An Offer You Can't Refuse by Sal Bianchi (best beach reads .txt) 📕

that spending a night in the drunk tank couldn’t be nearly as bad as being brutally murdered in cold blood. I would have thought that the victim’s boyfriend would agree.”

“That’s enough, agent,” Pence growled at me. “Oh, that’s right. You’re not actually an agent, are you, Mr. DiFiore? Oh, no, you go by ‘Costa’ now, don’t you?”

The atmosphere in the room took a sudden and unexpected plunge. I felt my blood run cold as the lawyer smirked at me.

“Who are you?” Jase demanded. His voice was calm, but I could hear a thread of trepidation in it as he spoke.

“I told you,” the gaunt man sneered. “My name is Richard Pence, and I’m here to represent Mr. Ian Brooks. I have no other business here… currently.”

I gritted my teeth at the thinly veiled threat in his response. Of all the potential scenarios I’d run in my head before coming in here, this was something I’d never thought to account for.

“When a woman is murdered, do you know who the most common perpetrator is?” I asked Ian coldly. His eyes widened with shock, and he looked over to his lawyer. Pence opened his mouth as if to respond to my question, but I continued before he could get a word in.

“In almost all cases, it’s the boyfriend. Or an ex-boyfriend,” I turned to stare at Pence as I spoke. “Funny, isn’t it? You would think that the person you love the most would be the most likely to hurt you, but that’s the way it is.”

“I didn’t--” Ian whined before Pence could stop him.

“Quiet,” Pence hissed. “Are you going somewhere with this, Costa?”

He said my alias with a mocking inflection, and I had to focus on maintaining my cool. Somehow, this man knew me, and right now, I wasn’t sure if I should be more concerned about him or Ian. I froze as I realized that maybe that’s exactly what he wanted.

“You’re the most likely suspect right now, Ian,” I turned my head to look at the trembling young man in front of me. “I know you didn’t kill her with your own two hands. No, you made sure you had plenty of proof of that.”

“Costa, you’re walking a thin line,” Pence snapped at me, but I ignored him and barreled on.

“You probably couldn’t do it, anyway,” I jeered. “You’re too much of a coward. No, you had to get someone else to do it, didn’t you?”

“Don’t answer that,” Pence warned. Ian was clutching his head in his hands and looked like he was starting to hyperventilate.

“That’s why you panicked when you heard the name Shane Rutherford,” I accused as I slammed my fist on the table between us. Ian flinched and curled in on himself at the noise. “Shane is the one you hired to kill Josie, isn’t he? You knew that you wouldn’t be able to live your cushy life anymore with a baby. It would have caused a scandal, and you couldn’t have all your friends know that you’d gotten some girl pregnant.”

“That’s enough!” Pence yelled.

“Admit that you told Shane to kill her,” I continued in spite of the lawyer’s protests. “Admit it, or you’re the one who’s going down for murdering her!”

“No!” Ian screamed. His voice sounded anguished, like the moan of a dying animal. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean for it to happen. I mean, I did, but I wanted out. But they wouldn’t let me out of it. I didn’t mean for this all to happen.”

“Shut up, Ian,” Pence snarled. He lifted his hand as if to grab or strike him, and I rushed around the table to stand between them before he could do whatever it was he intended to do.

“Step away from the suspect, Pence,” I warned. This wasn’t normal behavior from a rattled lawyer. From my perspective, Pence seemed to have more skin in this than he should.

He blinked at me in surprise as I blocked him from his own client. I turned away from him and kneeled down to get closer to Ian’s eye level.

“Who wouldn’t let you out of what?” I asked slowly.

“The guy I met on the internet,” he sniffled. “I panicked when I heard Jo was pregnant. I posted an ad looking for a hitman on this black-market website that I sometimes used to sell--”

He cut himself off before he could admit to any more than he already had.

“Don’t worry about the drugs,” I snapped. “Tell me what happened after you posted the ad.

“Ian, don’t say anything,” Pence growled from behind me. Ian’s eyes darted back and forth between the two of us, clearly unsure what he should do now.

“Look at me,” I commanded, and Ian’s gaze turned back to me in fright. “He’s not on your side. He’s only interested in protecting the people he works for.”

“You can’t be serious,” Pence chuckled. “Exactly who do you think I’m working for? Ian Brooks is my client.”

I turned back to glare at Pence. I couldn’t prove it, but I knew this guy was more involved with this than he was letting on. He knew way more about me than he should, and he’d seemed more panicked when Ian started talking about whoever “they” were than he had during any other point during the interrogation.

“You said you didn’t mean for it to get this far,” I spoke to Ian calmly. My best bet now would be to appeal to his morality. “You said you wanted to call it off. You can still do the right thing by Josie if you tell me what actually happened.”

Ian’s eyes shifted away from mine as though he wanted to peer back up at Pence, but he shut his eyes tight before he could look back up.

“Okay,” he croaked. “I put the ad up, and then someone responded.”

“Someone offered to do the hit for you?” I clarified.

“I don’t know what I was thinking,” Ian nodded tearfully. “He told me to send him the money, and I did it right away.”

“Was it Shane?” I asked.

“No,” Ian