And Atcliff covering it up with convenient excuses makes it all the harder to stomach. How could he give that order and expect me to just lie down and obey it when it’s wrong? A coverup isn’t in the city’s best interests!”
“Perhaps it serves other interests.”
Max’s soft-spoken statement struck like a wakeup slap.
Cee Cee rolled onto her side, dark eyes as direct as a double barrel. “What are you saying, Savoie? Whose interests?”
The way his jade-colored gaze darted away then returned with stark intensity punched up her alarm.
“Charlotte.”
He spoke her name with such reluctance, her first panicked thought was to stop the words and the knowledge that would come with them. Heartbeats lunged into a frantic rhythm. Before they exploded, she whispered, “Just say it.”
“Atcliff’s been working with Brady and Blutafino since he was in uniform. They all came up together, the three of them.”
As breath squeezed from her lungs, she gasped, “No. He and my father—”
“Were victims of corruption under the Vantours and then Jimmy. Just little fish at first, until Brady decided to make them into sharks like him. Your mother left because she found out. He was in too deep to stop by then, but he wouldn’t let her take you with her. You were the one good and noble thing he’d accomplished. He couldn’t tarnish that pride he saw in your eyes. To become that hero you believed him to be, he was going to testify against them. That’s why he was killed.”
A shake of her head freed tears to stream down pale cheeks. The pain of knowing every word was truth crushed her chest, but love and loyalty forced her to deny it. “No! They were best friends. He was family. He practically raised me. He would never have gone along with it.”
Compassion softening his gaze, Max confessed gently, “He did more than go along with it, sha. Tommy Caissie was the price he paid to become one of them.”
Choking back her denial, Cee Cee rolled away from the indisputable truth of his words. Behind tightly closed eyes, a horrific slice of time replayed. Her father laughing over some silly thing she’d said, reaching across their Sunday meal as they passed a dish and shared their last smiles. A shadow of movement behind him, brief and then obliterated by an explosion of sound and a hot rain of blood, bone and tissue that blinded her. Numb days and nights passing in a blur ended by a twenty-one-gun salute. The strong hand on her shoulder, crisp uniform beneath her cheek. Soft words she clung to.
“I can’t replace him, Lottie, but if you’ll let me, I’ll be there for you as he would have been. Always.”
Always. The reasons behind his promise hardened her heart. He’d thought he could appease her by taking the place of the man he’d allowed to be killed or may have killed himself.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Throat so raw, heart so crushed, her question escaped as accusation. When silence followed, Cee Cee confronted Max with a more painful demand. “How long have you known? How long have you kept this from me?”
When he tried to cup her damp face with his palm, she flung her head back, denying that comforting gesture as her stare continued to accuse him. Instead, his hand covered hers where it pressed protectively to the curve of her middle. When she let it remain, he began, “I only learned this morning.”
Quietly, he detailed the meeting with her witness, his conversation with Cummings, and finally his visit to Dovion.
“I didn’t want to believe, knowing what he meant to you.”
Cee Cee turned her hand so their fingers could intertwine. “Ophelia told me your aunt sent her sister to kill their father. Much as I hate it, letting the public believe he killed himself is in the best interest of all. But I don’t have to like it.”
He brought her hand to his lips. “No. You don’t.”
“What are we going to do, Max?”
“Tonight, we sleep. Tomorrow we talk with those it concerns. When we have a consensus, we act. And we put an end to those who threaten us and the future of those we protect.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
“Enter.”
Byron Atcliff looked up from a check of his morning calendar and knew from Charlotte Caissie’s wide-planted stance and stony stare it was over. He wasted no time with denials or apologies. She’d accept neither.
“So,” he began, expression emotionless as if waiting for her report, “what happens now?”
Consequences weren’t on the table, not while the