Page 15 of Cruel Hearts

He brings up a feed of a subway station.

The train in King’s Crossing is primarily underground, though there are places it emerges, like the stop near here where Stella would catch it after working her shift. This feed is from a stop under the city, but I’m not familiar enough with the train routes to peg where this was filmed. After Stella left, I never rode the train again.

Stella and Quinn step into the frame, but it’s difficult to keep an eye on them. Maybe that was their intention—to lose themselves in the crowd—but what they thought would protect them was to their detriment.

She’s too close to the edge, and I grit my teeth. “You don’t have to show me anymore.”

“Are you sure you don’t want to watch her fall onto the tracks, or a train nearly slice her little body into bloody pieces?”

“No.”

“You don’t need to pay my fees. Someone will do this for you for free.” Hal rises and adjusts the cufflinks at his wrists. “I’m terminating our contract.”

“Why?” I hired Hal to do the job and to do it right. Obviously, whoever wants her dead doesn’t know how to do it correctly.

“Because I don’t compete for marks. What should it matter? The end result will be the same.”

He leans over my desk and brings up the tabloid photos of Stella and Cardello. He tilts his head as he studies the pictures the way I have a million times. I have a sick fascination with them. I can’t stop looking at her, or the way she gazes at Cardello like he can do no wrong.

She used to look at me that way.

Her heart in her eyes.

“She was coming here to see you—there’s no other reason she needed to be this close to your building. Maybe her relationship went south. Maybe he beat her, and she finally got away, and she was hoping you’d help her. You wouldn’t be so heartless as to turn away a woman who has no family escaping an abusive relationship, would you?”

My answer is immediate. “Yes, I would. She made her bed, she can lie in it, too. You’re awfully sentimental for a hitman,” I say, rounding my desk. I’m tired of looking at the photos. Tired of this conversation. If Hal doesn’t want to be paid for an easy job, there are others who will.

I help myself to another drink.

Hal’s still staring at the screen. “There’s something pure about her. The way she grieves for her friend. That’s real. Who told you she ran away with Sergio Cardello?”

“Ash.”

I remember the night like it was yesterday. Stella had gone to the restroom. I waited, talking to Nigel and Helena. Somehow, I landed in the middle of a conversation with Clayton, Ash’s father, and one of his business associates. A half an hour went by, and I thought Stella was circulating, that I just didn’t see her, or she and the banquet manager were handling an issue that came up. I didn’t see Zarah and Ash, either, and I guessed they were having a quickie to celebrate their engagement announcement.

Then my sister burst into the ballroom, incoherent, blabbering gibberish, and I tried to calm her down, but I couldn’t. She attacked me, screaming, and someone called nine-one-one. The paramedics sedated her.

In the ER’s waiting room, Ash explained Stella and Cardello ran away together. He and Zarah watched them leave, climbing into a limo that was parked at the back of the Lyndhurst. He said he tried to stop her, tried to explain how much I loved her, that she would break my heart if she left, but she didn’t listen. Cardello promised her a castle and a crown, and she wanted it.

I died a million times while Ash told me what he tried to do—keep Stella here. He didn’t want her hurting me and Zarah. It was evident Stella’s defection caused Zarah’s mental break.

I held out hope that it had been a mistake, but the pictures started surfacing online and there was no disputing them. For five years I tried to let Stella go. Apparently, I didn’t do a good enough job.

“And you believed him?” Hal asks, turning away from my computer.

“Ash would never lie.”

“Everyone lies.”

“Not to me.”

Hal scoffs. “I pulled Quinn Sawyer’s cell phone number. Stella Mayfair doesn’t have one, at least, nothing I can find. Iknow you don’t listen to anyone’s advice, Zane, but heed me now. Find out what Stella wants from you, before whoever is trying to kill her succeeds.” Silently, he lets himself out of my office.

He’s right.

Nigel Wagner helped me steer this company in the right direction, and after that, I never listened to anyone’s opinion ever again. I do what I want, when I want. That includes having a drink whenever the fuck I want. Even if it’s ten in the morning.

I dial Quinn Sawyer’s cell phone number expecting to reach a voicemail. I don’t know what kind of message I’ll leave, if I do. From the look of the security footage, whoever shot her got her good. It would be a miracle if she survives.

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