Page 57

I should turn back. I’m crossing a line that I’ve carefully maintained throughout my career. But something drives me forward, a compulsion that feels both foreign and achingly familiar.

Finding the back door unlocked is almost disappointing—I’d been prepared to force my way in. I step into a dimly lit kitchen, the smell of old coffee and cigarettes hanging in the still air. From the other room, I can hear Marco speaking, his voice low and urgent. On the phone, then. Reporting to Cohen, perhaps?

I draw my gun, its weight comforting in my hand, and move toward the sound of his voice.

“No, I understand,” Marco is saying as I approach the doorway to what appears to be a study. “It won’t happen again…yes, I’ll handle both of them.”

Both of them.

Lena and me.

I step into the doorway, gun raised. “Hanging up so soon? I think you and I have unfinished business.”

Marco spins around, the phone receiver still clutched in his hand. The surprise on his face quickly gives way to cold calculation. “I’ll call you back,” he says into the phone before hanging up.

“Breaking and entering,” he observes, eyes flicking to my gun. “That’s a bit beneath a private detective with your reputation, isn’t it, Callahan?”

“So is beating women, but that didn’t stop you.”

A smirk forms on his battered face. “That what this is about? Lena? You think you’re the first guy to get a hard-on for her? She belongs to me. To Mickey. You’re just a temporary distraction.”

The rage that’s been simmering since our encounter at Lena’s apartment boils over. “She doesn’t belong to anyone but herself.”

Marco laughs, a harsh, ugly sound. “Shows what you know. Lena Reid isn’t what you think she is. She’s?—”

“Shut up.” I take a step closer, my gun steady despite the trembling fury in my veins. “Just shut the fuck up.”

He holds up his hands in mock surrender, but his eyes are calculating, searching for an opening. “What exactly is your plan here, detective? Shoot me? You think Mickey won’t figure out who did it? You think you’ll leave this house alive if you pull that trigger?”

“I’m not planning to shoot you.” I lower the gun slightly. “Just have a conversation about boundaries. About what happens if you ever touch Lena again.”

Marco’s expression shifts, a predatory smile spreading across his face. “You poor bastard. You’re in love with her, aren’t you? Got yourself all worked up over a piece of ginger-curled tail.”

The world goes red at the edges.

“Tell you what,” he continues, reaching slowly for a cigar box on his desk. “I’ll let this little home invasion slide. Hell, I’ll even put in a good word with Mickey. But you stay away from Lena. Find yourself another broad. One who isn’t spoken for.”

“I told you to shut your mouth,” I repeat, but my voice sounds distant, as if I’m hearing myself from underwater.

Marco opens the cigar box, and I tense, expecting a weapon. Instead, he removes a cigar, tapping it against the box before placing it between his lips. “You know what your problem is, Callahan? You think you’re better than the rest of us. Some kind of knight in shining armor.” He strikes a match, the flame illuminating the cruel amusement in his eyes. “But you’re not, are you? There’s something wrong with you. I can see it. Something dark. You’re not a knight at all and your armor ain’t shinin’.”

The pounding in my head increases, my vision tunneling until all I can see is Marco’s smug face, the lit match hovering before his cigar.

God. Not now.

Not now.

“I mean, look at you,” he continues, lighting the cigar and taking a long draw. “Sneaking into my house with a gun. All for a woman who’s been warming my bed for a year. She’s good, isn’t she? The way she makes you feel important. That mouth of hers. The noises she makes when you’re inside her. How she?—”

I don’t remember crossing the room. Don’t remember holstering my gun. One moment I’m standing in the doorway, and the next my hands are around Marco’s throat, squeezing, lifting him off the ground with a strength I didn’t know I possessed.

His eyes bulge, hands clawing at mine, but I can’t stop. I don’t want to stop. The rage is consuming me, transforming into something primal.

Something hungry.

Marco’s face turns purple, his struggles weakening. In the back of my mind, a voice screams at me to stop, that this isn’t who I am. But that voice is drowned out by a roaring in my ears, a demand for blood that overwhelms all reason.

Then something changes. My vision sharpens beyond anything I’ve experienced before. I can see every pore on Marco’s skin, the individual capillaries bursting in his eyes. I can hear his heart, frantic but slowing, the rush of blood through his veins. And I can smell him—fear and cologne and beneath it all, the iron-rich scent of his blood.