“I’m not lying. I don’t work for anyone. I don’t know that man I attacked.”

“We never said you attacked anyone,” Max jumped in.

The suspect glared, and his nostrils flared at his mistake. Alex chuckled and came around the side, looming over him like a dark shadow. I could feel it in the air. The moment when the interrogation takes a turn, and it becomes a confession. You could almost smell it, when you work in the job for long enough. It becomes a feeling that is as real as fear and it was in the air.

I felt Rose look at me and I squeezed her shoulders.

“This is the part where you tell us everything,” Max said after a while, after giving the suspect time to really stew.

He just shook his head and twisted up his mouth. I had a feeling he knew it wasn’t worth it. That, or he decided he would get out of this easy enough as well.

“Those men were dirty, money hungry. That’s why it was so easy to get them.”

“Okay. Get them to do what?” Alex leaned on the table in front of him, crossing his arms like he wanted to keep from hitting him. Next to me, Rose sat up and leaned in.

“For years they were our way in. The back-door trade deals, that’s how we make our money. They help us, they get a cut from the goods.”

“What goods?” Alex pried.

Rose looked at me and I nodded to reassure her.

“Guns. We sell guns. First, we buy them to flood the market. And then we sell them again. They get a cut, we take

most of it. But they start stealing from us, so we teach them a lesson.”

“Okay. You teach them a lesson about stealing, I get it. Who are they stealing from?” Max asked.

The suspect smiled and laughed like we should already know, which we do. “You know all about us. We run this city.”

“Oh sorry, thought that was the mafia,” Alex said.

The suspect glared at him and shook his head. “We sometimes have an alliance.”

“That’s great, now what did you do to the victims in question?” Max opened the folder and laid out the crime scene photos from the last three murders, and the attack from earlier that day.

The suspect sighed and sucked his teeth. “The rats, they deserved it.”

“Fine. What did they do? These men are dead, and we want to know who killed them, and why. Was it you?” Max tried, but I had a feeling the suspect wouldn’t give in that easy.

He seemed like the kind who liked to tell a story. Liked to make himself important to the situation so he could reassure himself for whatever reason. There were all kinds of suspects that came through that room and I had pretty much seen all of them.

“They steal. When we sell the guns, we mask it as trade investments; that’s why we need the little weasels and their impressive financial accounts. The only thing that makes them useful. When these rats,” he pointed to the photos, “started selling the guns for more than we wanted to price them, so they could pocket for themselves, we caught them. Boss asks them to stop, they don’t. So, I go and…teach them a lesson. It’s simple. I don’t care about the guns and technical bullshit, I was just told to get their contacts in the trade and they wouldn’t give.”

“So, you killed them?” Alex goes in for the kill.

“Maybe.” He shrugged like he didn’t already give himself up.

“And what about the woman you’re been stalking?”

Rose goes stone still next to me. I rub her knee and tell her to relax.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“You said that about an hour ago about these, too.” Max points out the crime scene photos.

“I have not been given any orders to follow any woman.”

I got angry. He had to have known, he was their guy for all intents and purposes.

Tags: Nicole Elliot Romance
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