Page 6 of Coerced Kiss
More sirens blare outside. The walls aren’t as thick as Livy claimed.
After pulling out a keychain with a plastic sunflower ornament, I lift my face to hers. “Alarm?”
She shakes her head, trembling like a little mouse that’s trapped by a cat in her corner.
I already know from what Livy said that Anya isn’t living with anyone in a romantic sense. More than suiting me, the fact pleases me. She may have a roommate or family though.
“Do you live with someone?” I ask.
She shakes her head again.
Good.
I unlock the door and push her inside before locking it behind me. Holding onto her arm, I flick on the light. A small entrance opens into a spacious living area with a kitchen on the left and a lounge on the right. The minute I let her go, sheescapes to the far side of the room where she hovers without taking her eyes off me while I inspect the space.
Like the lobby, the apartment is a showcase of good taste and expensive fittings. Whatever she does for a living, she must earn a pretty penny. These apartments don’t come cheap, especially not in this area. I’m tempted to linger in my evaluation, but I have to content myself with taking everything in with a quick glance—the hardwood floors, the south facing windows with the river view, and the stainless-steel appliances in the kitchen.
Leaving her bag on the bar counter that divides the kitchen and the lounge, I ask, “Where were you tonight?”
“Why?” she asks, her one-word question breathless.
“What were you doing before you saw what happened downstairs?”
She wraps her arms around herself. “I was working.”
I raise a brow. “That late?”
“I needed to finish something,” she says with hint of animosity. “What’s this? An interrogation? I don’t have to explain myself or where I’ve been to you.”
Her anger is endearing. She’s got spirit. I let the rebellious remark slide. “Where do you work?”
“Mr. Lewis was my boss,” she spits out.
I still. “You work at Lewis’s firm?”
At the reminder of him, some of her bravado slips. “Yes.”
“Doing what?”
“Junior accountant.”
“That’s unfortunate,” I say, meaning it. If she’d worked anywhere else, she wouldn’t have walked in on something she was never supposed to see. “He obviously paid well.” I motion at the room. “Junior accountants don’t usually earn enough to afford a place like this.”
“Why did you kill him?” she asks in a tremulous voice.
I don’t have to share any facts with her, but for what I’m about to put her through, she deserves the truth. “He stole from us.”
“From you?”
“From the family.”
Her eyebrows knit together, and then her brow smooths out as unpleasant surprise transforms her features. “You’re mafia.”
I don’t bother to validate that with an answer.
Her face twist with scorn. “He had a family, a wife and children.” She pins her arms at her sides. “Did you think about that when you slit his throat?”
My chuckle is dry. “He obviously didn’t when he dipped his hand in the cookie jar.”