Page 15 of Her Dark Mafia Protector
“The way it was covered up afterward. You were probably too young to notice, but?—”
“No, actually, I noticed,” she interrupts. “It always bothered me how no one ever talked about it again after that night. It wasn’t a robbery. The killer never asked us for anything. There was no further information, no deep investigation into what happened; it was like her murder, and her whole life had suddenly just disappeared. I felt so alone. Even my father didn’t want to talk to me about what happened. One might think that having a detective for a father would mean getting an intense and relentless investigation until the killer and motive were found.But instead, he avoided talking about it with me entirely and could never give a good reason why no one found or even looked for answers. I was left to deal with it alone and to hunt down my own answers.”
“And you thought that by huntingmedown, you would find them?”
“Of course,” she nods. “You were the only other person there that night. So, ifyouweren’t the monster sent to kill her, and you don’t know who the monster who shot her was, with all of the ways that you’re able to find out information inside the mafia, then that means there’s more to what happened that night than meets the eye. The real monster behind it all might still be out there.”
I brought Elle here to understand both me and the situation that she’s been meddling in. I wanted to use it as a deterrent to keep her safe. But now, this has only shown me she needs my protection even more, and I now fear that she understands too much about the danger surrounding that night and about me.
CHAPTER 11
ELLE
“Elle, did you consider someone closer to you might be hiding the villain you seek?”
Nico’s question doesn’t register in my head at first. But then, as he goes on to call out the cops, I see where this is leading.
“The police department, and many of the detectives who work within it, are corrupt,” he says assuredly. “I’m not saying thatallcops are dirty and that all the higher-level detectives are compromised, but I’d wager to say that the majority are. And that night, there was a case to be made surrounding an investigation into your mother’s murder. But there was nothing. Don’t you find it strange that the wife of a city detective was shot at point-blank range in the middle of an alleyway on the Vegas Strip and no investigation was launched?”
“Of course, I find it strange,” I say, sounding annoyed. “But what exactly is it that you’re getting at?”
“Come on, Elle. You’re smart. Smarter than most. Use your head.”
The truth is that I don’twantto use my head, not with this. I’ve questioned why my father didn’t push harder for answers foryears. He had the authority. He had resources at his disposal. But yet, he let it all simply slip away. I told myself that it was because he was protecting me, that he knew I was already traumatized by what I’d seen and gone through, and that he was just trying to make it all go away so that I could try to rebuild my life. It was a rather weak plot that I built for myself, which would have been more convincing if he'd actually been supportive of me after the incident. But all my father did was stick me in therapy and shove me off to a private academy. He neveroncetalked to me about that night or what I saw. It was as if he just wanted to erase it from my memory completely.
I suppose if I had thought harder on it, I would have entertained the possibility that maybe he was being threatened to cover it up, or that he simply couldn’t deal with the loss himself and wasn’t as strong as he liked to portray himself as being. Or maybe even he knew there was corruption in the force and chose to look the other way for a paycheck. Honestly, I’m not sure which sin my father can lay claim to, but I know which one Nico can—his inaction that night cost my mother her life.
“Myhead?” I shoot back at him. “Where wasyourhead that night, Nico? Or sorry, should I call youTheGhost? Because you were doing an excellent job at pretending, you weren’t even there when my mom took a bullet to the chest and bled out on the street. Perhaps you were so traumatized by your own past that you froze and couldn’t bring yourself to act fast enough to save her. That sucks, but at least there’s a psychological reason to blame for it. But youranaway from the alley. I tried to run after you, and you just left me there.”
“I didn’t just leave you there,” he argues. “Isaved your life. And I wasn’t running away from anything, I was?—”
Nico cuts his sentence short.
“You were what?” I press.
He shakes his head, suddenly tight-lipped. “I’ve already said too much.”
“Fuck that,” I growl. “Finish your goddamn sentence. You werewhat?”
“I was chasing after someoneelse.”
For a moment, I’m stunned. There were only four people in that alley that night—me, my mom, the Ghost, and the killer who shot my mother.
“Never mind,” Nico says quickly, pivoting once he realizes he opened Pandora’s box. “What I’m trying to say is thatyour fatherhas been implicated in many, many scandals involving corruption. I think you’d be wise to question why an investigation into your mother’s murder wasn’t pushed for.”
“You’re just trying to change the topic and take the focus of all of this off yourself.”
“No, I’m trying to expose the fact that your father isn’t who you think he is, Elle.”
“This entire conversation is aboutyou, and the night my mom was murdered. This has nothing to do with my father,” I argue, even though I’ve been carrying theseexactquestions around in my chest for years. My father and I have never been close, more so since my mother’s death.
I can see the anger flare in Nico’s eyes as he looks back at me.
“Iwasn’t the one who shot and killed your mother,” he says through gritted teeth. “And I also wasn’t the one who covered up whatever happened that night.”
“True,” I say, feeling angry enough to misdirect all of my rage even though I know he’sfinallytrying to communicate with me after all this time. “You were just the one who failed to save her and then ran away.”
We both sit there locked in a stare. Both angry and frustrated, and both unsure what to say next. I came here for answers, and I thought that he would have them. But what if he doesn’t? What if Nico is telling the truth, and he doesn’t know who killed my mom? What if he did his best, and his best meant that he was only able to save me and not her? And what if my fatherdidhave something to do with the cover-up?
