Page 71 of No Small Sin

“I thought it was foolproof. I should have known better. Unfortunately for you, my niece liked to talk just as much as she liked to borrow more money than she’d ever have been able to pay back. As if working off her debt as a waitress would have ever been enough. Frilly bitch.”

Andrea.

“It didn’t take much encouragement on my part to get her to spill anything and everything I could have ever possibly wanted to know about you and your little girlfriend and every other goddamn thing that’s happened inside LC over the last month. Didn’t keep her from owing me, but she was more than happy to run that fucking mouth of hers when given the opportunity.”

Not something he needed to share. I was more than well aware.

“When I caught wind of your one and only weakness, it wasn’t hard for me to put two and two together and point Detective Carson in the right direction. While it wasn’t enough to keep him off my back for long, it was enough to hit you where it hurt.”

I seared a hole in the floor with my glower as he spoke, taking in every word and accepting my fate.

There was always an end of the road for people like me. I don’t know why I thought I could be given the chance for a happily ever after.

I didn’t fucking deserve one, that was for sure.

“I’d hoped everything would go seamlessly and you’d just fucking kill yourself once she was out of the picture,” he chuckled. “Looks like I’m going to have to get my hands dirty after all.”

He stepped toward me, causing me to involuntarily wince. I knew what came next and there was nothing I could do to stop it.

There was a blur of movement just out of my line of vision, and then a sick crack. Mattia’s body fell over into a heap in front of me.

I watched in disbelief as TK let loose the bloody baseball bat she’d used to knock him out cold. It clattered to the floor as she jerked a semiautomatic pistol from the waistband of his pants and cracked off two shots to the back of his head before I even had time to comprehend what was happening.

She clamored over to me, fumbling to release me from the guillotine. “This motherfucker was going tocut your literal head off?” she shrieked, unfastening each latch that held the metal in place. “Who thefuckdoes this guy think he is?King Louis?Whatever happened to justshootingsomeone?Goddamn.”

I stood, rubbing the back of my neck with my good hand. “Howdid you find me here? I don’t even know wherehereis.”

She leaped on me, climbing me like a fucking tree and peppering me with kisses. I winced when she hit my broken wrist but held her against me with the other. “I woke up and you were gone. I’ve spent the last couple of days worrying myself sick about where you were and then it dawned on me. I was fucking mad I hadn’t thought of it sooner. You never turned your location off. I showed Hunt, wondering what the fuck you were doing so far at the edge of the property.” She kissed me again. “She confirmed that Mattia had some kind of fucked up torture chamber out here and insisted that I go. So I did. I found the baseball bat outside the door. I’ve already named him François. I’m keeping him as a souvenir.”

This woman was unbelievable. Shenamedit? “Asouvenir?”

“Yeah. From my first kill.Duh.”

“At what point were you going to tell me you knew your way around a firearm?” I asked.

She just shrugged. “What? Like it’s hard?”

I leaned away from her, looking at her incredulously. “I love you.”

“Love you too.” She kissed me sensually this time, then pulled away to ask. “How do you feel about the Dominican Republic? I googled and… if everything goes to shit and someone finds out I’m not actually dead, they won’t send me back here to actually be tried. Plus it’ll be a great place for Hunt to come visit me on vacation.”

I chuckled, kissing her again. “Sure.”

I’d go anywhere for her.

EPILOGUE

TK

3 MONTHS LATER

The sun beat down, overheating my bare skin as I lounged by the pool.

Apparently, my husband had amassed enough money in his career as a paid-for murderer to last us several lifetimes.

He’d spent a nice chunk of it on a beautiful beach house for the two of us and we’d both found ourselves more relaxed here than either of us had ever been. Moving south was a wise choice.

I was so relaxed, in fact, that I almost didn’t hear him sneak up on me.

---