Page 113 of SINS & Riley
If this is the hour of my reckoning—so be it.
Some debts can’t be negotiated by proxy.
Some truths have to be carved out face-to-face.
And tonight, I’ll carve them straight out of Declan Keenan’s skull.
The rooftop groans beneath my boots, tar and gravel grinding under each step as I move toward the edge. Chicago sprawls below—an eerie patchwork of stuttering neon and windows blinking in and out.
My money is on at least one of them with a sniper rifle locked on me.
Sirens wail in the distance. The wind knifes in off the lake, sharp enough to bite bone.
And finally—finally—Pom slips from my mind, burned off by the cold.
All that’s left is what I have to do.
Then I hear it—the crack.
The flick of a lighter, the hiss before the flame.
For all his drunken idiocy, I’ll give Declan this: the fucker moves like a goddamn cat.
He’s hidden in a shadow on the far ledge. I have to move a few feet in to see he’s slouched with a cigarette hanging off his lips. “I hear you want intel on Antonio D’Angelo.”
The accent’s thick, slurred with whiskey. Everything about this man is an insult to the bloodline he vowed to serve.
The glint of steel flashes in the dark. He chuckles, flipping a knife through his fingers like a coin he means to spend.
If that’s his play—intimidation—he’s drunker than I thought.
That blade looks like it came free with a Happy Meal. Which still makes it twice as long as his dick.
I crack my neck. This won’t take long.
I humor him, mostly to see if he’s got anything real. “If you know where I can find Antonio—and the money he owes me—I’m listening.”
Declan grins, glassy-eyed, legs swinging like a toddler. “You want this information. Andre D’Angelo wants this information. My, my, my… isn’t Antonio the belle of the ball?”
Interesting.
Declan’s peddled these scraps before. Sold me just enough to point at Roman and Emilio, enough to hint they were tied to my father’s disappearance.
Enough for a taste. But never the full meal.
The bastard’s still holding his cards close to his chest. Which is saying something, considering he’s got the brain cells of a mosquito.
At least he tipped his hand—Andre knows less than he let on. I file it away.
Good to know.
He drags deep on his cigarette, exhales a line of smoke too long, too deliberate.
A signal.
Declan’s stalling. Chatting me up to buy time.
Fine. Let him.
