Chapter 18: Lovely Beast: Chapter 18

Angelo sits in bed looking like he got hit by a bus.

Which isn’t too far from the truth.

His eyes are both bruised and black. The cut above his eye isn’t terrible, but it takes a while to stop bleeding. He’s hunched over and cradling his side, and I’m pretty sure he needs to see a freaking doctor to make sure there’s nothing ruined internally. I fret over him, cleaning the little cuts and scrapes, desperate to do something to help.

But I’m powerless. I’ve always been powerless in all this, and seeing him in pain and angry and exhausted sends a jolt of anger and fear deep through my core.

“Just let me sit here for a while,” Angelo says and each breath is labored. “I’ll call Carmine. He’ll send someone. But not yet.”

“What are you waiting for?” I dab at his face gently, cleaning the blood away. His shirt’s ruined, his trousers are drenched in filth and gravel. He looks at me with hard eyes and touches my face. “Angelo. Don’t.”

“What did your parents say to you?”

“Seriously? You almost got killed tonight, and you’re asking about my parents?”

“When they left, you looked at me like I was a monster. Like I crawled out from under your fucking bed and tried to eat your soul.”

“It’s not like that.” I glance down at my hands, unable to meet his gaze, because I know he’s right. It’s always been that way: Mom and Dad have that effect on me. Whatever they say, I want to believe they’re right even when I know they’re wrong. “Things are just complicated, okay?”

“I’m not sure they are.”

“My dad warned me away from this case. He heard bad things about it at the Oak Club and—he told me to drop it and walk away.” My words hang in the air between us. Angelo leans his head back against the bed and lets out a soft groan and a curse. “I know, I should’ve told you sooner. I’m sorry.”

“Yeah, you should’ve told me, but it wouldn’t have made a difference. I shouldn’t have gone to that fucking bar alone. They wouldn’t have dragged me out to those fields if you were around.”

“You sure about that?”

He shrugs. “Pretty sure. I’m willing to bet your apartment was our first warning. Now my broken rib is our second. Think we’ll get a third?”

“Dad told me this is really bad news. He said I needed to drop it, stop dealing with Carmine, stop working with you.”

“He’s probably right. Look at me right now. You really want to be involved with this?”

“Stop it, Angelo. I don’t need to hear it from you.”

“Then what are you gonna do about it, huh?”

I pull back from him, anger sparking. I pace across the room and feel like my head’s spinning as his eyes track me. He looks like a glorious boxer, sitting there bloodied and battered, shirtless in only his ripped jeans, a wreck of a human and still beautiful. A monster, a beast, a killer, and still lovely beyond words.

I don’t know how that’s possible. I grew up thinking only good people were worthy of my love and respect, but maybe I never understood what the word really meant.

I hate my father. I hate the dirty fucking cops that did this to Angelo. I hate this twisted, stupid world for being so absurd and evil and wrong. I want to yank Nicolas from jail and scream the truth at the top of my lungs, but there’s nothing I can do. I’m impotent, powerless. Even Angelo with all his strength and skills couldn’t keep himself safe.

If I were smart, I’d listen to my dad. I’d listen to those cops.

I’d drop all this and move on.

But seeing Angelo like that makes me so angry I could cry. It breaks something in me, like something’s broken in him. I’m seething, burning, ready to run out into the night and fight the first stupid cop I come across, dirty or not. I have all this pent-up anger and energy, and I don’t know what to do with it, but I’m sure about one thing.

I’m not backing down.

Not now, not ever.

Because fuck them if they think they can intimidate me.

“Tell me who they were.” I turn to him, hands on my hips. “The guys that did this. Tell me.”

His smile is bitter and tight. “Vance’s partner, the one we saw the other night. And I don’t know the other one, but he had a mustache and a cowboy hat, and I could pick him out of a lineup if I had to.”

“We’ll find a directory of cop headshots and you’ll show me which one it was. But call Carmine first.”

“Come here.”

“Angelo. Call him.”

“Come here and I will.”

I hesitate, but I walk to the bed. He gestures me closer and I crawl in next to him. Some of my anger seeps away, but I’m still on edge as I sit next to him, our shoulders touching, our thighs pressed side to side.

“You know how bad this is going to be, right?” He’s whispering, not looking at me. “This is the last time I’ll say it. You can walk.”

“Not going to happen. Not now.” My hand drifts toward my stomach and the baby, but I stop.

Can I really do all this while carrying a child? Angelo’s child?

Guilt racks me. I should’ve told him a long time ago, but I have my reasons. I don’t want Angelo to find out about this baby—I don’t want him involved.

Now I wonder if that was a bad decision.

But Angelo sighs and squeezes my knee. “Yeah, I figured. As soon as those fuckers started kicking me, I kept thinking, Sara’s stuck in this now. She’s not going to let this go.”

“You’re right. I’m not.”

“Good girl.” His smirk is lopsided as he looks at me. “Get my phone for me, will you? I gotta call Carmine before my guts leak out.”

“Gladly.” I get up and toss it over to him.

As he taps the screen, a plan comes to me, half formed and reckless, but it’s a plan, and I’m not about to let these bastards keep me down.

It takes a couple hours of waiting around on the sidewalk, exhausted and strung-out, watching early morning workers hustle past on the way to their jobs before I finally spot her ducking into the fancy coffee shop five blocks from the Dallas police precinct building. I slowly walk over, keeping an eye out for anyone else I recognize, and wait for her to come out again.

Detective Vance looks tired, like she got a late-night call about something important. I don’t know if she’s working another case or if she’s dealing with the fallout from Angelo’s continued investigation, and I don’t really give a shit. She’s in dark slacks, a dark jacket, and she’s holding a big iced coffee with the shop’s logo emblazoned on the side in both hands.

“Misty,” I call out and walk over to her.

She looks back and I swear one hand flinches to the holster at her hip. Instead, she sees me, curses quietly, and her eyes narrow. “Ms. Bray. What are you doing here?”

“Call me Sara.” I fall into step as she tries to hurry away. “Did you hear what happened to my partner last night?”

“You mean the guy that ambushed me at High Noon? I don’t know anything about it.”

“Liar. He’s lying in bed right now half dead with at least a few broken ribs. Guess who did that?”

She refuses to look at me. “I don’t want to hear any more, Ms. Bray.”

“Sara. My name’s Sara, and that guy’s name is Angelo, and all we’re trying to do is make sure an innocent man doesn’t go to jail for the rest of his life. What kind of cop are you, Misty?”

“Detective Vance.” She stops walking and glares at me. “How’d you know I’d be here?”

“I saw the empty cups in your truck. You really need to clear them out.”

She laughs harshly. “That’s what my partner says. It’s a fucking addiction. Sugar and caffeine. I can’t help myself.”

“Why’d they do it, Misty?”

“I told you, I don’t know anything about what happened to your partner.” She hesitates and glances down the block like she’s making sure nobody’s watching. “Is he okay?”

“He will be. I hope anyway. They’re trying to scare us away, which means there’s something to find and we’re getting close. What are we looking for?”

“I already told you everything.” She turns and starts to walk again.

“If you keep going, you’re gonna run into someone from the precinct. Do you really them to see you talking with me?”

That makes Misty stop. She turns back, jaw working. “You’re a pain in my ass, Sara.”

“Good. I’m glad.” I move closer to her and drop my voice lower. “Just tell me what to look for. I’m not asking you to put yourself out there, but we need something more. Where’s that interview hiding?”

Misty grimaces and looks down at her shoes. “What makes you think they didn’t burn it already?”

“That’s what Angelo said. But there’s no way that dirty cops are ripping up paperwork, not without getting caught. They’re hiding it somehow.”

“It’s always fucking paperwork,” Misty says with a bitter smile. “That’s the thing, right? That’s the reason we fill out all these goddamn forms. So when shit like this happens, there’s a trail to follow.”

“Where’s the interview?”

“You have to understand something. Not everyone working in my department is crooked. Some of them are, some of them aren’t, and the problem is you never know which is which.”

“I can tell you one of them has a mustache. The other is your partner.”

Misty’s mouth drops open. Her jaw works back and forth and she shakes her head. “You’re lying.”

“The guy you left the High Noon with that night, right? Him and another guy, someone with a bushy mustache and a cowboy hat, they jumped Angelo. Nearly beat him to death. I think they also ransacked my apartment in an attempt at scaring me away. Help me, Misty.”

“Shit,” she says quietly and rubs her face. “I knew John was in deep, but—” She takes a long drink from her plastic cup. “There’s a series of documents. The series isn’t publicly known for obvious reasons, and if you ever tell anyone about this stuff, I’ll find some pretext to lock you up for life. But this series of documents, it’s a way of burying shit without destroying it as a sort of backup in case Internal Affairs starts sniffing around. We can point to that paperwork and say oh, hey, here it is, it just got lost in the shuffle, ha-ha, sorry about that. When really it stays fucking buried in the archives.”

“What are they called?”

“Forms 83612-B and 83613-C. Request all of them from around the time of the murders, about a week before and after should do it. The interview will be in there along with a mountain of other shit.”

“Thank you, Misty. You’re one of the good ones.”

“Yeah, one of the fucking few.” She shakes her head. “Request the files in person. If John hears you’re still sniffing around before you get your hands on them, he won’t go easy.”

“I have a feeling Angelo would love a second round.”

“I bet he would. Fucking mobsters and fucking lawyers. Don’t get yourself killed, Sara.” Misty turns and stalks off.

I watch her go, body ringing with excitement. Finally, I have the lead we’ve been needing. If I can get my hands on that interview, and if it says what I think it says, it’ll blow a bunch of massive holes in the prosecution’s case.