Page 22 of Black Jack (Advantage Play 5)

Again, the bastard laughs. “Look. She wasn’t always that way. She was actually a pretty cool girl, but then Dominic screwed over the family, and she became desperate to get out and to find someone that could take her away from the hellhole she was raised in. It just sucks that her plan ended up blowing up in her face.”

“Because no one wants to buy the cow when they can get the milk for free, right?”

“Exactly,” Kingston answers.

“Which is why Dominic found a loophole by arranging a marriage with someone outside of the regular gossip circles,” I conclude with my head in my hands. So, when she was making fun of my experience earlier today, she was actually being a bit serious. I’ve had sex with plenty of women, but knowing my future wife has gotten around too? I recognize the double-standard, but it doesn’t ease the discomfort from knowing the truth.

“Did you sleep with her?” I ask.

“No.”

“Diece?”

Kingston blows out a deep breath. “Jack….”

“I’ll take that as a yes. What about Stephan and Lou?”

“Jack, you don’t want to hear this shit.”

He’s right. I don’t.

Pushing myself up from the barstool, I round the island and search for a glass. Anything to help with the giant golf ball lodged in my throat.

“Just…be careful, okay?” he warns, his earlier amusement evaporating.

“What do you mean? For STDs or…?” My bitterness is thick as I find a bottle of water in the fridge and chug half of it down in one shot.

“I’m serious, Jack,” Kingston continues. “The Castellos can’t be trusted. I warned you about that.”

“I didn’t have a choice,” I defend before finishing the rest of the water.

“I know.”

“That reminds me, though.” I toss the plastic bottle in the recycling bin then collapse back onto the barstool. “How did it go?”

“Dominic played the part well. We messaged the original number that belonged to Reed but got a response from a different number a few minutes later. The text said the initial number had been intercepted and that they needed to communicate through the new one. Dominic agreed. Then he told Reed that he’d found the fruit Reed had been looking for. Reed wanted photographic evidence, but Dominic said he wouldn’t do it. He said it was too risky.”

“And Reed bought it?” I ask.

“Yeah. You’d been arrested that same day, so the plan worked like we wanted it to. Reed figured he was in the clear to keep everything going. Then Dominic told him where he was willing to meet for a pickup and told Reed to come alone. He also said he wanted a briefcase of cash for his effort, and Reed didn’t bat an eye.”

“What happened when he showed up?” I ask.

“Wanted to know where Q was. Dominic gave him a corpse.”

Convinced I’ve heard him wrong, I cock my head to the side and replay the conversation one more time before demanding, “Where the hell did you get a corpse?”

“You don’t want to know. But before you ask, she was already dead and had been burned in a fire. Therefore, she was unrecognizable, and Reed bought it. He helped Dominic dispose of the body, then went on his way.”

“Serious?”

“Yeah. We filmed the whole thing from a distance, then gave Dominic the footage on a hard drive and he waltzed right into the police station and confessed everything.”

My mind reels. “Just walked right in?”

“Yeah. We told Dominic that Stephan was on the roof of the building across from the precinct with a sniper rifle. We told him that Stephan would pull the trigger if Dominic even thought about running and leaving you high and dry. Thankfully, it worked.”

“So that’s it?” I ask.