I stopped at Gino’s and picked up her favorite—sausage, double olive, extra cheese—and gave myself a pep talk on the way home.

You’re going to eat some pizza.

You’re going to watch some TV.

You’re going to be her friend.

You’re going to let her go.

The parking lot is packed so I park down the street and make my way back to Gilroy’s, weaving in between groups of drunk college kids heading in and blue-collar types, heading out. Unlocking the side door, I use the mass of bodies squeezed around the bar as camouflage as I slip in and up the stairs. At the top of the stairs, I balance the pizza box in one hand to open the door.

It’s locked. Skin tightens at the back of my neck.

She never locks the door.

Digging my keys out of my pocket, I unlock the door. Push it open. It stops short, bouncing hard against the security chain. I can see the couch and chair in the wedge of open space. “Cari?”

Behind the door, in a space I can’t see, I hear a commotion. Harsh breathing. The rumble of a man’s voice and my gut clenches.

I told you yesterday, bitch—I’m going to kill you.

Dropping the pizza box, I take a step back and lift my foot, planting it hard against the door, snapping the chain like it was made of paper. The door flies open. Wood explodes across my field of vision.

James is on top of Cari, straddling her chest, hands locked around her throat while hers are wailing and clawing at his face and arms. Her face and neck are soaked in blood.

That’s the last thing I remember.

“You can’t remember anything after that?” The cop standing over me asks, skeptical glare aimed at my swollen, bloody knuckles. The blood stains on my shirt. The trail of it splattered against the stairs behind me.

I shake my head because I’m tired of repeating myself.

The cop sighs. “Alright,” he says scratching his head before looking at me. “Take me through—”

“Is he under arrest?” Conner calls out from behind the bar. The place is deserted, the crowd cleared out by the police and EMS hours ago.

The cop standing over me aims a look at Con and shakes his head. “No.”

“Then take my client’s complaint, the forty-three witness statements you gathered—all of which attest to the fact that my client was acting in defense of the victim, the surveillance footage I gave you—” Con flashes his megawatt smile. “and get the fuck outta here.”

The cop narrows his gaze at Con for a second before reaching into the shirt pocket of his uniform. “If you remember anything, give me a call.” He flips the card at me and stalks off, stopping next to his partner who is questioning Cari on the other side of the pool table. She’s wearing a BPD t-shirt, Tess’s arm wrapped around her shoulders. The cops took her shirt as evidence. Took pictures of her. The busted door. The blood spatter in the stairwell behind me.

They talk for a minute or two, throwing me side-eye. They think I’m lying about remembering what happened after I found Templeton on top of Cari. Not that they can do fuck all about it.

Finally, one of them hands Cari a card. And then they leave.

As soon as they’re gone, Declan comes out of the office, Tess’s cat winding around and between his legs with every step he took. Interactions with BPD always go smoother if Dec’s not around.

“You alright, man?”

I look up and over to see Conner standing next to where I’m sitting, glass in one hand, bottle in the other.

I take the glass and slam its contents in one gulp. “I’d feel better if I’d killed him.”

I know that much. When they took James out of here on a stretcher, he’d been breathing. Broken and bloody. But alive.

Con grins at me, levering the bottle in his hand over my glass to give me another pour. “Nobody’s perfect,” he says before lifting the bottle to his mouth. “Not even you, Cap’n.”

I laugh, a short burst of ugly sound that burns my throat. “Suspenders?” I give him a look, starting at his shiny wingtips and ending it on his loosely knotted tie, the cuffs of his dress shirt rolled up to his elbows, his tattoos at total odds with the white-collar look he’s got going.

“Oh, shit. I forgot.,” he says, jerking the knot in the tie all the way loose. “Huddle up, team. Dec—bring some glasses.” He looks at Tess. “Grab my jacket, Tessie? I’ll pay you in sweet, sweet lovin’.”

Tess makes a gagging noise as she lifts his jacket from the hook near his booth. “You’ll pay me in pancakes, perv.”

As soon as we’re all gathered around the foot of the stairs, Con hands the bottle of whiskey to Tess. “Don’t be stingy,” he says, while she pours and Declan hands out glasses.

“So, surprise, surprise—I did not have the security footage Jackson Howard promised me by the end of the day, yesterday.” Digging a pair of small manila envelopes from the breast pocket of his suit jacket, Con holds them out. One for me. One for Cari. “What I did have was a request for a private meeting at his office—don’t open that yet,” he says, wagging a finger in Cari’s face when she slips a finger under the flap. “When I get there, Howard tells me that he’s so very sorry but that he can’t turn over the security footage because there was a malfunction with the cameras on Templeton’s floor—”

“That son of a bitch,” Tess belts out, tiny fists balled up into fists. “I’m gonna find that asshole and flay his balls with a —”

Before she can finish, Con leans over and taps the tip of her nose with his finger. “Has anyone ever told you how completely adorable you are when you talk about torturing corporate scum?”

“Get on with it,” Declan grumbles. At the sound of his voice, Shad yowls at Declan’s feet, and he bends over to pick her up. The cat stops yowling and starts purring, rubbing her face against Dec’s stubbled chin while he coos at her. “There’s my girl... did she miss me?”

Tess glares at the pair of them like she’s been betrayed. “Put my cat down.”

“Make me,” Declan says without sparing her so much as a glance, the biggest six-year-old I’ve ever seen.

Tess makes a sound like she’s being strangled and takes a step toward him. Con catches her by hooking his fingers into the waistband of her jeans, hauling her back. “Anyway.” Con rolls his eyes. “He can’t give me the footage.” He smiles. “But I tell him, that’s okay because as a precaution, I took the liberty of remotely installing a motion activated camera on Templeton’s computer that would record sixty-seconds of video every time the computer was accessed, before the video’s release.”

Reaching into his breast pocket, Conner pulls out a stack of still-frame photographs. “You will never guess who I caught using James’s computer. At 3:57 AM, yesterday morning—” He holds the pictures out of reach. “Okay, you’ll probably guess.”

I grab the pictures out of his hand. They’re all of Sara.

I knew she did it, she all but admitted it, but it still sucks to see the proof right in front of me. I pass the photos to Cari, and she takes them.

“You obtained these illegally,” she says. Her voice is scratchy. Throat tender from where James throttled her. Hearing it makes me wish I’d killed him. “They're inadmissible.”

“Well, well, well—look who watches CourTV.” Con took the pictures from her to flip through them, admiring his handy work. “But you’re right. That’s why I didn’t use them to file a lawsuit. I used them to settle one.”

“What did you do?” Declan says, wary.

Con divides a grin between the four of us. “I blackmailed his ass.”

Beside him, Tess claps her hands like a kid on Christmas morning. “I change my mind—adulting is fun.”

“You what?” I feel my jaw unhinge.

“I. Black. Mailed. Him.” Con says it slowly. “Which brings me to your door prizes.” He motions toward the envelope in my hand. “Open it.”

I rip my envelope open and pull out the slip of paper tucked inside.

No. Not a slip of paper. A check.

“Oh, my god.” Beside me, Cari stares at the check in her hand, the other pressed against her gaping mouth. “Does this say one million dollars?”

“It sure the fuck does.” Conner beams, like extorting one of the most powerful men in Boston for two million dollars is his crowning achievement. “And don’t get your panties in a twist,” he says, looking at his brother. “It’s all legal-ish. Once I showed him my evidence and explained how WikiLeaks works, he was more than willing to settle out of court.”

Declan laughs. “You sneaky little shit,” he says, almost in awe.

“Well,” Con’s smile sharpens slightly, gaze darting toward Tess before refocusing on his brother. “Don’t be too impressed—I got the peeping tom idea from you.”