Page 13 of Tattletale

I stand, making my way to the door. The moment I undo the deadbolt, the handle turns. Lance’s smile fades when he sees me.

“Your blood?” he asks, his brows furrowing with concern.

“No.” I nod over my shoulder to Rossi’s limp body on the ground. “Things got out of hand.”

He places his hands on my shoulders and guides me backward two steps, shutting the door behind us with his heel. “You okay?”

I lock on to his soft, light eyes. “Yes.”

He smirks. “Really, because you look like the last twenty minutes ofCarrie.”

“I look like who?” I ask, confused.

“Carrie,” he reiterates, staring at me like I’m confused. “After prom.”

“What?”

He palms his forehead. “It’s beenyears, Cricket. Watch the damn movies. I gave you a list for educational purposes, but you haven’t watched even one.”

“I watchedShawshank Redemption,” I insist.

“No,no.” He shakes his head adamantly. “You don’t get credit for that. You ate a jumbo bowl of popcorn, complained your stomach hurt, and then you passed out on the couch.”

That sounds vaguely familiar. “Fine, then. I was awake forForrest Gump.”

“Nope,” he says again. “You played Candy Crush through the entire movie. At the end, you asked me where that little boy came from. You werezeropercent helpful with the trivia questions when I took us to Bubba Gump’s Shrimp factory in Fort Lauderdale.”

“When the hell were we in Florida?”

“It was after you sniped that Night Stalker copycat serial killer who collected scrunchies. You probably don’t remember. You discovered Long Island Iced Teas that day and got a little sloppy, if I’m being honest. Your karaoke rendition of Adele’s ‘Hometown Glory’ sounded like a tortured cat.”

I deadpan. “Anyway, what’s your point, Lance?”

“You say you’re trying to become more American; I gave you alistof American things.”

I pinch the bridge of my nose. “I said I wanted tosoundmore American. Notbemore American. And, anyway, it worked. My accent is hardly existent now.”

He stares at me with wide, unblinking eyes. “You can’t possibly believe that.”

“Lance,” I grunt and clap my hands in front of his face. “Focus. We have bigger problems. I was supposed to put two bullets in Rossi’s head to look like a Conti assassination. Instead, there’s a broken wine bottle wedged into his cock.”

Lance’s jaw drops as he covers his jewels with two hands. “You’re an animal.”

I throw my head back and laugh, and when I meet Lance’s eyes again, they are suddenly cold and angry. His lips are pressed together in a hard line. “Your neck,” he says. Closing the space between us, he runs his thumb ever so gently over my throat. He seems to be tracing a pattern. There must be a handprint on my neck from where Rossi choked me.

Lance grabs the gun strapped to my inner thigh. He stands over Rossi’s dead body and plants two bullets in his forehead, side by side, with expert precision.

“There.” He hands my pistol back. “Problem solved.”

“Was that necessary?” I ask, rolling my eyes.

He’s staring at my throat. “Why do you let it go this far, Cricket? One day, you’re going to get yourself killed,” he mutters.

It’s that look on his face.It keeps tripping me up. From the moment I met Lance, I knew exactly what he was. Sexy, smooth-talking playboy who saw more pussy in a month than most men did in their lifetime. But when he looks at me like this, I don’t recognize him.

“I can handle myself,” I say.

His eyes look like gray-blue steel. “I know,” he says, lips barely moving. “But humor me. Next time a man grabs you like that—”

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