Page 6 of SINS & Lies

With each ragged step up the embankment, my pulse quickens. Where is she? The thought of her body, beaten or unconscious, is too much.

Instead, I entertain the thought of Kennedy hiding and freezing in the dark. As hopeless scenarios go, it seems like the more glass-half-full option.

Once the ground levels out, we picked up to a jog, homing in on the car. With the trunk popped and a faint glow emitting from it, it appears deserted.

We rounded the other side, finding Clive’s scumbag body sprawled on the ground nearby, knocked out cold.

My foot nudges a shattered bottle of liquor, and Striker points to the ground. “Blood.” The trail disappears into the woods. Is Kennedy hurt? Or is this from someone else?

Striker scans the woods. “Do you see her?” I pressed.

He shakes his head.

All my rage erupts as my foot connects with Clive’s chest. “Wake up!”

His body curls into a fetal position as he groans.

My vision tunnels, engulfed in red fury. I seize his face, forcing him to meet my gaze. “Where is she, Clive?”

Wincing, he raises both hands in surrender. “It wasn’t me. I’ve been shot,” he whines like a pussy.

“Yes. In the arm. Because you’re a poor, innocent bystander who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.” This time, I kick him so hard I envision that gunshot hole in his arm as my only chance at scoring a World Cup. “Where. Is. She?”

He howls in pain. “It was Andre’s man.” He begins to sob. “I was trying to help her. Rescue her. I smashed a rock over Rocco’s head so she could escape.”

I yank him up by the collar and slam him against the car. “You know what I hate more than people who try to mess with me?” I press the barrel of a Glock to his throat. “People who lie about it.”

“Enzo, wait!” Dante pulls up, voice cutting through my haze of anger.

It takes a moment for his expression to sink in, for the rush of almost pulling the trigger to subside.

He rushes to my right side, with Striker on my left, both pleading with me not to go through with it, despite the incessant itch of my finger chanting Do it.

“Don’t kill him,” Dante insists.

Seriously? He takes ten years to show up to the party, and greets me with this shit? Which team is he on?

“If you kill him, extracting information from him gets that much harder,” Dante says.

Striker holds up his phone. “Besides, sir, Clive is an accountant.”

I stare at him like he just fucked a hydrant.

I swear, the fact that Striker is Big Tony Santoro’s little brother almost doesn’t matter. Striker is a moron and needs to be put out of his misery.

Almost is the operative word because Big Tony spent ten years behind bars for the D’Angelos. Our family owes them a debt, not the other way around. If not shooting Striker repays even a fraction of that debt, so be it.

“I can kill an accountant,” I mutter dryly.

Striker shakes his head. “He’s one of Andre D’Angelo’s low level bankers. The dance school was a front for a laundry mat.”

Dante says slowly, “He washes money.” Each word is enunciated as if I’m slow. He has to nudge me to lower my weapon because I don’t want to. “We can use him.”

Rambling, Clive pleads for his life. “Yes. Don’t kill me. You can use me. I’ll spill everything you want to know. Anything.” He clasps his hands together in desperation. “Please. I’ll even tell you which way your girl and Rocco went.”

Dante raises a brow. “I guess everyone knows she’s your girl?”

“Shut up.” With a resigned sigh, I tilt Clive’s chin upward with the gun. “Well, asshole. Which way did they go?”

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