Page 48 of A Trap So Flawless

It’s Amos.

Watching Valentina continue to search through her bag, I accept the call.

“What is it?”

“Good evening to you too,” he says with a low chuckle. “I have some information for you.”

“Well then?”

He laughs again.

“I only knew Callum Gowan for a brief time. But you really do remind me of him. It’s a compliment,” he adds when I don’t immediately reply. “But as requested, this is the information I’ve got for you. A bank account registered to a Sam Jaw, which perhaps obviously is one of Jim Shaw’s aliases, recently received an international payment for ten thousand euros.”

Ten thousand euros. A man like Callum Gowan dead for that paltry fucking amount. It should be impossible. Should violate some fundamental law of the universe.

“The timing of the payment makes me think,” Amos goes on, “that he indeed was hired to assassinate Callum Gowan.”

“No shit, he was hired.” I figured that out myself. If that’s all the information Amos has got…

“There’s more,” he says.

A little divot is forming between Valentina’s brows. Her lips are pursed with focus. I want to kiss her.

“I was able to finally uncover details of the payment’s path. It appears to have come through a complex series of shell corporations.”

“And?”

Idly, I catch a lock of Valentina’s dark hair between my fingers, rubbing the strands as she practically sticks her whole fucking head in the bag.

“And the origin of the payment came from Toronto. From a corporation registered to Vincenzo Titone.”

I release Valentina’s hair like it’s fucking burned me.

She doesn’t even notice.

“I’ll kill him.”

“Kill Vincenzo?” Amos asks. “They’ve just started sharing the news in the Canadian media.”

“The news that I am going to rip his fucking guts out for this?”

“The news that Vincenzo Titone is already dead.”

I hang up immediately, pulling up a search engine, my pulse like an assault rifle in my temples. Multiple news articles have populated now. And they all say the same thing. That Vincenzo Titone, the fourth gunshot wound victim from the Montréal shooting – the first three being two bikers and Sal Di Mauro – has died.

“Who was that?” Valentina asks belatedly. And distractedly. She’s still looking in her bag, scraping her nails along the bottom like some little black squirrel who can’t remember where it stored its nuts for the winter.

“Your daddy is dead.”

Finally, she lifts her face. Her eyes are wide, and extra bright with gold, as colour drains from the rest of her face.

“What?”

“The media has just started reporting on it.” I spin my phone so she can see the most recent article I’ve landed on.

She drops the bag, letting half the shit spill out, so she can snatch the phone from my grip. I let her take it. As she frantically scans the text, her eyelashes fluttering rapidly, the phone begins to shake.

Her breath rushes in and out. She pants more than speaks the next words. “I have to go to Toronto.”

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