Page 60 of Master of Secrets
That made me flinch, shocked. “Fuck! He killed your sister’s cat?”
“Yeah. Threw her against the wall. Broke her back. And Raffi just…snapped, that night. She tried to run. She came to our apartment, but he followed her, and…well. He had a gun.”
Minutes of silence followed. I wondered if I had pushed her too hard, selfishly. Just to satisfy my curiosity. It wasn’t worth it if it hurt her, stirring up old nightmares.
“So, Tony stormed in, and rants about how he hadn’t signed up to pay for these fucking brats. Then he looked at me, in my underwear, and the lightbulb went on in his little reptile brain. He’d thought of the perfect way to punish Raffi.”
“Oh shit,” I whispered. “Oh, Jesus, Kat. I’m sorry.”
“He said if I was old enough to get a man to pay my rent, I was old enough to fuck, and he went for me. Raffi freaked out and attacked him, hitting and scratching him. He shot her through the heart. Gabri couldn’t stop screaming. So he shot her, too.”
“And you?” I asked.
“He got me one, too,” she said, rubbing the scar on her shoulder. “But I went out the window and down the fire escape. I jumped down onto a pile of garbage, barefoot, in my underwear, and took off running. I barely remember it, now. I made it all the way to the cops somehow. And I was lucky enough to talk to the right detective, a guy who wasn’t on the take with Tony’s dad. The detective really wanted to take those bastards down, so he protected me, for real.”
“You testified against Tony?”
“Yes. Tony was convicted of second-degree murder, but he only got sixteen years. His lawyer made my sister out to be a slutty temptress who cheated on him and drove him to it. He might actually get out of prison soon. That should make life really interesting for me.”
“And you’ve been in witness protection since?” I prompted.
“Yes, but Tony’s family will never stop hunting me. That’s why falling into bed with a famous sexy billionaire who has lunch with the senator is a really shitty idea.” She swatted my arm. “So please don’t take it personally.”
“What’s Tony’s surname?” I asked. “What prison is he in?”
Kat stiffened. “Uh-oh,” she said. “This is where it starts, right? When you start pushing and pushing me for more info? Bound and determined to solve all my problems? Nope. Not gonna happen.”
“Tell me his name, Kat,” I coaxed. “This is information that I need, to help protect you.”
“Listen to me, Ethan Masters, and listen good. Those scumbags already took my family from me. I will not let them take you, too. I’d rather get the hell away from you, and at least know that you continue to exist. Even if I can’t enjoy you.”
“Enjoy me?” I murmured. “Ooh. I like the sound of that.”
“Don’t make this all about you,” she snapped. “Peacock.”
“Right, right. Sorry.”
“I will not tell you Tony’s name,” she said. “And I can’t be your pampered concubine, either. I know you’re not like Tony, but even so. I just can’t.”
“So,” I said carefully. “Where does that leave us?”
“Nowhere,” Kat said. “Which is exactly where I’ve been, for the past fourteen years. It’s where I live, Ethan. And you can’t be with me there. Nowhere is a place you can only inhabit alone.”
“I can’t accept that. I simply don’t believe there’s no solution.”
“Well, tough shit. I’m not risking your life to find out. Tomorrow, I go back to my life, Ethan. I’ll figure out my shit on my own, without getting anybody else killed.”
I pulled her into my arms. “I can’t walk away from you. Stop asking me to try.”
Kat shook her head, letting out a soggy laugh. “I was thinking about how you took care of your little sister and brother when you were a kid. You weren’t much younger than Raffi was then. Shane was my age, Freya was Gabri’s age. You were lucky you had a marketable skill to sell. You didn’t have to sell your body to a monster.”
“Yeah. But in her place, I would have done the same thing. I got lucky, with that contact in the juvenile detention center. I was walking a tightrope, back then.”
“Raffi was walking one, too,” she said. “But she fell off. We all did.”
I tightened my arms around her and she melted against me, soft and yielding.
“I miss them so much,” she whispered. “Raffi would have been, let’s see, thirty-three. She’d be a doctor by now. Gabri would have been twenty-two, about to graduate from college. She wanted to be an astronaut, you know? We put those adhesive stars on her bedroom ceiling. She had star maps and posters and spaceships on her wall. Maybe aeronautical engineering, or the military. Fighter jets. She was such a bright kid.”