The thing is, I have those answers now. Pretty sure I’ve had them all along. But sometimes it takes a traumatic event to really shake you, to wake you up to the reality of who you’re supposed to become.
“I haven’t done anything wrong,” I tell Sara, opening my eyes again. The pretty little cop shifts a bit, as if there’s something in my stare that’s making her uncomfortable. Good. She should be uncomfortable. She should be terrified. Of Havoc. Of the GMP. Of the fact that she’s gotten herself firmly in the crosshairs of our turf war.
I killed James Barrasso; I bashed his head in with Mr. Darkwood’s doorstop.
That isn’t something Maxwell Barrasso is likely to forgive anytime soon, regardless of the fact that he sent his guys to my fucking school.
“Bernadette, there are seventeen dead men with tattoos linking them to a gang that’s made the FBI’s most dangerous gangs in America list. Men like that …” She trails off and then swipes both hands over her face, a rare break in her white knight hero act. “Why were those men at your school? Hmm? Because the only reason I can gather is that they were after you.”
“They were after Stacey Langford,” I say, a pang in my chest when I think of the spunky blonde with the loyal crew. Her girls must be devastated. No sooner has that thought crossed my mind when I welcome another: we need to bring her girls into Havoc’s fold. It’s the least we can do, considering everything. Besides, Stacey taught her girls well. They’ll be an asset.
“Stacey Langford,” Sara Young says, grabbing her phone from the counter and scrolling until she, presumably, gets to some sort of file on Stacey. “Eighteen years old, a father with a serious rap sheet, a mother missing under mysterious circumstances, and—”
“Stacey was a good person,” I say, feeling my anger rise to the surface like bubbles in boiling water. I’m liable to scald if Sara pushes me too far tonight. I don’t have the patience for her privileged ass, not when the fates of my boys are so uncertain.
Hael, Aaron, Oscar, or Callum could be dead.
Fuck.
I’m shaking now; I can’t help it. There are few things in this world that can shake me anymore. This, this is one of them. Don’t you dare leave me heartbroken, you assholes. Don’t you fucking dare.
“Stacey was a good person,” I repeat, laying my palms flat on the shiny granite surface of the counter. It’s the color of sand, but even less interesting. I hope for Sara’s sake this really is an Airbnb and not her house. It’s so incredibly boring. “She was more than just a file on your phone.” I shake my head. I’ve relived that moment in the hallway several times already inside my mind. Even though I know there was no way I could’ve saved Stacey, I wish things had been different.
“Listen, Bernadette,” Sara starts, drawing in a breath that she holds for so long I’m afraid she might pass out. She finally exhales as she steps forward, putting her hands on the counter just twelve inches from my own. My entire body aches, like I’ve been put through a wash cycle or something. Everything hurts. At least I found out during my exam at Joseph General that I was only coughing up blood because I’d cracked a tooth and bitten my own tongue from the beating. Could’ve been way worse, like internal bleeding and shit. They insisted on drawing blood and running some tests, too, though I’m not exactly sure why that was necessary. “You are not under arrest at this time. However”—and here she pauses to emphasize that word in a manner that’s quite menacing—“you are a person of interest.”
“Why am I at your house?” I ask, staring at her and wishing this day would just fucking end. I’m exhausted. “Is this standard procedure, to bring a person of interest to a fed’s house?”
“I’m trying to help you, Bernadette,” she says, pink mouth flat and grim, eyes shadowed in a way they weren’t before she walked into that building today and saw carnage spread out across the decrepit school like it was the fucking end-times. “I brought you here because I have a deal for you.”
Sara turns away and gathers a packet of papers, bringing it over and laying it out in front of me. I look at it for a moment and then adjust my gaze to hers.
“Pardon me, but I don’t speak legal bullshit. What is this?”
“Full immunity for you,” Sara says, tapping her fingers on the pages. “In exchange for information … and your testimony.”
“Testimony for what?” I ask, feeling my skin prickle with goose bumps. I want to go home. I want to see my boys. Shit, that’s the only thing I can think about right now, going home and curling up in bed with them. If I ask real nice, you think they’d all snuggle up with me together? Stranger things have happened.
