Page 14 of Cruel Hearts

The crowd crossing the street scatters in alarm. The video doesn’t have audio, but it’s easy to imagine the screaming.

This is what happened not half an hour ago.

Stella drops to her friend’s side and hugs the bleeding woman to her. My heart trips a little, but I still grin. Now she knows what it feels like to lose someone she loves. Like I spent the first couple of years after she left trying to live despite the gaping hole in my chest.

Hal sits quietly, watching the video.

People would rather watch Stella’s misery than find safety, and slowly, a crowd gathers around them. I can’t see any more of her or the woman bleeding out on the street.

Hal doesn’t turn off the video, and I watch until the end.

An ambulance cuts through the crowd. The vehicle blocks our view of the two women completely, until the doors burst open and two paramedics clear the scene. They lift Stella’s friend onto a stretcher.

She stands for a second, watching the paramedics try to save her friend’s life. Then I blink, and she’s gone.

The paramedics secure the woman into the back of the ambulance and drive away.

That’s when Hal cuts the feed and swivels to face me, his elbows resting on the chair’s armrests, his fingertips pressed together creating a steeple. “Do you want to tell me what that was?”

He asks like I should know, but I don’t have any idea who would be after her, or what her reasons are for being in King’s Crossing now, after all this time. “Fuck if I know.”

“She was coming here, to see you, and you can’t tell me why? Can’t guess?” Hal lifts his eyebrows.

“What if this was you? What if you botched this job?” I accuse, shoving my hands into the pockets of my pants. I refuse to be intimidated. Hal is my employee.

“This wasn’t me.”

I scoff. “How do I know that?”

“Because. I. Don’t. Miss.”

“Then you need to find out who did.”

Hal turns around and taps a few keys on my keyboard. “I’ve already started. The woman who was hit, her name is Quinn Sawyer. She’s head of a counterfeiting operation in New York. She grew up in King’s Crossing in a foster home she shared with Stella Mayfair when they were in middle grade. They were separated just before their freshman year of high school, and that family never took any more children. The father went to prison for smacking the kids and his wife around.”

Her name rings a bell, albeit very softly. Quinn Sawyer might be one of the few people Stella kept in touch with after she aged out of the system. “So what?”

It irks me that in a handful of sentences, Hal revealed more information about Stella’s time in foster care than I know.

I claimed to love her, but our relationship had been all about me. About how I was coping without my parents. About how Iwould run the company without my dad. I didn’t try to get to know her. I didn’t listen in the middle of the night.

My words filled those hours.

I took, and she always gave.

Is that why she left?

Because Cardello let her speak? And when she did, he listened?

“I thought perhaps the shooter had found his target after all. Maybe this Quinn made a mistake—a costly mistake. I asked around the operation they got going over there, and the gent I spoke to said she’s a real pro. He was sincerely upset when I broke the news that some asshole tried to pick her off. Then I got to thinking about Stella again, and I searched the news and found something else.”

“What?” I bark. Her death is my revenge. No one else’s.

Hal smirks, not understanding just how cold-hearted I’ve become. “Not so tough, huh? I can’t blame you. She’s a cute little piece of ass. Sweet in bed, I bet.”

“Fuck off.”

“Watch this first.”

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