Page 191 of Creep

“Okay.” And that was all that needed to be said.

48

MAEL

It waspast midnight as I walked under Driprock Arch, one of the many bridges in Central Park.

There wasn’t a soul in sight. I quietly walked under the bridge and stopped, looking at my surroundings.

It didn’t take long for a shadow to come into my line of sight. I knew he wasn’t alone. He would be stupid if that were the case, and Special Agent Jacob Keller wasn’t a stupid man.

Theo and I had been on his radar for a while, not that he knew we were the ones he had been hunting for the last several years. Our anonymity had served us well.

The same couldn’t be said about this man. He didn’t bother to cover his tracks well enough. We knew the moment he started to suspect there was more going on with the killings—thejobsI had taken—around the area.

We’d left him alone, mostly because he was nowhere close to catching us, but I knew when we needed to take down the entire mob, this man would be the one to help us.

Keller stopped when he was about five feet away from me. I took a step toward him when he spoke. “I think this is close enough.”

I smiled, wondering if he could see it in the dark. The streetlamp nearby wasn’t enough for me to see him clearly. I had the hood of my sweatshirt pulled up over my head, just in case. A red dot appeared on my chest.

“A sniper,” I said casually, changing my voice up a bit. I hadn’t had to change my voice since I spoke to Lia as her stalker. How this brought back fond memories. “I came here in good faith.”

“Is that so? Then why don’t you come down to headquarters with me? And tell me your name while you're at it.”

I laughed. “That isn’t how it works, and you know it.”

I waved my hand, signaling to Theo. A similar red dot appeared on Keller’s head.

He stayed where he was.

“Want to see which one of our guys is quicker?” I asked.

“Is this a game to you? Did you just call me out for that?”

I laughed. “You had your guy point his gun at me first.”

“Cut the bullshit. I’m sure your guy has had me in sight since I stepped foot in Central Park.”

I didn’t refute him. He probably felt Theo following him for the past couple of days.

“Do you want to talk about this in a civilized manner? And don’t even try to stall for your men to find my guy. If he doesn’t want to be found, you won’t find him,” I said.

He was quiet for a moment. “Is he even close by?”

I shrugged, not that he could see me. “Let’s talk, Keller. I have a business proposition for you.”

“What business proposition?”

“A chance for you to take down the Tacchini family.”

“Why would I want to do that? Sure, it would be nice to put all those fuckers away, but here in New York, they are nothing more than a small fish in a big ocean.”

“Because you think the Abbiati family has control right now? They have been scrambling since the death of Dean Abbiati, making them perfect pickings for the Tacchini to take over. And the shit that family is in goes beyond what you could imagine. A skin trade happening right in your backyard. And I don’t think you know that, do you?”

I could feel him tensing. The air shifted, getting heavier. “What are you talking about?”

I shook my head. “It’s not only the Abbiati family scrambling. The Camorra as well, since both Miguel Gallo and his son Salvatore are dead.”

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