“So you found me.”
David hesitated. “We knew the Snake was targeting you and your family, though we weren’t allowed to intervene.”
That bothered me more than it should. “Why would they? If two criminals ended up taking each other out, then it would be less work, wouldn’t it?”
He nodded. “Something like that. Only, you and Dante managed to slip out of the Snake’s grasp every single time. A few officers started to think you two were the Snake. Committing patricide to take over as Don.”
I reeled back as if he’d struck me. “Neither of us would ever do that.”
“I know that now.” He sat back down, nearly spilling the liquor on the bed. “I didn’t believe that shit anyway. It didn’t make sense, especially when Dante’s mother was the first to die. I fought against it and ended up pissing off a few higher-ups. They deemed me incapable of continuing, using the death of my family as the excuse that it was too personal.”
“Well, they weren’t wrong,” I noted. “I don’t see how it couldn’t be personal after that.”
He gave a humorless laugh. “No, I guess not.”
“So you went off on your own.”
“And I’ve gotten a hell of a lot further than if I’d stayed.”
I sat beside him tentatively, awkwardly patting his shoulder. “We’ll catch them, David. We’re close. I can feel it.”
“Yeah,” he muttered, not exactly looking like he believed me. He reminded me of a man stranded on a deserted island, right when the last glint of hope faded from his eyes. “Maybe.”
I left him to his bottle, shutting the door to his bedroom quietly behind me. David might have been a special agent, he might have come from a completely different side of the law, but he wasn’t that much different from us. He wanted revenge. He wanted to kill the person who had taken everything from him.
“Have a good conversation?”
I whipped around, finding Dante leaning against the wall. Feeling irritated that he’d managed to scare me, I brushed past him, heading back to our room. “Not that it’s any of your business,” I snapped over my shoulder.
He stalked after me. I could feel the weight of his presence at my back. “What did you talk about?” he asked, voice deadly calm. Feeling petty, I tried to close the door in his face. He caught it with one hand.
“Where did you go?” I countered. “You were gone a long time.”
“You first.”
I spun around, glaring. “If you think you get to just waltz out of here without telling me where you went and expect me to tell you everything, then you thought wrong.”
His lips twitched upwards, a glint of amusement in his eyes. “You really want to make this difficult?”
“I’m not the one being difficult,” I shot back.
“Were you jealous?”
His question threw me off completely, turning the tables. It took me a while to reply. “Of course not.”
He didn’t look convinced. “I mean, if I was forced to wait at home while my husband went out to meet some mysterious woman, I’d be a bit jealous.”
“Well, thank God I’m not you.” He was baiting me.
Moving closer, he towered over me. I tensed as he caught my chin between his fingers, forcing me to look him in the eye. It was almost as if the past few hours hadn’t happened. As if he hadn’t just tortured a man to death in my basement.
“Are you lying to me?”
“Wouldn’t dream of it, husband,” I spat, jerking my chin out of his grip. “So, did you meet with her or not?”
His laugh rumbled in his chest. “No. We didn’t meet with her. Yet.”
“Then where the fuck were you?” I crossed my arms over my chest, feeling my patience wearing thin.