Page 36 of Killing Emma

“Jude is a better bloodhound than both of us.” My gaze drifts toward the door of the basement and my eyes hang there, my mind filling with the image of the woman on the other side. I hate that I feel drawn to her. I feel sick that I suddenly fucking care. But also…

Henry.

“We can take them. You act like we’re fucking second class. We’ve been in the business longer than them. Jude might be one of the best, but we can beat this. I have more connections.”

“Because you still have Ivan cleaning up your messes,” I snap, out of patience. “We’re no fucking better than anyone else in this business, and I don’t need any additional excitement right now.”

Manny shoves himself back from the table, his eyes on fire. “So you’re trying to say I’m the weak link? Because last time I checked, you’re the one with a crisis of fucking conscience over some stupid ginger bitch.”

Rage tears at my chest, my vision blurring with crimson. “Shut the fuck up, Manny.” My voice is lower than usual, and I battle to keep my demons at bay, the ones that my mentor worked hard to train me to leash.

“Cage your emotions, Luca. They’re weakness.” I hear his voice reverberating in my head. “If you let the anger out, it’ll make a mess. Choke it down.”

“You’re soft on her,” Manny cackles, drawing me from my thoughts. “Do I need to take care of this for you? Would that be easier?” He takes a step in the direction of the basement, but I block him.

“I’ll figure it out.” I tense my jaw, because if I wasn’t on the verge of snapping his neck, I might actually be willing to pass the baton to him. However, that would still mean that I failed, and I’m not a fucking failure. Not yet.

Manny crowds me, his eyes narrowing as he leans in. “You better figure it out, because I will call Ivan in to fix this if I have to. We’ll deal with Henry. If he cares about his wife, he’ll rein her in before she winds up in this fucking basement, too. The only thing you need to worry about is taking care of her in thirty-two days. They want proof.”

My lip twitches, not having read into those details. Cleaning up was something that Manny took care of most of the time. “Pictures?”

“No, they want her body found. Concrete way of identifying her. I had figured dismemberment. Enough to get DNA, but not enough to figure out anything else.”

My stomach rolls with nausea, the acidic taste of coffee repeating to the back of my throat. Fuck. “Yeah, okay” is all I can choke out. I want Manny to leave. Why did I call for him to come over? Did I subconsciously think he was going to tell me that we could figure a work-around her death? Is that what I want? I shake my head, needing something a lot stronger than coffee to dull the insanity breaching my senses.

“I’ll be back, but you better fucking have this taken care of.” Manny’s demeanor is cold as he leaves me there in the kitchen, slamming the door behind him. I understand where he’s coming from. I’m being a fucking idiot. I stare down at the cup of coffee, and then take it to the sink, dumping what little remains down the drain.

I kick on the water and rinse the stainless-steel sink, focusing on the swirls of brown coffee circling the drain. It mimics the way I feel right now, like I’m stuck in the same motion, unable to break free.

I just need to kill her.

Or fake her death?

The thought comes intrusively. What good would that do? Faking her death would still leave me with a very much alive Emma, and she’d show her face soon enough. I’m fairly certain I know her hit is wrapped up in her shitstorm divorce—though the mention of the divorce attorney has me wondering if there’s more to the story.

They could both be involved.

I purse my lips and shut off the water. I set the empty mug in the sink and turn back to the basement door. Every ounce of me is drawn to that damn place, and I know it’s not because I love playing pool in the musty basement. It’s just because she is there, and I want to pick her apart more. I wanted to destroy her—and that’s initially all it was—but it’s more than that now. To deny it would be just as idiotic as thinking Manny would condone letting her live.

What a clusterfuck.

But I can’t stop myself. I unlock the door and descend the steps, desperate to talk to her, to see her breathe, to check on the necklace of bruises I left. I hate how fucking dark it is in the basement, but I killed the power so she could free rein instead of being chained to the bed.

Look at me, being a nice guy.

I inwardly grimace at the thought. I’ve never been a nice fucking guy. I’ve always been the guy on the fringes for as long as I can remember—and it’s where I belong.

“You came back fast,” Emma’s voice cuts through the dimly lit basement like a charged bolt of electricity, striking me, and then shocking me to my knees. I have the desire to unload on her, and for some reason, I give into it. Maybe if I let her meet my demons, she’ll convince me to kill her.

“I have no idea who my parents are,” I say, grabbing the chair that I sat in before and straddling it backward. “Rumor has it that I was left at a fire station down by skid row when I was four—some neighbor took pity on me after my parents overdosed.”

Her eyes glimmer under the glow of the light cascading from the stairwell. She’s still only dressed in my T-shirt, her red hair falling messily past her shoulders. “Why are you telling me this?”

I ignore her question. “You’d think that a little kid would be adopted fast, you know? Especially given up at such a young age, and I’d bet, if I hadn’t grown up in a group home, I’d have ended up in some upper crust family in the Bay Area. Maybe I wouldn’t be so fucked in the head. But then again, I don’t think anyone caused me to become obsessed with starting fires, either. So maybe it wouldn’t have mattered.”

Emma sits there in silence, her eyes trained on me.

“I clearly had some problems,” I chuckle, resting my chin against my forearm. “But then came along Victor Lombardi, the greatest hitman who ever lived.” I say the words with sarcasm, but to some they were the truth.

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