Page 20 of The Devil’s Bargain (A Devil to Die for #3)

“You aren’t exactly innocent,” Mitri told Calix, his voice fading in and out as Cal struggled to focus. “Even if you were found innocent at the trial. Even if Nero is willing to forgive you. That doesn’t change all the stress Amory was under because of you guys.”

“Then why isn’t Nero here having a heart attack as well?” he clipped.

“I told you. Amory wouldn’t like it.”

Amory was dead, so…But he wasn’t going to tell the psychotic forensic scientist that.

“Why are you so certain she’ll come back if you do this?” Yes, that was the right question. Calix needed to stall, but he also wanted to understand. If he really did die here, on the cold floor of a tiny room in the hospital morgue, he’d at least like to know the reasons for it.

Before this, he would have called Mitri a friend.

Mitri hesitated but then seemed to come to a decision. “You’re going to die anyway. I can give you this much at least, in the name of our friendship.”

Ah, so he’d thought they were friends too.

It shouldn’t be comforting at a time like this, yet it was.

“She left because of me,” Mitri divulged, continuing when he saw the perplexed look on Cal’s face.

“She didn’t like what I did, and then when she ended up accused of it…

Of course she ran. She didn’t have a choice.

But I really thought she would have reached out to me by now, you know? We’re best friends.”

The two had seemed incredibly close, but the somewhat manic glint in Mitri’s eyes—a similar glint to one Cal had caught in Aodhan’s gaze a time or two—made it seem like there was more too that relationship than pure friendship.

Especially considering he’d just referred to them as friends as well, and yet he didn’t seem all that bent out of shape about having poisoned Cal.

He—

Hold up.

“She was accused of something you did?” It had to be the drug making him think crazy thoughts, because there was no way—

“I’m the one who killed Bruce.” Mitri at least had the good sense to hang his head and sound regretful. “It was an accident.”

“…He was strangled to death.”

“I lost my temper.”

“That’s not an accident.”

“He confided in me that he thought Amory was involved with the serial murders,” Mitri said. “Can you believe that? After how she’d looked the other way for him, even though she’d fully believed he’d helped you evade justice those years ago, he dared to suspect her.”

That was the whole reason they’d been able to link Amory to Bruce’s death and explain away her “disappearance”.

The night he was murdered, she was set to meet with him.

He’d told a few people that he was going to question her about her involvement with the criminally run parties.

Calix had gotten the tip from Aodhan and passed it along.

At the time, he’d truly believed Aodhan’s claims, but now he knew it’d all been a lie.

Did that make him culpable?

Was Bruce dead because of him after all?

“He was asking me to hang around in case something happened and she didn’t take it well, but I could tell what he really meant. He thought she was going to turn on him. She’s been in love with Nero since you guys were kids, did you know that?”

Calix almost couldn’t follow the sudden curve in topic, but he didn’t need to reply to satisfy Mitri anyway.

“That’s why she stayed single all these years. She couldn’t get over him.”

She’d been rude to Cal in the beginning, when he’d first arrived back on planet for work, but the two of them had moved past that. Bruce had gotten through to her that Calix was innocent, and she’d seemed to believe it.

No, she had believed it.

“Amory would never hurt Bruce,” Calix stated plainly, and this time it was Mitri’s turn to give him the odd look.

“If you were so sure of that, why did you allow her to get caught up in this?” he demanded. “Why have you stood by and allowed her good name to be dragged through the mud? If you’d cleared her, she would have been back already.”

“She isn’t coming back.”

“She will. We just have to clear her name.”

“By killing me?”

“I wanted it to be Titus,” he repeated his earlier sentiment. “His death would mean the most to her.”

“Why? If she dislikes him because he helped me clear my name at that trial, then shouldn’t I be the one she’d want dead? If she doesn’t like him, she must hate me.”

“She doesn’t,” Mitri insisted. “She wanted to, but the same thing happened with you that happened with Bruce. That was why she became a police officer. She was hellbent on catching Bruce conducting shady business, abusing his power. But then she started working with him, got to know him, and one thing led to another.”

“She knew Bruce hadn’t done anything wrong,” he guessed.

“He was too good of a person, of a cop, to bend the law for anyone. Once she saw that, she gave up on her plans for revenge. She figured if she could be wrong about him, perhaps there was a chance she was wrong about you and Titus Mercer as well. She wasn’t willing to risk it and harm the innocent to appease her anger. ”

“You clearly don’t have the same problem.”

“I don’t. Amory is all I have. You have to understand.”

He snorted, but it took a lot of energy. All of this was taking a lot of energy, and it was getting harder and harder to stay conscious with each passing second. It felt like there was a heavy weight sitting directly on top of his chest, crushing his lungs.

“Heart attacks aren’t like this,” he said without meaning to.

“Experienced many before, have you?”

So, Mitri had murdered Bruce for Amory.

Mercy had mentioned they’d found Amory nearby. She’d been at the scene…

Had she witnessed Mitri killing Bruce?

Had she been shocked, and that’s why she’d run? They’d also said it was clear she was hiding something from them, but they’d never gotten the chance to get it out of her. Calix had arrived, she’d gotten loose, and the rest…well.

“You cried,” Cal remembered. “You examined his body and you cried.”

“Those weren’t fake tears,” Mitri said. “I was just crying for myself and for Amory as well, that’s all. Bruce shouldn’t have doubted her.”

“You have a screw loose.”

“I’m desperate. Desperate people do crazy things. We’ve both seen it. Come on, in this line of work? It’d be stranger if I didn’t lose my mind now and again.”

“You aren’t going to get away with this,” it was such a cliché thing to say, and yet the words spilled out of Cal’s mouth anyway.

“No one is going to suspect me,” he replied confidently. “You didn’t even have a clue, and you’re praised for your instincts.”

True. Had wanting a friend blinded him? Or had it been the guilt over knowing what actually happened to Amory, watching the way Mitri worried and yearned for her, and keeping the secret anyway?

Or, maybe, Calix hadn’t noticed because he simply hadn’t cared.

“Well, you’re right about one thing, in any case,” he mumbled.

“What’s that?”

“I’m not a good person.” The world wouldn’t be losing anything once he was gone.

But Mercy and Aodhan would, and Calix didn’t want to put them through that.

Just a little more…He knew they were trying to find him, felt bursts of their panic through the bond now and again, though it was quickly swept aside by his drive to survive. It was taking all his concentration not to keel over.

“What does that mean?” Mitri asked, but before he could get an answer, the door to the room crashed open, and the last person Calix expected to see came into view.

“Mitri, have you seen—Cal!” Nero dropped to his knees at his side, reaching for him. “Good Light, what’s happening? Are you okay? Call for help!”

“Go,” Calix tried to push him back toward the door, but he could no longer move his arms. “Go get, Mercy.”

“He’s looking for you. I’ll—” Nero had just gotten to his feet when the sound of a blaster going off momentarily deafened both of them. His gaze remained locked onto Cal’s, eyes wide.

“I wanted it to look like a natural cause of death,” Mitri was speaking through the ringing in Calix’s ears, “but now we’re going to have to change the story. Nero came here for revenge, and got the jump on you. Don’t worry though, Cal. I’ll make sure you’re written down as the hero.”

Blood was seeping from Nero’s right side, staining the white shirt he was wearing.

“Amory really loved you,” the forensic scientist divulged to Nero, lifting the gun a second time. “I’ll make it quick for her.”

He lifted the gun a second time.

Using the last bit of strength he had left, Calix tossed himself at Nero, just as the gun went off again.