Page 43 of Tammaro DeLuca

She did, and I added pressure to the wound.

“I sent him there for you.” He coughed. “With his hatred, he was supposed to find you. Not Asmaria.”

“I was about to board a plane.” I squinted at him, trying to figure out how any of this made sense.

“TSA wouldn’t let you. The girls wouldn’t be there until late. They were supposed to have killed you long before my babies got there.”

“How many are there?” Because they were about to die. Slow. Painful. Deaths. Very much like him.

“Two.”

“So you’re the reason Asmaria is in the hospital?”

“Yes.” He squeaked out.

I moved my hands from his body, no longer stopping him from bleeding out. His eyes widened, understanding the decision I’d made not to save his life.

“Tammaro,” he coughed and tried to find the wound himself. “I can make this right.”

I shook my head at him. “No, you can’t.”

“I can.” He pointed to a picture on the wall where he stood with another man. They were holding a fish and smiling at the picture.

“Mrs. Chambers, who is the man in the photo with your husband?” I asked her.

“His best friend. He died of cancer sometime ago.”

If not, the man… “Where were they?”

“In our cabin near the bay. We don’t go there as often anymore since he died.”

I looked down at Donald to confirm what he was trying to communicate to me, but his eyes were closed.

Mrs. Chambers paced, holding herself as she stared out the window, looking for the paramedics. I stood up and left them in the room. As I exited the house, the police and medics were jumping out of their cars.

“All the way to the back.” I instructed them before going to my car.

“Who are you, sir?” the police asked.

“That’s my son-in-law.” Mrs. Chambers said quickly. “He was with me when we heard the gun go off. He’s the reason my husband is still alive.” And I regretted that.

That last part wasn’t true, but I wasn’t about to argue with her for giving me an alibi and credit for something that took me off the witness list. After a few questions, I was dismissed. I left with a lead and a mission. Two police officers were about to come up missing.

It took two days to find Shields and once I did, the other motherfucker was easy since he didn’t know that I was looking for him. So here we were in the basement of Max's restaurant, the two shitty cops, me, Max, and Cruz. Cruz pushed to be here because he’d grown attached to Asmaria. I was even nice enough to let him wake the sleeping bastards up. Tied to the beams down here, it wasn’t as if they could go far.

“Wake up!” Cruz shouted at them as he smacked their faces. “It’s time to die, fuckers!”

I snickered, wondering who was running the show here. Me or Cruz. Didn’t matter because as soon as the stubby cop, better known as Detective Lias, was awake, Cruz punched him in the jaw.

“You can’t do this to us,” Shields chimed in.

“Oh, I’ve got something special for you.” Cruz took off Shield’s belt and wrapped it around his throat. “Seem fucking familiar?” He tugged at it until he was choking Shields so hard that his face turned bright red. “Huh?”

He couldn’t fight back with his hands, but Shields kicked his feet to get loose.

“Maybe I should hang you with it, hmm?” Cruz asked.

“Let him go, Cruz.” I said.

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