I’d stood the minute he barged through the door and found myself backing up a little. Not because I was afraid of Reyes Farrow. On the contrary. I was still hurt. Angry.
“Farrow,” Navarra said, growing more nervous by the moment. “I have no idea what this woman is talking about.”
Reyes turned his anger on Navarra now, granting me a short reprieve. “You sent a man after me.” He stepped closer to the crime lord’s desk. “He found my fiancée first.”
Navarra shook his head, bewildered.
“And even now, I’m surprised, considering our history.” He pointed past Navarra, toward the wall behind him.
“Weapons down, boys,” he said, raising his hands. Two men came out from behind a false wall and placed their guns on Navarra’s desk. “Better?” he asked Reyes. “But I remember our past quite well. You know I wouldn’t send anyone after you or your fiancée.”
He wasn’t lying.
“What is this about?”
“Zeke Schneider,” I repeated. Before he could tell me again he was dead, I added, “Junior.”
“Son of a bitch.” Navarra sat back down at his desk and wiped a hand over his mouth in frustration. “That little piece of shit. The only reason he’s alive is out of respect for his old man.”
“Why would he come after me?” Reyes asked.
Navarra sighed. “He wanted in. I said no. His dad must’ve told him about you. He must’ve thought that if he took you out, I’d let him in.” He shook his head again. “That kid is a troublemaker and a snitch. I wouldn’t have let him back in if he’d given me his firstborn.”
“He was a snitch?” I asked, growing a little worried. “Was he a CI for anyone?”
“Not that I know of. Mostly in prison. Used to suck any dick he could for information. Had something going on with one of the guards. His father, God rest his soul, was ashamed they shared the same name.”
I did notice Navarra’s use of the present tense when speaking about Zeke. He didn’t know anything about what the guy was up to.
“See?” I asked Reyes while pointing to Navarra. “Handled. And without any deaths or severed spines.”
“Thanks to me.”
“Navarra was a complete gentleman, unlike someone else in the room. I was never in any danger, despite your low opinion of me.”
“My low opinion? What the f**k —?”
“You think I’m inept, and that’s fine,” I said, not meaning a word of it. “But —”
“Inept?” he asked, taken aback. “I’ve never thought that.”
“Please, Reyes, I can feel emotions just as well as you can. I felt your reaction, your gut reaction, in the cemetery.”
He ground his teeth together. “If you’re going to read my emotions, at least read them correctly. I do not think you inept. On the contrary. I was just amazed that you would insist on handling the suicide investigation, that you would prance to a cemetery to look for a body —”
“Prance?”
“— that you would try to talk to a crime boss alone, all the while knowing what you know.”
“Did you say prance? Wait, what do I know? No, better yet, what do you think you know?”
“The wall. I know about the wall.”
“What?” I asked him, baffled.
He stepped closer. Dangerously close. I could drop him. I knew that now, and I’d do it if he threatened me. “The wall. I saw it.” When I still didn’t understand, he lowered his voice and said, “Rocket’s wall. Your name on Rocket’s wall.”
Realization rushed through me, causing a tingle of understanding as it laced down my spine. “That’s what this is about?” I asked.
“You know it is. Rocket is never wrong. There’s a reason for that, and you know your name is on that wall. You know he saw your death, and yet you rush headlong into any f**king situation that strikes your fancy.” He turned away from me as though in disgust.
“Your name was on there, too,” I said, raising my chin a notch.
He whirled around in surprise.
“There are always loopholes, Reyes. I found one with you. You didn’t die like you were supposed to that day.”
To say he was astonished would’ve been an understatement. He gazed at me, completely stunned, his eyes watering from the turbulence rocketing through him. “Then I should have died, and you risked your life needlessly.”
“What did you just say?” I marched up to him, appalled he could even think such a thing.
“You risked your life for me.” He took my shoulders into his hands. “When are you going to learn, Dutch: No one matters but you and the baby. You keep risking your life —” He threw one hand out to indicate our surroundings. “— on things that are not the least bit important.” He stepped even closer. “On people who committed suicide and crazy chicks in cemeteries and —” He stopped and dropped a heated gaze on me. His voice cracked when he said in a hushed tone, “I can’t lose you.”
“And I can lose you?” I asked, almost screaming at him.
He lowered his head and pinched the bridge of his nose with his thumb and index finger. Then he admitted what was probably his greatest fear. “I don’t know how to win. I don’t have the faintest idea of how to kill the Twelve. And when I saw your name on that wall.” His breath hitched in his chest. Then he focused his coffee-colored gaze on me. “If you die,” he said with a savage vehemence in his voice, “I will go straight to hell and kill every demon there. Or I’ll perish in the attempt.”