Page 18 of Tortured Hearts
“Then let me take you home.” His gaze narrows. “But you have to stay there.”
Not ideal, but I can live with it. “Fine.”
He blinks, as if he expected more of a battle. Honestly, so did I, but with my energy tank on reserve, I don’t have any fight left in me. “R-right. Well, I guess let’s get you set up in a room.” He turns and walks down the hall.
I stare at the closed door in front of me. “What about this one?”
He stops and looks over his shoulder, deep lines creasing his forehead. “It should go without saying that,legally, I can’t put a witness in the same room with a suspect,” he says, his voice tight. “And that, personally, I’d take a bullet to the head, first.”
“When are you going to stop treating me like I’m twelve years old?”
“When you stop acting like it.” At my sharp inhale, he bites down on his tongue and huffs out a breath. “Let’s just get this over with.”
Unease settles low in my stomach as I cast one last glance at the interrogation room door, then follow him down the quiet hallway. With every step, I remind myself that truth is on my side. That what’s done in the dark always reveals itself in the light. That the bloodiest hands always pay the highest price.
But what if I’m wrong? What if sin really is an irreversible stain on the soul? What if instead of bringing the wolf to his knees, I’m delivering Gianni to his door?
Chapter Six
GIANNI
What the hell was she thinking?
My Providence PD babysitters’ constant chatter fades into the background as my head fills with the image of her standing outside that door, desperate, determined, and depleted with no fucking clue what she was doing.
Reese and his sidekicks were an hour into their interrogation when the door opened and an older man with gray hair and a matching porn-stache shuffled into the room like he had a bomb strapped to his chest. With a few mumbled words, the chief went from having the upper hand to having a breakdown.
Then, I saw Becca standing in the doorway, and my vision went black.
That was over an hour ago. They refuse to tell me anything, and my mind won’t stop spinning. I keep imagining the worst,which is making me even more of an asshole.
“You seem awfully worked up over the chief’s daughter, Gianni,” the younger officer muses. “She’s a pretty girl. Kinda reminds me of someone. Does she remind you of someone, Banks?”
His older and grayer partner smiles. “Now that you mention it, I believe she does. Same hair. Same eyes. Samemodus operandiof destroying both.”
“Are you two finished?”
“Why? Something we say hit a nerve?”
“No. You both just really suck at innuendos, and I have a low tolerance for stupidity.”
The young, over-eager officer clenches his fists and leans forward. “And we have a low tolerance for murders, especially when they involve one of our own.”
I stare at his pudgy, round face, wondering what it’d feel like against my fist. “I’m going to say this one more time—I didn’t kill Ledger. I didn’t set that fire, and I’ve never, nor would Iever, hurt Becca Brennan.”
His smug “mentor” lifts a brown folder from the table and waves it in the air. “That’d be easier to believe if I didn’t have this report regarding a call about gunfire at the Port of Providence. It says you were brought in for questioning…” He flips through a few pages, then looks up with a smile. “Well, would you look at that? It was by Ledger, himself.”
“Did you two read the report or just pick out a few big words that got your dicks hard? Because if you had, you would’ve seen that I was cleared.”
I’d bother to read their nametags if I actually gave a shit.
After a few seconds of straight silence, I’m wondering if I should bang my cuffs against the table to get his attention when the younger one clears his throat. “Reese has an eyewitness who saw you arguing with Jack Ledger beforehe went missing and was eventually found burned beyond recognition. That’s strike one. His daughter’s office building was set on fire, a place you show up with a gun to play hero. That’s strike two. If all that wasn’t enough, you then bypassed all his security and snuck into her room, once again with a gun, to finish the job. You know what happens with that third strike, don’t you?”
“I get a bigger bat?”
“No, smartass, you get twenty to life.”
This guy’s Napoleon complex is out of control. I’ve been letting him lob half-assed insults here and there, but if he keeps swinging those tiny walnuts around, they’re going to get flattened under my boot.
