Page 65 of Sinful Deception

Of all the people here today, I have a list of who I want to save, and in what order I want them safe. Mia and Sera are at the top. They’re at the top of every single list from now until eternity.

“What are you—” Stunned, she wraps Mia close and brushes the hair from her face. “Charlie?”

“Get in the car.” I set my hand on the small of her back and herd them toward one of Felix’s SUVs. “Doors closed, windows up.”

“Charlie?”

“Are you listening to my instructions?” I tap Archer’s shoulder as we pass because the red dot zooms across his back, scanning the crowd and warning me of what’s to come. Then I grab the car door and wrench it open. “Did you hear me?” I hold Sera’s wrist and refuse to let her go until she acknowledges my words. “Door closed?—”

“Windows up. Yeah.” Her beautiful eyes flitter over my shoulder and around in search of a clue. “I don’t understand.”

“You don’t have to understand. You just have to do as I say.” I lean in and press a kiss on Mia’s cheek. But I give her a smile to let her know everything is fine. “In the car, please.”

“Fine.” Scowling, she turns and allows Mia to climb in ahead of her. “But you’ll explain it to me when we have a moment.”

“Sure.” I slam the door once she’s in and turn to an expectant Archer. “Hey.”

“Hey.” Oblivious to the red dot that tracks over Felix’s back, he pats my shoulder and smiles. It’s thethere therekind I’m so sick of. “The story with the baby birds and stuff… Was that true? Did they survive?”

I move away from the car, knowing he’ll follow. “The nest was real, and the cracked eggs. Jada sneaking out with a shoebox and flaking on the show was real, too.”

“But the birds?”

“Had no chance. The shells were cracked. All of them. There’s no way they were gonna survive.” I stop a few feet from Jada’s plot and turn so the Detectives see my face. They see me talking. They see my alibi, clear as day. “But she tried,” I admit. “She gave up something she’d been working hard for to care for something other than herself. That’s all my baby needs to know.So now she can look into the sky and know the potential for greatness was there. Which means she never has to wonder if half of her is just…” I scratch my jaw. “Bad.”

I guess some might expect an explosion, considering the plans I’ve made in the last twenty-four hours. A bang loud enough to reverberate throughout the city. But all I hear is the whoosh of a bullet zinging past my ear, then I see the panic sprinting into Archer’s gaze.

I hear the splat of metal piercing meat.

The cry of a man being hit.

And then the chaos of Micah’s instincts demanding he spin and protect Felix. Felix protecting Christabelle. The mayor’s security converging on Lawrence, and then Archer’s roar of horror as he turns to grab Mayet.

They can’t know they’re not truly at risk. They only know there’s a sniper hidden somewhere nearby.

I don’t move at all, despite the chaos exploding around me. I don’t run. I don’t hide. I refuse to be anywhere except where the cops can see me. Because Nathan Booth stumbles out of the trees just thirty feet from where the detectives stand, holding his chest and collapsing to his knees.

My alibi remains intact.

Though Archer’s suspicion is like a living, breathing dragon as he swings back around. “What the fuck?” Holding Mayet, he tries to grab my shoulder. “Get down, Fletch!”

I look up at the sky when I feel the first drop of cold touch my scalp. Then toward the car I placed Mia inside and know I’ve done the right thing.

“It’s snowing.” I lift my hands to collect the falling white powder while the cops dive on a dying Booth, and Micah discreetly puts his weapons away again. While Felix wraps Christabelle in his arms to keep her safe, and the mayor’s guardslikely break his bones because they’re not nearly as trained or smooth as a Malone guard.

I look to an entirely calm Mayet as she purses her lips and pieces the scene together, even under Archer’s rough hold. And then I smile and offer her the snow melting on my palm. “It’s like she’s saying hello, don’t you think?”

MINKA

ONE WEEK LATER

“Did you know what he had planned?” I stalk through my office with a fresh coffee while Aubree saunters to the sofa, entirely too relaxed andsmileyafter what can only be described as a week inside the twilight zone. Because the funeral is over, Jada’s gone, Booth is dead, and, as of yesterday, released from my fridges on the second floor. Archer is back at work, and Fletch is coming in despite his superiors’ suggesting he take more time to process his grief.

But he’s… healed, it almost seems. Perhaps not completely. But he’s freer than he has been in a while. He grins more often and, from my vantage point, worries less. He doesn’t throw punches at Archer during dinner, and he’s welcoming of us despite how often we crash his apartment for an evening.

He’s tight-lipped on what happened with Booth, but…

“You had to know, right?” I sit at my desk and eye Aubree across the room. “There’s no way a sniper just so happened to be at Jada’s funeral, and Fletch knew to put Mia in a car at the exact right time, and Booth just happened to be the only target. Not unless Fletch planned it.”

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