Page 57 of Guarding her Gangster Girl

“I don’t understand,” I say.

“Here’s the thing, Mrs. Colombo,” Lyssa drawls. “The only woman in your husband’s inner circle with a background that couldn’t be independently verified…” She tips her head to one side. “Wasyou.”

For a moment, silence reigns, until I break it myself with a laugh. “You think—you thinkI’mthe assassin?” But my giggles die away as no one else laughs with me.

In fact, if anything, they all lookmoresuspicious.

“This is ridiculous,” I scoff. “If you want to know about my background, I’ll tell you. I was born in West Virginia. I was raised?—”

“In a trailer park, yes,” Lyssa says. “We know that story. No one could verify it.”

“For Christ’s sake!” I laugh, but I’m starting to feel a little desperate now. Even Nik, when I glance over my shoulder at her, looks perplexed. “Look, no one back there would know the name Brie Colombo, that’s for sure. And?—”

“There’s more,” Larry says darkly from the corner, and I don’t like the grim smile he’s giving. “Brooks! Show her.”

“Just a moment, Mr. Caruso,” Holden mutters, his fingers flying over the keyboard. I can see the sheen of sweat on his brow, the miserable look on his face. He looks at me and mouthsI’m sorry.

Frank clears his throat, the sound like gravel crunching. “Mrs. Colombo,” he begins—not Breezy anymore, I note, and I can hear the strain in his voice, the effort it’s taking him. “Perhaps you’d like to explain what we’re about to see?”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Okay, I think I’m connected to the screen over there,” Holden announces, his voice cracking slightly. He looks up at me, his eyes wide with a mix of fear and apology. “These files were pretty well covered, but I managed to recover some of the original picture. It’s not great quality, but…”

He trails off as the first images flicker to life on the screen. There’s that blur again, grainy, indistinct, but definitely there’s something familiar about it.

“This is the security footage from the night of Terry’s…of Don Colombo’s murder,” Holden explains, his voice small in the cavernous silence of the room. “If I pause it here—you can see, there’s the shape of a person there. The first thing I recovered was that the door actually opens.”

The room goes deathly quiet as we watch, a ghost-door opening and closing, just as Holden said.

“As for the figure, that was much more deeply erased. But…” He takes a breath, then goes on sadly, “but there’s a picture frame near the door, as the person walks by. When I added a high-contrast filter—” Suddenly the image switches, and a blurred-out figure walks past the picture, just as Holden said, opens the door, then closes it. “So then I wondered if there might be anything reflected in the glass of the picture frame.”

I can hear my own heartbeat thundering in my ears, drowning out everything else.

“I just needed to sharpen it up a little,” Holden murmurs. He rewinds the footage, zooms in, and then begins to change the lighting of the image so that the reflection begins to appear, details emerging from the digital murk like a photograph developing in a darkroom.

And then the image resolves into near-perfect clarity.

I feel the blood drain from my face. And I hear Nik gasp behind me, too, as the enhanced image comes into focus.

My own face stares back at me from the screen.

I feel like I’m falling, even though I’m standing perfectly still. This can’t be happening. This isn’t possible. But there it is, in stark black and white.

Damning evidence.

“How about now, Mrs. Colombo?” Frank’s voice cuts through the rushing noise in my ears, sharp and accusing. “Would you care to explain now?”

I open my mouth to speak, but no words come out.

Larry is stalking closer, murder in his eyes. “I knew it!” he spits. “I fucking knew you were a poisonous little bitch!Youkilled him, didn’t you? You killed Don Colombo!”

Vince leans back in his chair, a wolfish grin spreading across his purple-and-blue face. “Well, well, well,” he drawls, his voice dripping with false concern. “Isn’t this interesting? Black Widow Breezy.”

Lyssa and Scarlett are already making their way around each side of the table, headed for me, weapons out. Lyssa casually twirls a knife in her hand.

I back up, knees trembling, until I bump into what feels like a solid wall.

It’s Nik.

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