Page 64 of Scorned Beauty

Sandro scoffed. “Just so you know, I want to bury my fist in your face.”

“Might I remind you that Sloane is working with a fed? She played me.”

“I haven’t mentioned that part to the women yet.”

I snorted. “So I’m painted as the bad guy.”

“Well, you’re certainly not a victim here. My hunch? Sloane didn’t have a choice. Especially with her brother who kept screwing up.”

“And she couldn’t have told us?”

“Yeah, well, she’s not around to defend herself, is she?”

Sloane’s betrayal stung deep, but Sandro giving her the benefit of the doubt while I refused to listen to her, while I wanted her to suffer for her betrayal, stung deeper and pierced an uncomfortable shard of disgust in my chest.

“I told you Grigori needed to go. I should have acted on my own and not looped you into it,” Sandro said.

Sloane and I agreed to nothing personal. But I let my pride get in the way. I hid behind my responsibility to family. Sandro considered Sloane a friend. Did my five months with her, fucking her in every position, spending time with her mean nothing? It did. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have put security on her and that was why I was panicking when I lost control over Sloane’s movements.

“I have no time for this blame game,” I warned. “Kirill Zahkarov is with me.”

“And you’re all about appearances, aren’t you?”

I ignored his jibe. “Talk to you later.”

Sandro wasn’t kidding when he said the place was crawling with cops. He met me and Kirill on the ground floor. He and the Russian exchanged brief nods. I wondered if Sandro had ever taken a contract from them. They had Kolya, but he usually only did things for the bratva and didn’t contract out his services.

I wasn’t prepared for the feeling that hit me when I entered Sloane’s apartment. The place looked like an all-out brawl had taken place. Coffee table smashed, barstools overturned, and the couch where Sloane and I had fucked countless times was at an odd angle. Parallel chaos was roiling my insides.

Something nagged at me. I was hyper-aware. Glasses were being dusted off by the tech, and evidence markers planted.

I walked into the bedroom. The closet door was open, and the mattress was tossed. Did the Russians think Sloane was hiding something, or were they setting this up as a burglary?

I kept nothing here, not even a toothbrush. Once or twice I checked us into a hotel, but Sloane preferred I didn’t spend a dime on us, which irritated the fuck out of me. She started pushing back on groceries. Interestingly enough, she never said no to Ginger’s prissy food…

Ginger.

I rushed out of the bedroom and spotted the cat’s empty bowl. “Did you guys see a cat?”

Everyone narrowed their gazes at me as if I’d lost my damn mind.

“It’s an orange cat,” I persisted.

I got a few headshakes, mostly shrugs, and then one of the CSIs said “no” before returning to his task.

Sandro’s gaze burned a hole through me while I stalked around the overturned furniture and headed to the fire ladder door.

“Don’t touch anything!” the CSI tech yelled.

I grunted, not used to people treating me like I was dumb as a rock when it came to situations like this. Of course I wasn’t going to touch anything unless I wanted to get rid of evidence. I shouldered the ajar door that led to the fire escape. I wondered whether one of the residents had Ginger or she was on the roof.

I glanced up to see if she was peering down and observing the activities like a curious cat would, but I didn’t see her. My eyes traveled down the catwalk and immediately spotted an orange blob beside the dumpster in the alley.

No.

Fuck, no.

I barged back into the apartment, out its door, and raced down the stairs. I would have looked like a fleeing suspect if I hadn’t been wearing a tux.