“And my wife used to dance on a pole in one of my clubs,” he retorted.  “Married twenty-five years now with Luisa in our lives.  You think that doesn’t concern me sometimes?”

“I know it does, sir.”

He paused significantly, and I didn’t move.

“Divided thoughts,” Rinaldo said softly.  “That will never do for you.”

I continued to look him squarely in the eye.

“I only have one loyalty,” I informed him and then nodded my head towards him.

He returned the nod but gave me a long, increasingly sad look.

“No good can come of what you’re doing, son,” he said.  “One of you will get hurt.”

I looked up at my boss and shrugged one shoulder again.  The word “son” flowed over my skin and warmed me as I answered him.

“It won’t be me.”

*****

Finding Bridgett was supposed to be fairly straightforward because she was still supposed to be in my apartment where she was when I left.  Like a typical woman, she wasn’t going to be that easy, even if she was a whore.

Aside from Odin, the apartment was empty when I got back – no note or anything.  She had been there for several days, and though she had gone out before, she usually told me first.  I tried her cell, but she didn’t pick up.  I took a deep breath, jumped in the Mazda, and cruised around looking for her but to no avail.

When I returned, she was still gone.

She wasn’t back the next day, either.  I tried to tell myself that it didn’t matter because there was a lot more I needed to figure out before I talked to her again.  If there was even the slightest possibility that someone was framing her, I had to know who it was and quickly.

Who even knew about her?

I spent the next several days wandering around town, trying to catalog all the possibilities in my head.  As sleep deprivation mounted, my thinking was a little less clear.  The main problem was a lot of people knew about her.  Just like Moretti had said, I wasn’t being as careful as I usually was.

I blamed it on the lack of decent shuteye.

I had taken her to all the best spots around the Magnificent Mile on a freaking date, and anyone could have seen us together.  Those at the 676 Restaurant and Bar certainly knew about her, as well as the people at the restaurant where we had dinner, and the saleslady at Tiffany’s.  Rinaldo knew I had been seeing someone prior to showing me the picture; he just didn’t have a name to put with the face.

“Seeing someone?”

I shook my head to clear it.

Jonathan had picked her up and brought her to my apartment when I was sick.  Just like it had been when Greco moved on Rinaldo, I had to consider him.  Terry was always a suspect for anything, as far as I was concerned, because he was a douche.

For the next several days, I continued to drive around trying to find her.  She didn’t appear to have returned to her apartment.  None of the other streetwalkers were admitting to seeing her, and she didn’t come back to my place.  She seemed to have disappeared completely.

I had to consider that it was all true, and the very thought sent me to the shooting range.  The idea was so distasteful, I pushed it out of my tired mind, missed the bull’s-eye twice, and left in a pissier mood than when I had arrived.

I just couldn’t keep myself occupied anymore.

With no better direction, I continued to consider who knew of my relationship – however that was to be defined – with Bridgett.

Pete, the security guy in the apartment lobby – he saw her come up here to the apartment all the time.  He’d been having trouble a few months ago with his wife, but I never followed up on the details.  Maybe he knew something.  Maybe he did something.

Why did I continue to assume she was being framed?

Because that made the most sense.  If someone had seen me with her, then they might think they could use her to get to me.  What easier way would they have than to plant the idea in someone’s head that she’s divulging information to Greco?

I also couldn’t fathom the alternative.

Bridgett wouldn’t betray me; I was sure of that.  She wanted to live with me and set up house, for Christ’s sakes.  She wouldn’t tell other people about my business.  I never told her about shit I was doing, so there wasn’t even anything for her to tell.

I wiped my forehead with the back of my hand.  I was getting a headache from the lack of sleep.  I hadn’t had two hours of sleep in a row for a week, maybe more.  I was starting to lose track of time a little.

I pulled out the phone logs Eddie Boy had dropped by – all paper copies instead of electronic.  I couldn’t take a risk of the information being intercepted electronically.  I was combing through Jonathan’s a bit more, and anytime I used my computer, he seemed to know about it.  I didn’t find anything interesting or unusual at all, except that he’d been calling his dad a lot.

Focusing was becoming more difficult, and I knew it was making it harder for me to figure out what the hell was going on with Bridgett and Greco, assuming there was a connection at all.  That knowledge didn’t offer me any answers, though, nor did it help me sleep.

Sleep.

“You talk in your sleep.”

“What the fuck?  I do not.”

“Not often, but you have – a couple of times.”

“What if I said something when I was sleeping?”

No.

No way.

“If I talked about Iraq, I could have said anything.”

Odin snuffed at my shoe, and I realized I had been talking out loud.  I reached down to rub the top of his head while my brain started forming a less-than-pleasant picture.

My eyes moved across the rooms in the apartment until they came to rest on my laptop, which I hadn’t even had time to use for surfing since all of this started.  I walked over to it carefully, like I was afraid of what might happen when I opened it.  As the screen refreshed, the user ID and password screen popped up with the user ID already saved.

I entered my password incorrectly.

Incorrect password!  You have reached the maximum attempts, and your account is now locked. Please contact your system administrator for assistance.

There were supposed to be three attempts.  Always three attempts with three warnings before the system would lock you out on the fourth try.  Someone had already tried, received the message, and then stopped.  Unless Odin had some opposable thumbs hidden in his shaggy fur, there was only one other person who had been in my apartment.

“Motherfucker.”

A few phone calls and a bus ride later, I was in front of Moretti.

“You found something.”

“Not exactly,” I admitted, “but there is a…a possibility.”

He looked at me and waited for me to go on.  I didn’t miss Mario slightly shift in his footing, placing his weight at an easier distribution if he needed to draw his gun.  I didn’t think it was going to be necessary, but it depended on how Moretti took my news.

Full disclosure.

“It was more than fucking with that whore,” I told him bluntly.  His expression didn’t show any surprise, but I also knew it wasn’t what he was thinking.  “She also…well, sir, she slept with me.”

Mario snickered, and I glared at him.  He raised both eyebrows back at me.

“Isn’t that the same thing?” he asked.

“I mean, she’d stay at my apartment overnight,” I clarified.  “She slept in my bed with me, lots of times.”

Moretti leaned back and folded his arms over his chest.

“What did you tell her?” Rinaldo asked coldly.

“Nothing,” I swore.  “Nothing intentionally.”

Mario shifted again.

“I just remembered something she said a while ago – something she said about me.”

“And what might that be?”

I took a deep breath.

“She said I talked in my sleep.”

Mario laughed out loud, and I considered just shooting the bastard, but that wasn’t going to help me out here.

“I haven’t confirmed anything,” I told him, “but I admit there’s a…a possibility she heard something.  I just need to know who told you she was squealing because that could help me figure all of this out.”

Rinaldo nodded his head.

“You aren’t going to like it,” he said.

It was all I needed to hear.

“Terry Kramer.”

Rinaldo’s lips tuned up in a sardonic smile.

“You believed him,” I said, trying not to sound accusatory.

“He had good information,” Rinaldo corrected.  “He knew things he shouldn’t know about.”

“I’ve caught him following me.”

“Then you do have some detective work ahead of you,” my boss agreed.  “I want whoever passed sensitive information from my organization to Greco’s dead.  As long as that is your end goal, whose head you bring me isn’t of consequence.”

“I’ll take care of it,” I promised.

Moretti leaned forward on the desk and gazed at me.  I tried to be patient, but all I really wanted to do was figure out what the hell was going on and kill whoever was trying to turn the small amount of comfort I had found upside down.

“You know what you need, Evan?” Rinaldo questioned.

I shook my head.

“A good woman, that’s what.  A woman who is actually capable of getting through that thick head of yours.”

I half smiled and blew a sharp breath out of my nose.  I blinked away thoughts of the flowing dark hair of the woman in the cabin.

“You got any suggestions, boss?”

He looked me in the face, and his expression changed as his smile faltered.  His face became a mask of worry as he motioned for me to sit in the chair opposite his desk and told Mario to wait outside.

I sat down somewhat hesitantly.  As soon as I sat, the heavy feeling of near unconsciousness shoved inside my brain and made me feel like I was going to fall over.  I was pretty sure if I closed my eyes even for a second, I’d fall over onto the floor.  The problem was I’d be awake ten minutes later – sweating and maybe even screaming.

I had to get some sleep.

“I’ll tell you something, Evan,” Rinaldo said as he leaned back in his chair and folded his hands together.  “There is something I was considering.”

“Considering, sir?”

“My daughter, Luisa.”

My muscles wanted to stiffen significantly, but I forced myself to remain still and calm.  Something wasn’t right – he wasn’t smiling or anything like he might have been if he was going to suggest I date her, but he didn’t seem angry at all like he might have thought I touched her without permission.  I couldn’t read him – not at all.

I definitely needed some sleep.  I was totally off my game.

“Your daughter, sir?”

“You know her.”

It was a statement, not a question, but I nodded anyway.

“You are only three years apart in age,” he remarked.  “She is a beautiful girl.”

Again, I nodded as I watched him closely, but he wasn’t giving me any signs to indicate where this conversation was going.  My hands went clammy, and I could feel my heart pounding in my wrists.

“I considered you for her,” he finally said.  He leaned forward and rested his elbows on the desk as his hands folded beneath his chin.  “I considered you for a long time.”

Considered – past tense.  Considered only – not offering.  I had done something wrong, but I had no idea what he was getting at.  Was it because of my fuckup last year?  I thought all had been forgiven at this point.  Did finding Ashton’s body somehow cause concerns?  Every indication in the news said the authorities were stumped.

Because I killed the fucking pimp?

It wasn’t that I wanted Luisa.  She was beautiful and obviously from a very powerful family, and that came with a whole lot of perks I found interesting, no doubt.  However, I didn’t want her any more than I wanted any other woman in my life.

Well, except maybe one.

I couldn’t think of anything to say, so I just kept the eye contact and waited.  I had to be pretty damn patient, too.

“In many ways, you are the perfect choice,” he said quietly when he finally decided I had sweated it out enough.  “I have no son – so this is all hers.”

Rinaldo waved his hand around the room, but of course he didn’t mean the office or the building – he meant all of the businesses.  I raised a brow but wasn’t stupid enough to ask about Nick at that point.  Biology aside, he wasn’t going to let the illegitimate child that far inside.  He was lenient enough with the guy as it was.

“Luisa is a strong woman like her mother, and she could take care of it, but having a man such as yourself looking after her would be a substantial bonus.  It would keep those who might believe her to be an easier target at bay.  There are also some who might feel a woman is not to be taken seriously, and I would trust you to take care of anyone who insulted her.”

“Thank you, sir.”

He went quiet for a moment.

“I trust you with my life, Evan,” he said.  “My life – the life of my daughter, the running of any of my businesses – I would trust you to be loyal to this family as much as I would anyone who shared our blood.  Yes, in many ways you would be the perfect choice for her.”

His lips tightened, and his eyes narrowed.  I felt my muscles tense a bit because I knew the answer was coming.  His focus on me was acute and palpable.

“You would never love her, though,” he said, “would you?”

I blinked a couple of times.

“What, sir?”

“You would never love my daughter,” he said again.  “Even this hooker you killed for, you don’t have any real feelings for her at all, do you?”

“I…I don’t understand.”

“If you had gone back to your apartment, found a letter from her saying she was moving out of the city, and you never saw her again, would you care?”

I didn’t even know how to answer.

“I didn’t think so,” Rinaldo said.  “That’s why you will never touch my daughter.  I hope you’ll always be there to protect her if I am unable to do so myself.”

“Of course,” I responded immediately.

“That you understand,” he commented.  “Killing to keep her safe – you know just what to do with those instructions.  But matters of the heart?  You’re lacking there, son.”

My chest tightened up, and I didn’t know what I was supposed to say.  Cold sweat had formed on the back of my neck and trickled between my shoulder blades.  The rest of my body tensed completely before I could stop it.  I tasted sand in the back of my throat, but when I tried to swallow past the sensation, I couldn’t.

“You don’t even really understand what I mean, do you?” he asked.  “You don’t let anyone in that head long enough for you to understand them or to let them understand you.”

“I have a shrink,” I heard myself say.

“I know,” Rinaldo replied.  “I know everything, Evan.  You don’t think I’d let your past not be of my utmost concern?”

“I…I never thought about it.”  I hadn’t, either, and now the sleepy feeling waned as it was replaced by feelings of stupidity.

“You endured more than most men ever will,” Rinaldo said quietly.  “You’ve had it worse than anyone you ever killed.  They died quick and easy.  You’ve been dying since they brought you home from that war.”

I forced myself to swallow hard and found I was having a hard time looking at his face.

“You are going to crack someday, aren’t you, Lieutenant?”

My eyes flashed to Rinaldo’s, and I couldn’t stop my hands from clenching into fists.  The anger boiling inside of me had nowhere to go, and I was dangerously close to letting it loose on the one man whom I didn’t want to hurt.

Had Mario been in the room, he would have noticed.  He would have seen how close I was, and he probably would have shot me.  Rinaldo only nodded slowly and sat back again.

“If there comes a time I need to put you down, I will,” he said.  “If there comes a time you want me to put you down, you let me know.  You can go now, son.”

I stood up, trying not to let my knees wobble as I did.  I turned and walked as quickly as I could out of the room, trying not to comprehend what Rinaldo Moretti had just said to me.

*****

I couldn’t think.

I could barely breathe.

Even though spring was in full force, the temperature had fallen and the wind was bone-chilling.  I dropped down on the bench inside the dog run and unhooked Odin’s leash from his collar, so he could run around and sniff at the other neighborhood dogs.  I needed to think – my head was just too jumbled up with all the recent information inside of it, but every time I tried to figure out what was happening to me, my head ached and reminded me how long it had been since I’d slept.

Well, kind of reminded me.  I’d really lost track of how long it had been.  I couldn’t focus anymore – that’s what I knew.  I jumped at fucking everything, too, just like I had in the hospital after I had been brought back from the Middle East.  It had been years since I felt that kind of paranoia, and I wasn’t even sure how to begin to cope with it.

Where did things start going wrong?

Without warning, Lia’s face came back into my head, and for once I just let it happen.

I closed my eyes and leaned back against the bench as the whole time she was with me raced through my brain.  I remembered seeing her out there on the dry, dusty road walking aimlessly towards my cabin, and I remembered thinking I might just have to shoot her.

I didn’t do it – I made her dinner instead.  Once night fell, she crawled into the little twin bed and I ended up inside of her minutes later – really inside of her.  I didn’t push for a blowjob or anal – we just had straight sex.  No condom, no barriers, no pretenses.  I came in her over and over again, and I couldn’t get enough.

Even though I had told her I’d be there when she got back, I knew it wasn’t something I could ever have.  I didn’t get the kind of promises she could offer.  I didn’t deserve them.  According to Rinaldo, I didn’t even understand that sort of shit.

I did, though.  I knew exactly what I was missing.

Why did I keep thinking about her?  I didn’t want to think about her.  I’d been spending all my time since I left the cabin in Arizona doing things to stop myself from thinking about her, and it still wasn’t working.  Whether I was sweating at the gym, researching the next target, or firing at the shooting range, she was always in my head.

Silk-soft hair running down her back, easy smile that made my heart beat faster for no reason at all, and that shy, quick blush that had my cock ready to go again at a moment’s notice.

From right behind me, the obnoxious sound of the parking garage door warning system went off and brought me out of the memory.  I scowled over my shoulder at the car that moved out of the garage and around the loop North Field Boulevard made as it circled the park.  The garage door went back down again.

What was I going to do about Bridgett?  Did she really hear things I said in my sleep and tell Greco’s men about them?  Who did she even know in his organization?  I couldn’t quite fathom how she could have hidden such things from me, but then again, I was usually completely exhausted by the time I went to pick her up.

I remembered how quickly she talked about going to work over by the warehouses and considered maybe she had been working for them the whole time.  Maybe her connection had always been there.  Maybe she contacted Terry.

I wasn’t sure.  They had both completely disappeared.

That didn’t make sense, though.  What would she have been doing on Melvin’s corner, then?  Not waiting for me – I had never even picked up a girl at that location before.  I had always gone further south and used one of the hotels you could pay for by the hour.

She was chosen because I was in a hurry, wanted to fuck her at my apartment, and because she had the roundest ass of the group.  There was no way that was a plant.  Someone had to have gotten to her after they realized I was fucking her regularly.

I was back to the list of those who knew about her and frustrated that I had been so stupid as to take her out in public where we could have been seen by anyone.  It made the list insane.

Top possibilities, then.

Melvin.

Jonathan.

Terry.

Mario.

One of the other hookers – Candy, maybe.  What did I know about her?

Michele with one “L” at the bar.

There were too many and very little else to go on.  Maybe I needed to figure out just which one of Greco’s boys was getting the information and see if that led me in the right direction.  Something had to show itself, but it wasn’t going to happen out here in the park.  The parking garage door was going to drive me over the edge before I came to any reasonable conclusions.  I grabbed Odin and headed back upstairs, knowing there was one name that came up more than anyone else’s.

Only name that really made any sense.

Terry Kramer.  His phone logs were far more interesting than Jonathan’s with several to a prepaid phone that seemed to find itself in the vicinity of my apartment pretty frequently, especially at night when a certain hooker should have been asleep in my bed.  I dug back to earlier in the year and found two calls to Bridgett’s number from the last surviving payphone in Chicago, as far as I knew, which happened to be near Terry’s place.

There was no doubt that Terry would look for an excuse to get me run out of Moretti’s organization – I was his superior in skill and position, and he knew it.  As long as I was around and the favorite, he couldn’t move up from where he was – nothing more than a two-bit thug.

Was Terry stupid enough to be working for the competition or just trying to get me out of the way?

My hands were jittery, and I was starting to feel really nauseated.  I lay myself down to try to get some sleep, but it didn’t come easily.  When it finally arrived, it brought forth some of the worst of the nightmares, and I woke sweating with a scream in my throat.

I took the dog out for a midnight walk to clear my head.  It wasn’t particularly successful, but it was probably better than nothing.  My cell phone began to ring just as Odin and I returned to the apartment.

I didn’t recognize the number, but I answered it.

“Evan?”

I froze just inside the doorway, paused for a moment and then reached down to unhook Odin’s leash.  I wanted to yell and scream, but I knew I had to at least appear calm.

“Bridgett.  You’ve been a little out of touch.”  My voice was cold.

“I need to see you,” she said quietly.  “I need to talk to you.”

“Where are you?”

“Would you meet me somewhere?”

She didn’t want to come here or have me pick her up.  She wanted to meet somewhere – somewhere else, somewhere not alone.

Could she be any more suspicious?

“Where?”

“What about that place you took me on Michigan Avenue?  The bar with the martinis and the waffles?”

“676,” I said.  “I’ll be there in ten minutes.”

I knew what she was doing – trying to get me to meet her in a public place because she had something to say she knew I wasn’t going to like hearing and she was afraid of my reaction.  The fact that she had stooped to such a level didn’t give me any kind of calming feeling.  I was as tense as I could be.

“What did she fucking do?”

I took the Audi, drove up to the valet in front of the Omni, gave the guy a fifty to just hold my car there for a minute, and headed into the lobby.  When I turned the corner to head upstairs, I saw Bridgett right by the elevator, waiting for it to arrive and carry her upstairs.

Not going to happen.

I walked over swiftly, took her by the elbow, and began to lead her back to the front of the building.  As I had hoped, she was taken off guard enough that she didn’t have time to scream or consider what was happening until I had her outside the building.

“Evan–” she started, but I shushed her.

“Not a fucking word,” I growled.  “Don’t you say anything; don’t you do anything.  Just get in the fucking car.”

I escorted her around to where the valet was holding open the door, seated her with a smile, and then quickly climbed into my side.  I drove off before anyone had a chance to even consider what had just happened.

“Evan,” Bridgett whispered from the other side of the car.

I glanced sideways at her, my jaw tight.

“Tell me,” I snapped.  “Tell me everything.  Tell me how you know Greco, and tell me what your relationship with him is.  Tell me what the fuck you think you are doing!”

The precious little grasp I had over my emotions was waning, and there didn’t seem to be anything I could do to stop it.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about!” she cried.

As I looked ahead into traffic, I could still see her press herself against the car door like she might jump out and make a run for it.  It wouldn’t work, though.  I wouldn’t let that happen.

“I came back; you were gone.”  I turned around the block and started heading down Grand, over the bridge, and towards the boss’s office.  “You want to start by explaining that?”

“I-I-I went outside,” she said.  “I just wanted to get some air, but he was there.  He said I had to go with him, and we went to an office building – he had a room there in the basement.”

“What office?”

“Just a small one,” she said quietly.  “It was brick and didn’t have any windows at all.”

Could he really have been hiding out in the basement of the boss’s main office building?  Had he been there, right under my feet the whole time I was looking for him?  Was it even who I suspected?

“Who?” I demanded.  “What’s his name?”

She didn’t answer.

“Who did you go with?” I snarled through clenched teeth.  I already knew the answer.  The little fucker had been trolling around my apartment, and he had sucked Bridgett into whatever his sick little game was to take my position in Moretti’s organization.

“Take my position in his life.”

“What?” Bridgett whispered.

“Tell me his name!”

“His name is Terry!  I didn’t know him.  He just found me!”

“And you told him what?”

“I didn’t want to tell him anything,” she said.  “I stopped talking to him a long time ago.”

The cold feeling I always associate with what it must feel like to drown coated me from my head to my feet.  My knuckles went white as my hands gripped the steering wheel, and I made a quick turn towards the boss’s office building.

“A long time ago?” I repeated.

“Yes,” she whispered back.  “He used to…to ask me about you all the time.”

“What did you tell him?” I asked in a low voice.

“Nothing,” she replied.

I didn’t believe a word of it.

We were nearing Moretti’s primary office building, and the parking lot behind it was devoid of any cars this late at night.  I pulled up to the side of the building near the door and then thought better of it.

“What are you doing?”

Ignoring Bridgett’s question, I maneuvered the car back behind the row of dumpsters on the far side of the lot instead.  I got the car mostly out of sight before turning it off.

“You have to explain,” I informed her.  “It doesn’t make any fucking sense, and you have to explain it!”

“Please, Evan, you’re scaring me!”

I looked over to my passenger and smiled.

“Maybe you ought to be scared,” I suggested.  “Get out.”

“How did you know this was the place?” she asked.

“Just get out of the car.”

Moving swiftly around the Audi, I made it to the other side before she was completely out the door.  I took her elbow again and led her across the lot and down the back stairs to the basement.  There weren’t many rooms down there, and Bridgett showed me which one she had been staying in.

I’d been in it before once or twice, though it didn’t serve any specific purpose.  There was a time I recalled some goods being stored there very briefly before they were moved over to the docks by the river for shipment, but that was it.

Now there was a twin sized bed in the room, a small table, and a suitcase with women’s clothes in it.  The whole scene reminded me of Arizona, which made my already pissed-off self angrier.

There was no one there.

“Damnit.”  I turned back to Bridgett.

“How do you know him?” I interrogated.

“Who?”

My hand reached back into my jeans and wrapped around the handle of my Beretta.  I pulled my arm back around and pushed it against her shoulder as her face twisted into terror.

“Do not,” I said, “play any fucking games with me.  Tell me how you know Terry Kramer before I put a hole in your head.”

“I didn’t know what he wanted!” she said.  “He kept following me and telling me he needed to talk to me.  He said I couldn’t tell you about it, or we’d both end up dead.  He said if I just told him what you told me, then…then…”

“Then what?” I snarled.  “Did he pay you?”

“No!”

“Did you fuck him?”  The very idea that Terry, the motherfucking piss-ant wannabe, had his cock in her made me livid.

She didn’t answer, which was answer enough.  I leaned forward and slammed my hand against the wall right next to her head.

“Tell me why you did it!” I screamed.  “What did you tell him, and why did you do it?”

“He said…he said he’d kill you if I didn’t cooperate!” she finally cried.

“You…you thought he was a threat to me?”  What had been a cold snarl escalated into a scream.  “That little fuck was somehow a danger to me?  Me?”

“He…he….he said–” Her words were too choked to be understandable.  “I-I-I thought–”

“I don’t give a fuck what he said!” I screamed back in her face.  “There is nothing – nothing – he could have said that would ever, ever make you…make you…”

I couldn’t even say the words.

Like some kind of primordial ooze making its way out of the ocean, Terry chose that moment to walk into the dimly lit room.  There was no consideration to my actions.  No thought behind them – just movement and quick, practiced muscle memory.

My arm rose.

My gun aimed at his face.

I pulled the trigger.

Bridgett stifled her scream as Terry’s face exploded in blood and his body hit the floor.

“You see how big a fucking threat he is?” I growled as I turned back to her.

My head was spinning.  The pit of my stomach felt heavy, and the back of my throat tasted sour.  I felt like I was trapped in some never-ending fog, and I couldn’t see in which direction I should go.  There was no end or beginning in sight and no answers in any direction.

“You never really said anything to me.”  Bridgett’s voice was barely audible.  “I didn’t think…I didn’t think what I said to him was a big deal, and he always seemed happy enough with what I had to leave you alone…leave us alone.”

The drowning feeling came over me again, and my eyes burned as I pointed the business end of the Beretta towards Bridgett.

“You fucking betrayed me,” I said.

“No, no!” she cried as she shook her head violently. “Evan – no!  I didn’t; I swear!  I never meant it like that!”

“But that’s what it was,” I said.  “You were right there in my bed listening to shit I said when I was asleep.  Then you took what you thought he’d find interesting, and you told him about it.”

“I didn’t think any of it was important,” she whispered through her tears.  “I thought if he kept hearing all this stuff that didn’t matter, he’d leave me alone – leave us alone!”

“Us?” I laughed, but there was nothing friendly or amusing about the sound.  I tilted my arm up and tapped the side of my head with the barrel of the weapon.  “You were delusional from the beginning, weren’t you?  Was this your way of getting closer, huh?  Be a part of the business, but on the wrong side?”

“No…Evan, I swear!”

“Yeah, your promises aren’t holding any weight at the moment.”  My head throbbed along with my heart, and nausea crept up from my stomach to the back of my throat.  “What kind of stuff did I say?”

“Nothing important,” she said quietly, her eyes refusing to meet with mine.

“Sure.”  I flavored the word with enough sarcasm to drown a horse.  “That’s why he kept coming back for more.  That’s why you’re shacked up with him now.”

I could tell by the way her eyes widened that she knew exactly what I meant.  I nodded, knowing that my deductive skills were still in full effect – just like they always were.  My chest tightened, and the nasty taste in the back of my mouth worsened.  My temples throbbed, and for a moment I couldn’t see anything around me.

“Evan, please…”  Her voice trailed off.

My feet stumbled slightly; I regained my balance, and faced her fully.

“Please what?” I yelled.  My arm rose up, and the Beretta in my hand found its barrel pointed in her direction again.  “What exactly do you want?  More information?”

“No!  I don’t want anything, please – just let me go!”

“Let me go!  Please, just let me go!”

“Not until you tell us what we want to know!”

“There weren’t any more units!  Ours was the only one!”

“We found two others near you, so I know you lie.”

A blow to my head rattles in my skull.

“I wasn’t privy to…to any…information…”

“You’re an officer!”

I grunt as a sack full of hard, lumpy objects makes contact with my stomach again.  It moves around to my kidneys with another blow, and then the lower half of my chest, knocking the wind from me and causing me to vomit onto the sand…

“Let you go,” I said, my voice dropping to a near whisper.  “Yeah, that’s what I’m going to do.”

The noise in the small room was deafening.

I dropped to my knees, and the cold cement floor sent a shockwave through my body as she slumped to the floor against the wall.  I looked to her face and the neat hole in the center of her forehead, willing the impossible.

“Fuck…no…”

My mouth and throat felt as though they were filled with sand, and I coughed to try to rid myself of it.  I could feel it – taste it – but when I touched my fingers to my tongue, there was nothing there.  I couldn’t swallow, and for a moment I couldn’t breathe, either.

“What the fuck did you do?”

I coughed again, and the coughing turned into choking.  Choking sobs that were completely uncontrollable filled the air as my Beretta dropped to the floor with a clang.  I scrambled for it quickly, cradling it against my body.

“Why did you do it?” I screamed at the slumped figure in front of me.  “Why did you listen to him?  Why?”

There was no answer.

There would never be an answer.

Like so many other questions, I’d never know the real answer.

My fingers reached out and touched hers, as if somehow that would make any difference.  It didn’t, and though they were still warm, I knew they would be cold soon enough.

“I told you it was going to end this way,” I whispered.  “Why didn’t you listen to me?”

Too many whys.

I dropped back on my ass, wrapped my arms around my knees, and began to rock back and forth.  I didn’t understand what was happening inside me, and I didn’t like it.  My thoughts couldn’t seem to stay in one place, and instead, they bounced around from one memory to another.

The first time I saw her on the street corner.

The feel of her fingers across my chest in the shower.

The scent of her skin.

Holding her against me as we slept.

Would I ever sleep again?

There was just no way I was going to survive this.