Starlet: A Dark Retelling - Cora Kenborn Page 0,111

say nothing. I’ve done enough damage as it is. Unbothered, Rubio gathers all his photos and tucks them away. “No worries, secrets have a way of coming out anyway. Even if it does take fifteen years.”

For the second time, I allow him to provoke a reaction out of me. “What did you say?”

He knows he’s got me, so he toys with me by spinning a pen on the table. “I was going through my old man’s files. It’s all I’ve done for years since he died. And there’s one thing I’ve never understood.”

“And what’s that?”

“Well, there were assumed to be two shooters,” he continues, spinning the pen faster and faster, and I can’t stop watching it. I don’t know if he’s doing it on purpose, but it’s driving me insane. “Forensic determined one bullet fired from one gun killed Katerina Romanov, and six bullets fired from another killed the rest. Two hit Nicholas; four hit the children.”

Slamming my hand down on the pen, I meet his raised eyebrow. “Do you have a point to make?”

Scowling, he jerks his hand away, his fingers wrapping tightly around the pen. “What I don’t understand is although a bullet from Nicholas’s gun hit the assailant, it wasn’t the one that killed him. That honor came from the gun that killed Katerina.”

There’s a loud buzzing in my head, so I distract myself by tilting the metal chair onto its back legs. “You really need to get out more, Jav.”

“The second shooter killed his own partner,” he says. “Now, why would he do that, Dominic?”

“Maybe he’s an equal opportunity homicidal maniac.”

He huffs out a brusque laugh. “Maybe. Know what else I’ve wondered over the years?”

“Why you have no friends?” He’s just shooting fish in a barrel now. He might think he has the answers, but all he has are the tiny fragments of Angel’s broken mirror. Jagged shards that will never fit together to form anything but a distorted picture.

I made sure of it.

Rubio’s lip curls up. “Cute. No, it’s about Hilda. When my dad interviewed her, she swore she saw nothing, but she was right next door, less than fifty feet away.”

“I’m done,” I announce, my chair scraping across the floor as I rise to my feet.

He extends his leg, blocking my exit. “I’m not. See, I don’t trust you, McCallum. Never have. So, I did some digging and found out you have an aunt in Phoenix. I had some time, so, I paid her a visit. What do you think she told me?”

Years of deception spiral out of control. Turning around, the monster Luciano created dives for his jugular. “You son of a bitch!”

Rubio bolts out of his chair, meeting me with a hard shove. He’s no longer shooting fish. He’s hooked one right through the eye. “I won’t stand by and let you manipulate that girl all over again,” he growls. “Either you tell her, or I will.”

Chapter Forty-Five

Dominic

Guilt is a perception of one’s own reality. I’ve always believed transgressions of the past have no bearing on the future. What’s done is done. Always move forward, because looking back only makes you run into walls.

But what I really meant was that my transgressions have no bearing on my future. Because if you transgress against me, it’s never done. I’ll make sure your guilty ass gets what’s coming to you.

Now, I realize what’s done may be done, but it’s never forgotten. Especially when sins are never confessed, and truth is never told.

I’ve avoided guilt because allowing myself to feel even the slightest bit forces me to question a choice I made when I was seventeen years old. A split-second decision that changed the course of two people’s lives.

I brought this on her. If I’d just left her alone, none of this would’ve happened. But it’s too late for regrets. Rubio gave me forty-eight hours, and that countdown clock that’s been ticking since I dragged Angel outside a bar in Chula Vista is nearing zero.

I’m out of time, and so is she.

I find her where she’s been since we got home from the police station—outside on the main balcony staring out at nothing. She’s still curled up on the chaise lounge, mourning her friend, her identity, the family she never knew, and the life she can’t remember.

She looks so innocent in her black leggings and oversized gray hoodie that if I close my eyes just enough, I can almost imagine her as eight-year-old Alexandra Romanov.

Swallowing the guilt I’ve chewed on for the last hour, I