War (Romanian Mob Chronicles Book 5) (7 page)

M
ilan

“
S
o you want
to try this again?” Detective Whatshisname said.

I looked at his face through the tears that clouded my eyes, and in it I saw no sympathy, no pity. No remorse.

If anything, he was gleeful.

Not able to bear that expression or his scrutiny, I turned my head, face pressed against the disgusting padded wall of the small room I’d thought I’d never see again.

Less than three hours after I’d left, I was back. Back and completely different, so different that I didn’t even want to bang my head against it. I didn’t have the energy to do that, didn’t have the energy to do anything but push the air out of my lungs and bring more in. That and fight to block out the memory of what I’d seen in Tiffany’s bedroom, the reality of what it meant.

“Milan!” the detective yelled. When I didn’t look at him, he slammed his fist on the table.

That sound, the slap of his meaty hand against the metal table reverberated through the room, loud enough to sound painful, loud enough I probably should have jumped.

I only moved enough to again look into his face.

“Good,” he said. “I have your attention.”

He didn’t. He might as well have been miles away for all the attention I was giving him. Except, maybe I had made a mistake. I hadn’t touched her, hadn’t dared, so maybe…

“Is she—”

“Milan, you know the answer to that question,” he said, cutting me off before I could finish.

I did know the answer. Because no matter how I hoped, wished it wasn’t true, I knew it was.

Though I hadn’t touched her, I had seen her, still saw her now, her body as it always was, her face soft as if she was asleep. Her eyes, before so full of joy, now lifeless, proof that the Tiffany I had known, my very best friend, was gone.

“Tiffany’s dead, Milan,” the detective said needlessly. “Any clue as to who killed her?”

I looked at the detective then and focused on the pit of anger that flared in my stomach. I’d take whatever I could if it meant I didn’t have to think about Tiffany like I’d last seen her.

“How would I know? I was with you,” I said.

“No, you were alone, remember? Walking home, alone, after our last little conversation.”

“I—What?” I said.

“You tell me, Milan,” he said, and I noticed that he’d dropped the Ms. Meadows thing completely.

“You’re the detective.”

“And what does that make you?”

“What are you implying?” I asked, my voice on the razor edge, my emotions somewhere between rage and breakdown.

“I’m not implying anything. All I know for sure is that instead of coming to the police after a shooting, you went on a little mind vacation and drove around. Or something,” he said, his voice overflowing with his disgust.

“What does that have to do with Tif-Tiffany?” I said.

He shrugged, giving off an air of nonchalance that would have been convincing were it not for the malice and scorn in his eyes. “Why don’t you tell me?”

I pressed my lips into a line, felt my face twisting into a frown I was powerless to control.

“You got nothing,” he said, leaning back as he ran his hand down his tie. “Well, I guess I can take a stab at it. You ‘work’ the wedding of one this state’s most notorious mob bosses, get caught up in a shooting, disappear for hours, and then your roommate is murdered the next day. Did I leave anything out?”

I could do nothing but glare at him, rage, grief—guilt—making words impossible.

“So the way I see it,” he said, again leaning back—I hoped his fucking chair toppled over—“is that you’re either an innocent victim with the world’s worst luck. Wait, I think poor Tiffany has—had—the world’s worst luck.” He paused, no doubt giving me time to react. I’d rather swallow my own tongue than give that bastard anything, so finally he continued. “Or you’re involved.”

He let those words hang, having finally made the subtext that I’d been too stupid to see earlier plain.

“So you’re saying you think I killed my best friend?” I said, my voice coming out strained.

“I don’t think anything, Milan. I’m simply laying out the facts and sharing the only reasonable conclusion. You can correct my error if you’d like to tell me the truth.”

The tone of his voice set me even further on edge. He wasn’t yelling, but he’d taken on that authoritative tone I hated, trying to use guilt to bully me into telling him something I didn’t know instead of figuring out what had happened to Tiffany.

You could tell them about Priest, stupid.

That would be the right thing to do. Maybe a necessary thing, especially if he had had something to do with her death. I wasn’t moving, but still, I froze.

Priest involved with Tiffany’s death…

The thought hadn’t crossed my mind before, hadn’t even seemed a possibility. But how could I dismiss the thought out of hand? Maybe it was my own lack of thought that had led to Tiffany’s demise.

Horror rocked through me, but the thought didn’t fit, didn’t feel right to me. I tried to remember every second I had spent with him, searching for some clue that I could have been mistaken, that he could have done something so horrible.

I shook my head.

No. He couldn’t have done it. He
didn’t
do it.

I didn’t know anything for sure, not anymore, but I knew with all my heart Priest hadn’t harmed Tiffany.

That certainty gave me comfort, a touchstone in this sea of insanity. But that didn’t mean the smartest thing to do wouldn’t be to tell everything I knew, including everything that had happened with Priest. And I was so close to doing so, so close to spilling everything.

“Did you even care about her at all?” he asked.

Sudden anger made me lock my eyes on his with seething contempt.

“Guess not,” he said.

Then he stood, grabbed that stupid goddamned folder, and left.

Fuck it
.

I couldn’t sit here, wouldn’t sit here and be accused by that asshole, do nothing while Tiff’s murderer was free. Besides, I wasn’t under arrest. I could leave, and I would.

When I turned the doorknob, it occurred to me that it might be locked, so I breathed a sigh of relief when it opened without pause.

Left was the same path I’d used three times before that day. To the right was a glowing red-and-white exit sign. I went right, again worried that someone might try to stop me. I made it to the exit without trouble, and when I pushed it open and stepped outside, I was again hit with the most overpowering sense of relief.

Soon, I was headed to my car. I’d called 9-1-1 but insisted I drive myself back to the police station, out of my mind with grief. And now that car would take me away from this place. To where, I hadn’t decided, but away from here was all that mattered.

I was so intent on reaching my car, I didn’t notice the person in front of me until I ran directly in a solid wall of flesh.

I jumped back, startled, and then met the eyes of the man who had started all of this.

P
riest

F
or less than
a split second she looked as relieved as I felt.

I’d gone back and forth with myself about seeking her out, and when I’d finally decided to, I’d gone to her house, seen the buzz of activity and police, and assumed the worst.

It had taken more than one favor to get information about what had happened, favors I probably couldn’t afford to give and had no assurance I’d be able to fulfill. But now, seeing her, touching her, knowing she was alive, was worth any cost.

Milan didn’t feel the same way.

She’d looked almost happy to see me in those first moments, but now, she watched me though anger-tinged eyes. There was sadness there, too, but the anger was the most obvious of her emotions.

It was only after she’d twisted away that I realized I had reached up to touch her. Instantly, I missed the feel of her against my hands, but I didn’t try to touch her again. Instead, I watched as she moved, taking long strides, or as long as she could. Everything about screamed her rage, her hurt, and even in the darkness of the dimly lit parking lot, her emotions were clear.

“Where are you going, Milan?” I called after she’d taken a few steps.

She didn’t break her stride and instead continued on her path, headed directly toward her car.

I watched her retreating back, considering my options. I’d dealt with my fair share of angry, grief-stricken women. A part of my business that I didn’t too much care for, but that I handled nonetheless. It had always been easy, though. I hadn’t cared for the women or their grief, so the emotion didn’t touch me.

I cared for her, though. I didn’t know why, how, but I knew that I did. And seeing her grief, her anger, moved me, made me want to take them away.

Something I couldn’t do if she was gone, and while I had been musing, Milan had gotten even closer to her vehicle. She didn’t look inclined to stop, so I moved quickly at a not-quite run and stepped into her path.

She bumped against me but kept going, her lips pursed, her face set in a stubborn expression that told me she would go through me if she had to.

She would have to.

I didn’t touch her, nor did I move, not even when she turned her shoulder into my chest and threw her weight against me. Didn’t move when she did so again, and then again until we stood chest to chest, her upper body flush against mine, her hands on my shoulders.

Her full breasts were flattened against my chest, her stomach pressing against mine, but I deliberately ignored the desire her closeness inspired and kept focused on her eyes, watching them as they widened and then narrowed as her frustration grew.

“You could go around me,” I said.

“What?” she said distractedly, still pushing against me with all of her might.

“You could go around,” I repeated.

Her eyes snapped up to meet mine, and she quickly moved left. So did I. I followed when she moved right and then left again, and stopped when she did. Though she glared at me, she’d calmed, and now I could try to get through to her.

“Where are you going, Milan?”

“Home,” she said quietly.

“Home?”

“Yeah. I’m going to get in my car and go home, try to find out who did…that to Tiffany,” she said, her eyes watering with tears but her voice holding strong.

“That’s stupid,” I said, roughly. She was in pain. I could see that, but she needed to keep her head. Besides, I didn’t like to see her this way.

She glared harder. “No, what was stupid was not trying to kill you.”

“No, not trying to kill me was smart. You would have failed,” I replied. She was attempting to provoke me, lashing out in her anger, something that brought me even more regret.

“Probably, but I might not have, and Tiff might still be here,” she said.

“But you wouldn’t be.” My voice dropped when I spoke, the idea of speaking of Milan’s demise in something other than hushed tones an impossibility.

“Don’t care. But she’s not, and I can’t just sit around and do nothing,” she said.

I could see her focus, her determination, so I stepped aside.

“Fine,” I said. “Go.”

Her eyes widened momentarily, almost as if she was shocked, and then she nodded.

She took one step, then another, and I watched her, waiting before I finally spoke.

“But what you’re doing is stupid, Milan,” I said, keeping my voice as calm as I could.

I should just let her go, but then again, I shouldn’t have let her live in the first place. Milan was a complication, a distraction, a mess I should have cleaned up, one I ordinarily would have. I’d gone against everything I knew, all of the experience that had kept me alive all this time. I shouldn’t be here right now. My world was in upheaval, and someone was trying to fuck me over. I had more than enough to deal with and still didn’t know how I would.

Distractions were something I couldn’t allow, and Milan was the definition of distraction.

But when I’d seen the police at her house, my only thought, my only concern, had been her. Even my own safety had been secondary; she was the only thing that mattered.

Even now, as she stared me with hate, anger in her eyes, she was all that mattered. I could tell her that, but she wouldn’t believe me, and if she did, she wouldn’t care. So I called her bluff.

“The girl, the one who died so painfully earlier. She was a friend?”

Her reaction earlier had left no question of how much she’d cared for the other woman, but the depth of that connection became even clearer as I watched Milan now.

“She was my friend. My family. I’ve known her since I was four years old,” she said.

Her voice was sad, resigned, lacked any trace of the fire she had shown only seconds ago. The overwhelming and completely unfamiliar urge to comfort her almost had me moving. But I stood firm.

She wasn’t thinking, so I had to think for her. I didn’t have the time to try to fight with her. Not now. That energy would be better saved for the fights to come on other fronts. So, since I was dead set on saving her for reasons I couldn’t even articulate, I would do so. Even if she didn’t want me to.

“Do you want to end up like her?”

“What do you know about how she ended up?” Milan asked, her expression flashing.

“I’ve heard what happened,” I replied.

“Heard how?” she asked, her eyes narrowing.

“An associate shared that information,” I said.

She huffed. “An associate?”

I nodded.

“And did this associate’s information send you running here?” she asked.

I didn’t particularly like that characterization. It made it seem far too much like I cared what happened to her, like I cared about her, but I was in no position to argue the point. After all, here I was. “Yes,” I finally said.

“And I’m supposed to be grateful for that?” she said, voice tight, scornful.

“No. You simply need to answer the question. Do you want to end up like her?” I repeated.

The question hung between us as her expression went from anger to fear. I hated to see it on her face, but at least right now, fear was good for me.

If she was afraid, she wouldn’t be stupid.

If she wasn’t stupid, I might have a chance to save her.

“What’s your answer, Milan?” I asked. “Do you want to end up like her?”

I saw the weight of each of my words as I spoke them, and I saw Milan’s calculation. Even now, underneath the fear, there was stubbornness, and I thought there was a fifty-fifty chance she might try to go her own way if only because I had told her not to.

That stubborn streak probably helped her in her world. In mine, it would kill her. But I still respected that about her. Admired it.

“Answer, Milan,” I said.

My tone was the one I used when I didn’t so much care about the specific answer but still knew I could get one.

Milan, though, was holding out, and for a few seconds I thought she might not answer.

She didn’t have to, though. I would get what I needed from her. The only difference was that the thing I needed from her was one I had never needed from anyone else. The need to see that she was okay, the fact that I actually cared whether she would be.

“I don’t want to end up like her,” she finally said.

Milan blinked rapidly, her dark onyx eyes taking on an eerie glow under the artificial streetlights. I continued to watch her, saw the last bit of wildness leave her as she came to the realization I was her only friend, her only way out of this mess. I didn’t speak until I was sure she had accepted that.

“Don’t do that again, Milan,” I said.

She stood taller, the stubborn tilt coming back to her chin. “What?” she asked.

I shook my head at her horrible lie. I was used to dealing with very good liars. Milan was not good.

“You’re not a very good liar, Milan,” I said.

“Isn’t that a good thing?” she replied, frowning.

“Not today,” I said. A moment later, I continued, “I should leave you here.” I still hadn’t come up with a reason why I hadn’t done just that, but even still, I didn’t move.

“This is all your fault!” she said, glaring at me, her onyx eyes flashing with anger, hurt, and a not-inconsiderable amount of that stubbornness.

“Yes. Something I’m going to great lengths to fix. Don’t make me regret going to the trouble of doing so,” I said.

Then I began to walk, and after a heartbeat, Milan followed.