Page 22 of Painted Scars
Fuck. No. This isn’t the mission.
I grind my teeth and shake that from my head.
On the way back to my bike, I pull out my phone and search for a contact. I’m going to call in a favor. Damage control.
I warm up my bike, and the engine hums beneath me, smooth and measured like me.
Except I’m not right now. Kate Williams isn’t just a mark. She’s not just an enemy. She’s in my head. And that’s more dangerous than any Roman I’ve ever faced.
CHAPTER 7 - KATE
He raises his paper coffee cup from his usual spot in the far corner of Brew Cover, the back alley café where we always meet. Dim lighting, hedges of potted bamboo, and seats at the rear provide cover from street view. The tables are spaced far enough apart to facilitate an easy exit. Paranoia serves us well in this business, and that’s why we work well together. I have history with the police and not the good kind, so I take zero chances of them interfering in my investigation.
I grab a chai latte before moving deeper into the space. My contact half lifts from his seat when I reach our table. Light gray suit on as usual. Navy tie. Thinning silver hair. Shoulders slouched more than the last time we met. Sixty-two and counting down the months until retirement, but sharp as the day he started at the city’s medical examiner office.
Steel-rim glasses frame his eyes. “You look flushed, Mindy.” He mentions the fake name we agreed to use in public. “Everything okay?”
He reminds me of someone who made me believe in safety… until he didn’t.
I slide into the seat across from him. “Just caffeine-deprived and slightly paranoid. Standard Tuesday.”
Allan doesn’t waste time and slips a thick manilla envelope from beneath his coat and slides it over the table between us. His crisp blue shirt catches the light, and for a split second, my breath catches. I hate how that color still gets to me.
“Five bodies landed on my slab yesterday,” he says. “All Morrone family.”
I still. Warmth from the chai latte won’t replace the heat whisked from my body.
Shadow Lake’s mob. Getting intel on them is as futile as getting blood from a stone. Unless that stone owes you money and has a tendency to vanish under suspicious circumstances.
I open the envelope and flip through the reports, careful to shield them from a passing waitress. Names, injuries, timestamps, gruesome shots, and fingers with Morrone tattoos.
“Execution style?” I murmur.
Allan nods, removes his glasses and polishes them with his handkerchief. “Multiple gunshot wounds. I wanted to flag it for official inquiry.” He pauses to sip his coffee. “Blackthorn called and ordered my boss no reports, no trail. Release the bodies to the family immediately.”
The name hits me like a bullet wound. I use all my self-control to steel my expression, but my pulse punches harder.
Blackthorn always pulls strings, erasing crimes, including the one he committed against me. It’s his job as the heir of Order Mars to protect all seven branches of their syndicate.
I’ll never forget the day I met Allan. The only one willing to talk off-record about a missing persons case that smelled rotten from the start. Surprise, surprise, the cops never found the body. But I found a name. Blackthorn. It all connects to him.
All the chaos of the last few days catches up to me, and the shakes hit. I close the file and meet my source’s eyes. “Any sign this is connected to Sterling City?”
He slides his frames back on his face and blinks. “The police say it’s internal, but I don’t buy it. The bullets don’t match previous Morrone crimes.”
Shadows creep longer across the alley, and my gut twists.
“You okay?” Allan asks.
Thoughts twist into memories of the helmeted man. To the bug in my lamp. The matte black motorcycle that tailed me from a distance this morning. Same biker on my trail the night he stopped my panic attack from worsening. For a second, I let myself believe that he touched me like I wasn’t broken.
My jaw aches from clenching it. I push those thoughts down. I’m silly for letting myself believe I’m worth saving when I’m the girl who gets left behind, even by the one who swear they won’t.
I straighten, return the documents to their folder and tap it on the table. “Thank you, Allan. This helps. Stay safe, okay?”
He nods and leans back, lifting his coffee. “You’re not alone in this, you know. I wouldn’t be feeding you these reports if I didn’t think someone had to shine a light.”
I smile, thin but genuine. “Good thing I brought a flamethrower.”
