I actually had an idea—I’d seen enough crime shows on television, but I didn’t let on. With a shrug, I just looked back at him and waited.
“It’s a DNA report,” he said. “See how the two samples match?”
I shrugged again, and he pointed to one of the two images.
“This one here—this is from the swab they took from your mouth when you were booked,” he said. His finger moved over to the other image. “That’s a pretty common practice, you know. They even do it on dead bodies that are found lying around.”
He watched me, presumably looking for a reaction, but I gave him nothing.
“Guess where this one came from?” Trent pressed.
I didn’t answer. It could have come from a million places—I wasn’t overly careful about leaving shit like trace evidence behind—my kills were from afar. If this guy thought he was going to use DNA evidence to link me to a sniper shooting, he was crazy.
“This was taken from the dead lips of one Brad Ashton.”
Fuck me.
Of all the victims they could have tried to nail me with, they went after the most high-profile one they could possibly find. I’d been far more careful with him than I had with others because he was a well-known, highly paid movie actor and I was doing him up close. He also owed my boss a lot of money in gambling debts, which was all I really cared about. He knew Rinaldo was after him, and his security had made it very difficult to target him from afar, which was why I had to go a slightly less conventional route.
&nbs
p; Using his affection for well-built guys like myself, I came on to him, encouraged him, and led him off to a hotel room to drug and kill him. In the process, he’d made it to first base and had certainly made a grab for second. As a sniper, I usually didn’t get close enough to my victims to think about leaving DNA anywhere near the scene, but Brad had been best lured with my mouth. Thankfully, I hadn’t actually had sex with him, or the DNA evidence could have been even more incriminating.
I made a point of not reacting as I watched Trent and Johnson watch me. I didn’t see any reason to respond to them since anything and everything I said wouldn’t just be used against me in a court of law but here in this room right now.
“Must have used a condom,” Trent said with a smirk. “We didn’t find any cum on him. I’d heard you were an ass man. I guess that’s true, huh?”
Johnson snickered again as Trent wriggled his eyebrows at me. I tensed my fingers on the arms of the chair but kept my silence.
“I bet your mob buddies would get a kick out of all this, wouldn’t they? Finding out you fucked one of your kills, and a dude at that. What’s that, Arden? I can’t hear ya.”
Johnson snorted and shook his head a bit. He never made eye contact with me, though. He kept all his attention on Trent, awaiting his instructions. However, Trent seemed much more interested in harassing me instead of addressing his partner. He leaned back in the chair until the front two legs came up off the floor.
“So here’s the deal,” Trent said. “With this evidence, I own your sniper-happy ass. That means I call the shots, and when you get out of here, you’re going to go right back to Rinaldo Moretti’s business, and you’re going to help me bring him in.”
I couldn’t hold back any longer—I laughed out loud.
“Did you really think that after being in a hole for eighteen months you could threaten me with prison?” I laughed again. “Fuck you. Fuck you, your DNA evidence, and whatever other shit you think you have on me. None of it makes a fucking difference.”
“Well, all right, you got me there.” Trent dropped the chair back down on the ground with a thump. “I admit I figured you weren’t too scared of the idea of being in chains again. I mean, you get used to it, don’t you? You probably learned to love it.”
I looked away from him and took a deep breath.
“I watched that vid from the other day,” Trent said. “That’s a hot little piece of ass you’ve acquired. Lia Antonio, I believe?”
I turned to him with a glare, trying to threaten him as much as I could with my eyes alone.
“Does she know?” Trent’s voice dropped down low. “Does she know all about your escapades? I bet she’d like to know.”
I continued to glare at him, but inside, my mind was racing. I couldn’t let her find out about me—not like that. Even beyond everything else, I couldn’t let her watch me go to prison with rumors flying that I had fucked the guy I killed.
“I understand her fiancé has put out a missing persons report on her,” Johnson said. His mouth turned up into a bit of a smile.
“Oh, that’s right!” Trent snapped his fingers. “Maybe we’ll just give him a call and let him know where she is.”
“Leave her alone,” I said with deadly calm.
“Don’t think so,” Trent replied. “Frankly, I’m getting tired of playing with you. You don’t want to cooperate, so maybe I’ll go question her and see what she knows.”