Page 78 of The Wages of Sin

“That’s going to be hard to do…even for you.”

“Why’s that?”

“Because that’s the second thing that happened this morning,” Gabriel said before letting out a long breath. “After the cops came to inform us about Russo, the feds showed up and took Sal in.”

“What for?”

“They didn’t say.” Gabriel glanced behind him at the group of D’Angelo men growing agitated on the doorstep. Apparently, everyone wanted answers they didn’t have. “They only said it was for ‘questioning’. That’s why Matteo’s on the phone with the lawyers now, trying to find out more.”

As if summoned by the sound of his name, the front door opened the next second, and Matteo walked out. He slipped through the crowd, not stopping to answer anyone’s questions, and came straight to us.

“Dorian,” he greeted me with a quick nod. “Glad you’re here. Things have taken a strange turn.”

“Stranger than the feds beating Dorian to an interrogation?” Gabriel asked.

“That’s the thing,” Matteo said, his voice even more hushed than ours. “Our lawyers called every FBI office and police precinct from Boston to DC. None of them have a record of Sal being brought in for questioning.”

“Could they have brought him somewhere else?” I asked. “Somewhere they don’t have to keep records?”

It’s what I would have done.

But Matteo shook his head. “Not if they’re trying to build a case against him. If anything, they’d be extra careful, playing everything by the book so nothing would be thrown out in court.”

“Then what the hell are they doing?” Gabriel growled.

“I have no idea,” Matteo admitted with a defeated sigh. “I even tried calling the number on the card Agent Murphy left behind, but no one answered.”

Agent Murphy?

I wasn’t entirely sure why, but that name tripped a warning bell in my mind.

“Do you have that card on you?” I asked Matteo. “Can I see it?”

“Sure,” he said, pulling it out of his pocket and handing it over.

My eyes scanned the raised black writing next to the blue and gold foil FBI seal.

Hollis Murphy

Special Agent

My breath froze in my chest as adrenaline flooded my system. Every muscle in my body tensed.

Hollis Murphy. Kiera’s brother-in-law. The man who’d killed her sister and was on the hunt for her...and now, he just happened to be the agent that had come to pick up Sal for questioning. There was no way that was a coincidence.

It was a goddamn setup.

“Shit.” There was no holding back the curse this time. “I know where they are.”

“Where?” Matteo asked.

But I couldn’t answer. I’d already turned away and was racing down the street, back toward the park and my apartment…where I’d naively left Kiera behind like a sitting duck.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

KIERA

“Wake up, buttercup.”

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