again, if one of these men tried to shoot us.
The police hustle us off to a SWAT van at the edge of the parking lot. They ask us dozens of questions, most of which we can’t answer.
I don’t see Dante—I think he went back toward the stage. Or maybe he left.
I’m shaking uncontrollably. The cops put a blanket around my shoulders and give me a glass of water to drink. Every time I try to lift the cup to my lips, ice water sloshes over the rim and douses my hands.
I finally manage to take a drink, right when a gorgeous redheaded woman comes pushing her way through the police cordon.
One of the security guards tries to stop her—“Just a minute, ma’am!”
“It’s alright,” Dante says, raising a hand.
He’s come back from the stage. He’s holding something in his hand.
The redhead throws her arms around him and gives him a hug.
“Oh my god, Dante!” she cries. “I know I asked you to keep a lookout, but I really wasn’t expecting this . . .”
Dante hugs her back, like he knows her well.
I feel a deep and ugly stab of jealousy.
I know I have no right. But this woman is just so beautiful . . .
If she wasn’t so tall. Or so well-dressed. If her hair wasn’t such a vibrant shade of red . . . maybe I could have swallowed it down. But the sight of Dante’s huge hands around her little waist was just too much to bear.
Dante lets go of her, turning to one of the police officers instead.
“This is the bullet,” he says, dropping the twisted metal into the officer’s palm.
“You touched it?” The officer says.
“You’re not gonna get any prints off it,” Dante grunts. “Look at the state of it. Not to mention there wouldn’t be any in the first place. This shooter’s a professional. Just the distance alone . . . Only a dozen people in the world could make that shot.”
“How would you know?” the cop says suspiciously.
“Because he was a sniper himself,” the redhead snaps. “And a damn good one, so you should listen to what he says. And thank him for his service, while you’re at it.”
“Right,” the cop mumbles. “Of course.”
Dante was a sniper?
He was in the military?
I never knew what he was doing all those years. I tried to look him up once or twice, but he didn’t have any social media, or any news articles about him. None that I found, anyway.
This woman obviously knows Dante better than I do. And she’s quick to defend him.
I shiver miserably inside my blanket. She must be his girlfriend. I look at her left hand—I can’t help myself. No ring. Not yet, at least.
It doesn’t matter. None of this matters. Dante isn’t mine anymore—he only was for a brief moment in time. He’s allowed to have a girlfriend, or even a wife. I have no right to be jealous.
And yet, if auras were visible, mine would be poison green. As bright green as the other girl’s eyes.
“That’s a handmade bullet,” Dante says to the cop. “Bronze alloy. You’re not gonna be able to trace the source, let alone get some nice juicy thumbprint. Your best bet is to find the window he shot from and see if he left anything in the room. He probably cleared out in a hurry.”
“What building was he in?” the cop asks.
“That one,” Dante points to a tall high-rise with a white facade. It could be a hotel, though it’s hard to tell from this distance. “I think he was five floors up, on the southeast corner.”
The cop is writing it all down in his notebook.
A big, burly man with a beard comes over and claps Dante on the shoulder, shaking his head.
“Fucking hell, man. I thought you were just being paranoid.” He looks over at my father. “Somebody wanted you dead, my friend.”
Tata doesn’t have any blanket around him. He’s sitting up straight and calm, having recovered from the shock a lot faster than I did.
“Apparently so,” he says. He gives a respectful nod to Dante. “You saved my life.”
Dante shrugs his huge shoulders, a surly expression on his face.
“Maybe,” he says. “He might have missed either way.”
“I doubt it,” Tata says. “Dante Gallo, isn’t it?”
He holds out his hand to shake.
Dante looks at my father’s hand with an expression of distaste, as if he’d rather not take it. I’m sure he doesn’t appreciate my father’s tone—as if when they met before, it was just at a