Menace (Scarlet Scars #1)(96)

“Something hinky,” he says with a laugh. “What, like we’re running guns through the grove? Because they’d be right.”

“They seem more concerned about Cuban imports.”

“Ah, yes, priorities. The rum.”

“They don’t have any evidence, though.”

“Of course not.”

“They do, however, have a shitload of stories about you. You’re kind of like Bigfoot.”

“Bigfoot?”

“Yeah, everyone’s heard about him, most people think he’s a myth, with nothing more than a couple blurry pictures and unreliable first-hand accounts as proof of his existence. Most of this file isn’t even about you. It’s a bunch of scary stories about a guy with a scar. Half this shit isn’t even believable.”

“Like?”

“Like you lit a building on fire in Manhattan with a bunch of men inside of it.”

“I gave them a chance to get out,” he says. “Not my fault they didn’t take me seriously.”

“You blew up a storage building in a public park.”

“I just flicked a lighter,” he says. “I’m not the one who made the place explosive.”

“You detonated a grenade, killing most of the mob bosses in the city.”

“See, okay, that’s bullshit. They were already dead by the time that grenade went off.”

“I, uh... wow.”

I don’t know what to say.

“In my defense,” he says, not sounding like he really cares to defend himself, “they were all terrible people, so it’s not like they didn’t deserve it.”

“So you’ve never hurt an innocent person?”

A smile touches his lips. “Do they exist?”

“What?”

“Innocent people.”

“Children,” I say. “Your brother.”

I almost say me, but well, I think I’ve crossed too many lines to ever qualify as innocent.

“I would never hurt a kid,” he says. “I guarantee there’s nothing in that file that says I would.”

I look down at it, frowning, pulling out a scrap piece of paper with the detective’s handwriting on it and holding it out to Lorenzo.

Suspected to have been involved in the death of 14-year-old Sally Walters in Kissimmee.

He takes the piece of paper from me, looking at it for a few seconds before balling it up, crushing it in his palm. He tosses it behind him, onto the roof, and goes back to peeling his orange.

The fact that he’s not refuting it bothers me. My stomach gets tied up in knots.

“Is her autopsy report in there?” he asks after a moment.

“No.”

“So you don’t know she was strangled?” he asks. “Don’t know she was brutally raped before being put out of her misery?”

“No.”

But he does, and the fact that he knows it makes my head dizzy, bile burning the back of my throat. I don’t want to think he’s capable of such a thing. No, scratch that. I don’t think he is. Killing people, yes, I’ve seen him do it, but rape is different. It’s another level of cruelty inflicted by a different type of monster. I’ve met many of those monsters in my life, but he’s not one of them.

“For the record, I didn’t do it,” he says. “She was my first girlfriend. Only girlfriend. I didn’t hurt her. I just got lucky and stumbled upon her after my stepfather was through.”

“Oh.”

“Oh,” he repeats as he stands up. “Anything else in the book of bullshit that I should know about?”

“No,” I say, closing the file and holding it out to him. “You can have it, if you want.”

“How nice of you,” he says, snatching it from my hand, clutching so tightly the folder bends, as he leaves, slipping back down off of the roof, into the bedroom, slamming the window closed.

I touched a nerve. A bad one. And I know he’s just going to go back downstairs now, into his library, and I won’t see him again tonight. Ugh, I don’t like it. My stomach is still in knots.

I didn’t think it was possible, but… I might’ve hurt his feelings. Ugh. Ugh. Ugh.

Pushing to my feet, I quickly make my way across the roof. I scurry down the ladder, jogging around, and shove through the front door just as Lorenzo steps back into the library.

Fuck.

“Hey, hold on,” I say, running toward him, skidding to a stop in front of the library just as the door is about to shut. Reaching out, I push it, shoving it back open before it can latch. “Ugh, Lorenzo, wait.”

He turns to me, still clutching the door. He looks like he wants to slam it in my face... or maybe, like, punch me. I don’t know.

“You’ve got ten seconds,” he says.

I take a deep breath, not sure what to say.

“Nine... eight... seven...”

“I didn’t think you did that to that girl,” I blurt out, because f*ck it, he’s counting, and I know when he reaches ‘one’ I’ll have missed my chance. “I know that’s not the kind of man you are. I know you wouldn’t have done that to her. I know you’re better than that.”

He lets out a bitter laugh. “Yeah, right.”