“And then what? You’ll find a way to get justice?”
I glare at him, feeling some of my sorrow turn to anger, diamond-sharp like his. “Goddamn right I will.” I rip my wrist away from his grip. “I should’ve told you and been totally clear from the start and for that I’m sorry, but your brother knows who killed her, I’m sure of it. That’s all I want to know, the name of the guy that murdered my cousin.”
He looks at me with a sneer. “Do you know anything about him?”
“All I know is she started seeing him a few weeks before she was found with bruises all over her throat like someone tied a rope around her neck and strangled her to death. They found her body on the beach, tossed there like trash, and sent her home to West Virginia to be buried. She was so happy in the days before she died, Calvino, she kept talking about her new guy, her new guy, he’s a little dangerous but he’s a lot of fun, that’s how she described him. Now she’s fucking dead, and I want to know what happened. I need to know.”
He stares at me and says nothing. The car pulls up to the apartment building and Calvino sits, his body tense, and I can practically feel what he’s thinking, he’s wondering if he should cut his losses and kill me now, but Riley’s dead already so what’s it matter if I go join her in whatever’s after this? She went first, so I won’t be afraid. I’ll be brave and get revenge, or I’ll die in the process.
“If you ever lie to me again or hold something back, all of this is over. I will tell Vince what you did to him and I will personally bury your corpse in the desert. Do you hear me, Grace?”
He doesn’t look at me as he says it, almost as if he can’t bring himself to meet my gaze.
“I hear you, Calvino.”
“Good.” He gets out of the car and walks away.
After a moment, I follow and keep distance between us. I rub my wrist where he grabbed it and still taste him on my lips, and I wonder how we’ll come back from this, if there will ever be that same spark I felt in the car again, but I don’t care. It’s not about that and never was.
I wipe the tears from my face.
Riley’s dead, and I want revenge, and that’s all that matters.
Chapter 11
Calvino
Grace lied to me.
Her admission in the car after that double date hit me hard in two different ways: first, I hated that she misled me or at least didn’t tell me the whole truth. If I’m going to do this with her, I need her to be utterly honest, even more honest than she is with her fucking doctor—things might get dangerous, and I don’t know how we can get through if I don’t believe she’ll do the right thing. I should’ve realized this sooner—she’d been vague about her cousin from the start—but I wanted to take her at her word. I wanted to establish trust.
But second, and worse than that, I hate that I feel this so deeply. I hate that I care way beyond a simple partnership, way beyond a basic alliance and a mutual pact. I care because it’s her and I want her more than I should. It’s stupid and dangerous and I never let my emotions get mixed up in business, but here I am, raging against my little thief because I feel like she personally betrayed me, even if I understand this is just part of the game.
Over the next few days, I work her ragged. She goes into the club in the morning and stays most of the night, pulling double shifts, and if she wants to complain, she smartly keeps her mouth shut. I lurk around, watching her from afar, hating her so much I can barely keep my stomach from emptying all over the bar.
She lied to me.
“She didn’t exactly lie to you.” Diego watches me with a frown as I finish my second whiskey of the night four days after the dinner with Vince. My phone’s been blowing up since then with texts from him practically begging to get together again, since apparently Charlie was so smitten with Grace, but I haven’t replied. I’ve been too busy avoiding Grace like the plague despite sharing an apartment together. It’s not easy, but I manage.
I should be ecstatic that my plan’s working so far, but I’m not.
“Explain to me how she didn’t lie.”
“She said she wanted to find her cousin.”
“She knows where her cousin is. She knows exactly where the girl’s buried.”
“Yeah, okay, true, but come on. Can you really blame her for holding this one back?”