those that have already run down her bruised and broken cheeks.
“Christo—”
“Don’t call me that!” I don’t mean to lash out at her, but I do. I haven’t gone by that name in over a decade.
It takes every ounce of my being to pry myself away from her gaze and leave at once. Forcing my limbs to move and ignoring Delilah as she calls out the name of the boy I allowed to be killed in my place.
The boy who comforted me when he needed it himself.
The boy who reminds me always, that the bad men always lose.
She cries out for him, for Marcus. Not Christopher, even though that’s the name she knows I had back then. That’s the name of a coward who chose not to fight. We could both be here if I’d had fought. If I hadn’t tried to hide myself in a damp corner of a dingy cell.
I should have known better. I wish I could go back. I wish I could take it all back.
With the thud of my bare feet on the wooden floor, I ignore the tears running down my face as I leave her in the bedroom, locking the door behind me in case she gets the urge to follow, and take refuge in the empty room down the hall. I bury myself in the corner of a darkened room, huddled like I was in my most shameful moment and close my eyes. Wishing I could just go back and make it right. Wishing I’d died instead.
Marcus is the one who was supposed to live. Not me.
Marcus
“The cops are close.”
Riggins’s message on my phone causes every hair on the back of my neck to stand on end as I slice a peach, the blade of the knife traveling along the rough pit.
He continues as I watch on the monitor of the open laptop sitting on the worn laminate counter. “With Marcus the lead suspect in Mr. Jones’s murder, they’re digging into all the cold cases and overturned cases Delilah and Walsh have worked on over the years. Some of these cases are far too close.”
I nearly question Riggins, which cases? But there’s no point.
“We need to pin this on someone and make sure they stop digging. Pin every case Marcus has been involved in on Delilah’s father?”
“Marcus could be a disgruntled partner,” Riggins suggests and every piece falls into place. It’s the perfect plan to wrap up every loose end and fuck over those who have it coming to them.
“I know who can take the fall for it. I’ll send you the steps.”
Riggins asks a question he never has before: How are you?
Staring at him in the monitor, I know he’s looking aimlessly into a lens I know doesn’t show him a damn thing but a black screen.
“There are loose ends that need to be tied off. Let’s focus on that.” My tone isn’t cold but regardless, Riggins’s expression is less than pleasant. It appears he’s reluctant to nod in agreement but he does.
Not wasting any time, I focus on the bastards who dared get between myself and Delilah and tell him, “All of Herman’s team needs to be executed.”
For the second time in the past few days, my ever-faithful companion objects. “Sir, if he’s gone, then the connection to Talvery—”
“Do it.” I leave no room for negotiation and reaffirm my position of superiority. “Someone else will fill the void and we’ll nurture that connection. The next meet for Talvery’s gun pickup is next week, isn’t it?”
Although I already know the answer, Riggins confirms it and judging by his tone, he can guess what I have planned. “Send Herman’s crew to the same location. Let them clash over it.”
Ripping the two halves of the ripe peach apart, I take my time slicing the delicate flesh, remembering how it all piled together. Every failure, every error I made that caused harm to bystanders like Riggins. I was able to help Charlie and bring him in close, but others felt the collateral damage of plays like the one I’m about to make. Mass murders of rivals meeting on trading grounds. There’s a reason I have a reputation, and it’s because I determine who lives and dies. There are so many bystanders, though: loved ones of those who will be taken from them forever and, like in this case, the unknowing individuals who do my bidding. The ones who were in the wrong place at the wrong time.
These are sacrifices that must be made, though. One