“Why, thank you. I do have mad Photoshop skills, don’t I?”

  “Could be another career path for you,” I said, parking my free hand behind my head, thinking how epic it was to slide right back into this kind of comfortable banter with my woman. “By the way, have I mentioned I was sorry for jetting last night?”

  “You have,” she said softly. “And it’s fine. We’re good.”

  “But I’ll say it anyway. I’m sorry for letting you down. And for taking off early.”

  “We are all good. I swear.”

  “So I’m forgiven?”

  “You were never unforgiven. That was just a speed bump. We made it over.”

  I grinned. “We sure did, and I will make it up to you. I promise.”

  “Anyway, how was the meeting? I keep thinking about what you said when you left. How they were worried you’d bring trouble to the neighborhood. Did that come up today?”

  Ah, the heart of the matter. Do I tell her they mentioned one of her least favorite topics? Or do I keep that to myself?

  Keeping things to myself wouldn’t help us move forward.

  Still, I figured treading lightly was best. “Mostly good. He made it clear he’ll go to bat for me as long as I don’t bring any baggage to the table.”

  I was met with silence on the other end of the phone.

  Dead silence.

  “Sorry,” she said in a quiet voice, sounding strained. But her reaction didn’t compute.

  “Why are you sorry?”

  “I’m sorry he said that,” she added.

  “Oh. Sure. Me too.”

  “Did he explain what he meant by it?” she asked, as the beep from her turn signal echoed in the background.

  Staring at the ceiling, I asked myself if this was the moment to be fully honest. After last night, though, I needed to do just that. “Turns out they aren’t too wild about me being from Vegas,” I said, starting with that.

  “That’s odd.”

  “The guys were into it, but they don’t want me to talk it up when I meet the neighbors. They want all the Vegas connection on the down-low. And the weird thing is—they brought up the Royal Sinners.”

  “What?” Her voice rose.

  “They’re true-crime junkies. It was nothing specific, babe. Just general questions. They both listen to true-crime podcasts.”

  “But why would they bring up the Royal Sinners?” she asked in a rush.

  “I think it was just curiosity. They were asking all sorts of questions about Vegas and the mob and gangs.”

  “That has nothing to do with your clubs.”

  “I know that. I absolutely know that.” I settled into the soft covers on the bed. “But what can I do? I need New York. The location is perfect, and New York is the centerpiece of our expansion plans. I’m meeting the neighborhood association president’s wife and daughter tonight to say hi, so that should help. I just have to jump through their hoops.”

  “It’s insulting what they’re focusing on. Like that’s what makes a difference in whether they approve you or not,” she said harshly.

  “Couldn’t agree more, so let’s talk about something else. How is your day?”

  She cut the engine. “Fine. But I need to go. I have a rehearsal. Then a meeting with my assistant. And then I’m going to see Ryan. Let’s talk later.”

  I blinked. I hadn’t expected that. “You’re a busy woman,” I said, and when the call ended, I scratched my jaw, wondering once again if she was slipping through my fingers.

  34

  Shannon

  Rehearsal was exhausting.

  And it didn’t entirely clear my head either.

  Nor did my meeting with Christine.

  Questions still raced through my mind when I reached the gun range, where I was meeting Ryan, several hours later.

  Questions about my family.

  My baggage.

  My hometown.

  And I was here to understand all of that.

  I crossed my arms and watched my brother mow down targets with clockwork precision. Huge earphones covered Ryan’s head, muffling out the sound as he fired with one hand. A sure shot. I knew how to fire too, though I rarely did. I owned a subcompact Glock 42 that Ryan had bought me when I’d moved back to Vegas.

  “It’s your housewarming present,” he’d remarked when he took me to the gun store.

  “You afraid the Royal Sinners are coming for me?” I’d asked, joking but not joking.

  He’d squeezed my shoulders reassuringly. “They’re not coming for you. But you never know who is.” He’d filled out the paperwork, plunked down his credit card, and handed me the weapon, and said, “Welcome home.”

  Then he’d taught me how to handle a gun.

  Sometimes I joined him at the range, sharing his focused intensity, his cold concentration. Other times, I’d wished I’d never learned to shoot, never imagined that I might need to. Even if you were skilled in how to fire, a gun couldn’t always save you. If my father had carried a gun, he’d likely still be dead. He’d been shot in the back, and never saw it coming.

  Guns were useless when someone put a price tag on your head.

  That was the cold truth of true crime.

  Ryan took aim at another black-and-white cardboard cutout. I counted off in my head with each bullet.

  One target. Two targets. Three targets. Now, four. Now, five. He landed the last one too. Straight down the middle. He lowered his arm, his revolver solidly in his right palm. After he tugged off the earphones and goggles, he turned around and flashed me a bright smile. He blew on the end of the gun and winked.

  Show off, I mouthed, watching him from just outside.

  He waved me into his lane, gesturing for me to join him. “You hit half of what I did, I’ll buy you lunch,” he said.

  I rolled my eyes, but accepted the challenge. He positioned the earphones over my head, placed the goggles on my eyes, and set his Smith & Wesson in my palm. I planted my feet wide, peered down the lane, and raised both hands, keeping the weapon steady, solid against my flesh. I peered at the target at the end of the range, a black-and-white sketch of a body with a bulls-eye on his chest.

  I tried not to think of Stefano ending my father’s life. But that trick never worked. I always pictured that man, that fucking scum who took a job from my mother.

  That killer.

  I burned.

  I raged.

  If I didn’t see Stefano at the end of the barrel, I’d imagine my mom. I couldn’t go there. I couldn’t live in that land of hate for the woman who’d raised me, taken care of me, kissed me good night. If I pictured my mom, I’d be just the same as her.

  My hate was reserved for the triggerman. For the man who had shed my father’s blood. My jaw tightened, and I watched the reel. Each unlived moment played before my eyes. My father would never know where I’d gone to college, what I did for a living, if I was happy, if I was in love. He’d never walk me down the aisle, and he’d never tuck his grandchildren into bed or take them to the park.

  He’d never enjoy a day of fishing as a retired man—his dream.

  He’d never celebrate his fiftieth birthday. He was eternally thirty-six, and always would be.

  He’d never grow old.

  They took all that away from him.

  From my grandparents.

  From my brothers.

  From me.

  And they were still taking. They were fraying my nerves. They were circling me, it seemed. I hated that people were talking about crimes like they were pop culture.

  I hated that gangs were a topic of discussion at a meal across the country.

  And I hated the judgment of those who’d never known how a bullet could fracture a family.

  How a cold-blooded choice could nearly destroy your heart.

  But mine wasn’t shattered.

  Not all the way, not yet.

  I stared, ready.

  My teeth were clenched, my lips were like a tightrope, and my hands belonged to a surgeon. Steady, practiced, perfect.

  Jerry Stefano.

  I fired three shots to the heart.

  Adrenaline surged through me, lighting up my bloodstream with wild energy. I could lift a car, fight a man twice my size. My chest rose and fell; my fingertips tingled. Then those endorphins were chased with a dose of red-hot anger, with the madness that comes from the black hole of loss.

  I pressed my fingertip to the trigger, wanting, wishing, eager. Itching to fire again.

  Before the anger consumed me, I lowered the gun. I handed it to Ryan.

  “Lunch is on me,” he said warmly.

  “I’m not hungry,” I said coldly.

  Minutes later, we sat in his car in the parking lot. The engine was off. The radio was on. The National, Ryan’s favorite band, crooned about missing the one you love. Such a moody song. Fitting too.

  “What’s the story?” I asked, cutting to the chase. “Is Stefano facing more charges?”

  Ryan shot me a quizzical look. “No. Not that I know of.”

  I rolled my hands, as if to jog his memory. “You told me your friend in the DA’s office said they visited Stefano in prison about other crimes or something. You called last night wanting to talk.”

  “Right, but even if he has intel about other crimes, that won’t change his sentence.”

  “I know that,” I said, but then I realized—Ryan hadn’t called me to discuss the latest news about the shooter. He hadn’t mentioned Stefano last night. I was the one obsessed with Stefano. He was obsessed with someone else. “So this,” I said, gesturing from him to me, “isn’t about Stefano?”

  “No,” he said, forming an O with his mouth. “Not at all. It’s about someone else. I talked to Mom.”

  35

  Ryan

  My sister’s jaw dropped. I hadn’t intended to shock her, but the evidence was on her face.

  “She called you?” Shannon whispered, as if she couldn’t quite wrap her mind around the concept of the phone and how people used it to stay in touch.

  Scanning the parking lot through the window, I made sure we were alone. No one was wandering around. I turned up the music a little more, just in case. I’d always believed it was best to have these kinds of conversations in person, with plenty of background noise. “She called me collect the other night. She told me a lawyer came to see her.”

  Her eyes widened. “The one who represented her at the trial?”

  I shook my head. “Nope. That guy is long gone. He went into private practice. But the guy who came to see her is also a public defender. She said she contacted him, and he went to Hawthorne to visit her.”

  Shannon cleared her throat and swallowed, then spoke in a clipped, controlled voice. “What does she have to talk to a lawyer about? Is she trying again to get them to re-open the case? Is she rehashing the details over and over like she did the last time we saw her? The evidence against her? The phone records showing she repeatedly called Jerry Stefano for two months before the murder?” Shannon asked, smacking the dashboard for emphasis. “What if Stefano is in touch with someone on the outside? What if he gets pissed she’s stirring the hornet’s nest? What if he wants revenge?”

  I dragged a hand through my hair, hating that Shannon was getting worked up. But I understood her what-ifs. I completely got why she was concerned—her demon was the shooter.

  Her demon had always been the shooter.

  Understandable.

  “Shan, I can’t promise you a damn thing about Stefano. But that’s not what Mom called about.”

  “Did she call with more lies? Because the lies she told about those calls were ludicrous. The prosecution saw right through them. She couldn’t even come up with a decent reason for them.”

  But I knew why she’d lied.

  I knew she had a decent reason to fashion all sorts of fables about her calls with Stefano. The truth would have made her look guiltier, so she’d gambled. Honesty would have tethered her more closely to Stefano and his Royal Sinners.

  I knew some of those truths. She’d shared them with me, begged for my help, and I’d kept them locked up in my head. I’d never uttered a word of them. To a soul.

  The best way to protect a secret was to never tell it. Seal your mouth, zip it shut, and don’t breathe a word. That was the one guaranteed method, and I kept secrets like a champion.

  But I hadn’t asked my sister to meet me so we could revisit the chain of evidence that had landed our mother behind bars. I’d called Shannon because she was the only one of my siblings who hadn’t closed the door on our mom. I needed strength in numbers, even if that number was two.

  “Mom and I didn’t talk about the phone calls with Stefano,” I said, trying my best to reassure her. “He’s locked up, Shan. He’s not getting out.”

  Her jaw ticked. “So why did she see a lawyer?”

  I drew a breath, wishing I had more to tell. “She said she’ll tell us in person when we come see her. We’ve got to go see her.”

  Shannon held out her hands in frustration. “See? She can’t even tell you why she’s talking to a lawyer. She’s manipulating us into visiting her.”

  “She’s our goddamn mother!”

  “I know,” Shannon hissed, and pointed two fingers back at her eyes. “I damn well know. I look in the mirror every day and see her eyes. I have her eyes. I look like her. I have her goddamn cheekbones and chin too.”

  “You are your own woman. Doesn’t matter what color your eyes are.”

  She dropped her head in her hands, breathing out hard. “Ryan. I feel like I can’t live a normal life,” she whispered.

  I rubbed a hand against her back. “Same for me, Shan. It’s the same for me. But look, maybe Mom has something that needs to be said in person. Maybe it’s important,” I said softly, but in a firm tone that brooked no argument. “We need to find out what’s up. She’s writing to you a ton. She’s calling me. Something could be going on. We need to know. Don’t you think?”

  She didn’t answer. But I saw the tacit yes in her eyes.

  “End of the month. Her hours were cut, but she gets her final two hours the last day of June. We need to plan for it. Take the day. No excuses. Are you in?”

  “Probably.” She shoved her hand through her hair, yanking it back into a ponytail. “Why are you so determined to believe she might be innocent?”

  My lips parted, but I took my time. My mother wasn’t an innocent woman, not by any stretch of the law. She might not even be a good person. But I believed there was a difference between the things she’d done, and the things the district attorney had said she’d done.

  I believed that with my whole heart. “Because we need to be certain.”

  She closed her eyes, the conversation clearly paining her. Hell, it pained me. When she opened them, the look in them was one of defeat. Even so, she nodded. “I’ll go with you.”

  “Good. I need you there,” I said, and flashed a small smile.

  “Now there’s something I need your advice on.”

  “I’m all ears.”

  “But first, you need to know I’m with Brent again.”

  I flinched. I’d be less surprised if she told me she could levitate. “What the hell is that about?”

  She tapped her heart. “It’s about this. So respect my heart, please. And no big-brother act.”

  I sighed heavily. “I’ll behave,” I said, because I understood what it was like to be unable to let go of something.

  “Brent met with some business partners in New York, of all places. They brought up the Royal Sinners. They talked about Vegas. They talked about baggage.”

  “Shit,” I muttered. “They know he’s with you again.”

  “Maybe. But even if they don’t, I’m afraid I’m damaged goods. Like my history is going to affect his present.”

  She told me more, and I hated to agree, but it sure as hell sounded like someone didn’t want to associate with anyone involved with the former Paige-Prince kids.

  As far as I was concerned, anyone who felt that way could fuck all the way off.

  And I told her as much, but I also told her to be careful, because between this and our mother’s urgent phone call, there was definitely something brewing, and we seemed to be in the center of it all once again.

  36

  Shannon

  I cranked up the volume to “You’re the One That I Want” on the radio in my cherry-red BMW as I drove home. I needed the upbeat, dancy number to reset my mind. Belting out the celebratory tune as I turned onto my street, I let the lyrics fill the hollow and angry space between my conversation with Ryan and the rest of my day.

  Between Brent’s news and my evening.

  The music was my buffer, and as I sang, I choreographed the number in my head, the dance and the movement ushering out the negative thoughts. Dance had always been a way through tough times for me. Today I would lean on it even more during the second rehearsal—Christine and I were seeing the dancers at Edge to review that choreography.

  And maybe that would help settle my mind after the crazy day.

  And settle the debate raging in my heart.

  Because I was baggage.

  I was trouble.

  I was so damn checkered.

  And somehow that was going to affect Brent.

  The busy day would keep my focus off my mom and off Stefano and off my relationship.

  As I turned along the road to my condo so I could grab my favorite dance shoes, I spotted a strange car I’d never seen before parked just outside the gate to my building.

  A Buick.

  An old one at that.

  It looked like it was from last century.

  I was used to Audis, BMWs, SUVs, hybrids, MINI Coopers, and plenty of electric cars at my building. This vehicle was the answer in a one of these is not like the other game. Buicks weren’t common cars. Though I hadn’t memorized the rides of all my condo mates, I was sure I’d have remembered this earthy brown vehicle that hailed from days gone by.