With a constricted sensation on my throat that seemed to be tightening by the millisecond, I pushed open her door and moved inside.
And all I could focus on was the blood.
Bloody clothes.
A knife with a bloody handle.
A blood-soaked dishcloth.
Whose blood was it?
Those were Ezzy’s clothes, I was sure of it.
But was it her blood?
My first instinct was to think no. There was no spray or droplets. If she was bleeding, there should have been a trail.
If it wasn’t hers, then who?
Judy?
Had something happened and Ezzy snapped and stabbed her friend?
No.
The knife would have had blood on the handle and the blade.
So, what, then?
Had she heard something going on at Judy’s, and gone to try to help her? Hence the knife. And the police tape.
Was Judy dead?
Injured?
Had Ezzy cleaned up to go to the hospital?
“Fuck!” I growled raking the heels of my hands up my temples, trying to get a single thought that made sense to penetrate. “Fuck fuck fuck,” I hissed, pacing back and forth through the space, hating myself more with each passing minute for being as careless as to let my fucking phone die when I knew she was in a sticky situation.
She’d needed me.
She’d reached out.
And she’d gotten nothing.
She’d needed me, goddamnit.
How many times was I going to fail the women in my life? Let them down? Not be there to help them when they need it?
“Dial back the crazy,” Cesare’s voice demanded, making me turn to find him standing in the doorway. “Boss told me to follow you here,” he explained. “Then report back to him. Can’t report shit if you’re slipping into psycho-mode, though,” he said, making me take a slow, deep breath.
“There’s blood,” I choked out, pointing toward the kitchen.
“It’s the neighbor’s,” Cesare told me. “I talked to a couple on the ride up,” he explained. “Said the nice, middle-aged lady had been attacked in her apartment. They said it didn’t look good.”
Okay.
Judy’s blood.
Not Ezzy’s.
Ezzy wasn’t bleeding somewhere, wondering why I wasn’t helping her.
“It looks like your girl maybe found her,” Cesare reasoned. “She got all bloody trying to help her, then came over here to change and wash up.”
“The knife,” I said, pointing toward it.
“Paranoia? Or she used it when going into the apartment across the hall out of fear?”
All of that made perfectly rational sense.
“Then where is she? Why did she call me sixteen times in a row?”
“I don’t know her. Or the situation well enough to speak on that,” he said, shrugging. “Talk to me like I’m one of your torture victims,” he demanded, smirking even though there was nothing fucking funny about this situation.
“Ezzy is trying to take over the restaurants that the brothers of her dead husband are attempting to steal from her.”
“Okay. Good start. Keep it going. Are they dangerous?”
“Yes.”
“Would they have attacked the neighbor lady?”
Would they?
“If they thought they had a reason to,” I said, but I couldn’t think of one.
“As a threat to your girl, maybe?” Cesare suggested.
Yes.
That made sense.
If they were onto something going on, yes, they would scare her into submission by hurting the only person she cared about.
Only… Judy wasn’t the only person she cared about.
“Fuck,” I hissed, turning and rushing toward the door, nearly plowing into Cesare in my haste.
“Gonna let me in on what we’re doing, or am I supposed to be going in blind?” Cesare asked, jogging down the steps behind me.
“She has a mom and little sister,” I said as we burst into the lobby, both of us immediately slowing our pace, not wanting to draw any more attention to ourselves than necessary.
The last thing we needed was one of the cops getting suspicious and following us.
“Hey, I brought my car,” Cesare said, slapping the back of his hand into my chest to slow me down.
Turning, I saw the black sedan on the corner, and didn’t waste any time climbing in.
Her mom and her sister.
Why the fuck hadn’t I thought about putting some sort of protection detail on them? I had men working under me who would do whatever I wanted, no questions asked.
I could have protected them.
What the fuck was wrong with me?
“Why go through the hassle of threatening?” Cesare asked as he weaved into traffic.
“They want the money.”
“Wouldn’t Ezmeray dying bring about the same result with less hassle? Don’t death-stare at me for speaking the truth,” he demanded, keeping his gaze on the road.
“Maybe they are just fucked in the head like their brother. Or it would be easier to trick her into signing it over than having to go to court about Eren’s estate if she was gone.”
“Point me in a direction,” Cesare demanded as we got closer to the general vicinity of Ezmeray’s old neighborhood.
“Keep going straight,” I demanded.
It would shave off maybe a minute or two if we turned first, but if we kept straight, we would drive past the laundromat, so I could see if anything seemed fishy there.