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

Hannah’s back to lead her down the porch steps and toward the car.

“Now, wait just a minute!” The same nag from before squawked as I led Hannah away. “You can just take people away like this! We have rights!”

“Shut your mouth,” I called back to her coldly. “Unless you want me to arrest you for obstruction.”

“It’s okay, Tina,” Hannah smiled sadly. “Can you just watch the house until I get back?”

“Well, of course, honey,” the nag replied. “but--”

“Nope,” I interrupted her. “Time to go.”

I turned and continued to lead Hannah toward the car before we could cause any more commotion. I waited until she was settled into the backseat before I put the handcuffs on her and then climbed inside to keep an eye on her while Theo drove.

“Thank you,” she murmured. “For not handcuffing me in front of my friends.”

“Don’t thank me,” I replied shortly before turning to glare at her. “I just didn’t feel like having to drag you over here. I have to admit that I’m surprised, though. You’re embarrassed about your friends seeing you get arrested, but now about putting a hit out on your own mother?”

“I needed the money,” she replied coldly. “That stupid nag just wouldn’t die. I have a mountain of student loans and bills to pay. My deadbeat husband went and ran out on me, but not before gambling away all of our savings. She’s had a stroke and a heart attack in the past two years, and both times I thought this was finally it. I’d get a nice little inheritance, not to mention the insurance settlement. But she just kept on ticking.”

“So… it was just for money?” I raised an incredulous eyebrow at her. It wasn’t like there was ever really a good reason to want someone murdered, but compared to some of the other people we’d arrested, Hannah’s motivation for wanting her own mother dead made her seem especially cold-blooded.

“She was squandering away my inheritance!” Hannah sneered. “Every few months, she had another medical issue. By the time the old hag finally died, it would have all been spent on hospital stays and medication.”

“So your solution was to just kill her off early?” I glared at her. “Well, bravo. You failed. Our agents managed to get to her in time to stop the hitman, so all you’re going to get out of this is a stay in federal prison.”

Hannah’s face immediately fell at my words, and her eyes started to well up with tears. I rolled my eyes and ignored her as she began to cry pathetically. She didn’t feel bad about what she’d done. She only felt bad that she’d gotten caught.

She continued to cry all the way to the office, to the point where I was relieved once we’d finally transferred her to a holding cell. I left her there and went back to my desk to take some painkillers.

“Whoa,” Chloe grinned at me as I started to rummage through my desk for the stash of painkillers I kept there. “Someone’s had a rough day.”

I stopped and looked up at her. She was leaning against Agent Park’s desk and talking with him about something.

“Did something bad happen?” Agent Park asked me, a look of genuine concern on his face. I relaxed a bit at his question. Even though we butted heads a lot, Agent Park was actually a really nice and considerate guy. It was a shame that he spent all of his time hanging out with that idiot, Nick.

“Just had to listen to a suspect sob for twenty minutes,” I scoffed as I finally found the pills at the very back of a drawer. “It was so obnoxious it was enough to give me a headache.”

“You’re a real peach, Bette,” Chloe chuckled. “You don’t have to like them, but the suspects are still people too, you know.”

“She took a hit out on her own mother.” I bit back before downing two of the pills. “Her mom is the one who should be crying.”

“Okay.” Chloe nodded thoughtfully. “I guess that is pretty bad. But don’t you feel even a little bit bad when you see people crying?”

“I can’t stand weak people,” I retorted easily.

Chloe cringed at me and opened her mouth as if she was about to say something, but Jase cut in before she could.

“Anyway,” he called loudly, “I’ll ask Nick if he’s okay with you coming too. He probably will be, but I don’t know how thrilled he’d be at the idea of being asked a bunch of questions.”

“What are you talking about?” I asked curiously.

“Oh,” Chloe grinned. “Jase is going out drinking with Nick tonight to celebrate solving the case, and Jase said I could come.”

“I didn’t--” Jase started to say.

“You just said he’d be fine with it,” she protested. “And don’t worry, I won’t bombard him with anything invasive or upsetting. I just want to clarify whether some of the things we generally understand about the mafia are rumors or truth.”

Jase frowned and tried to explain that he probably wouldn’t want to talk about that. I watched them go back and forth for a minute before I was struck with a peculiar idea.

“I’ll go too,” I announced simply. They both turned to look at me with shocked and confused expressions.

“He’d probably like that less than answering a bunch of questions,” Jase replied after a beat of silence.

“All the more reason to go.” I smiled. “Where are you guys going?”

“Yeah, where?” Chloe grinned, clearly intrigued by the idea.

“What? Come on, guys,” Jase sighed weakly. He looked upset that we were ganging up on him, but I knew we’d be able to wear him down if he kept prodding. Jase was a nice guy, and nice guys were the easiest to break.

40

Nick

I leaned back in my chair as I ended the call and finished sending over the documents. After we’d located and rescued Hannah Styles’ mother, I’d headed back to my own office since my services weren’t really needed anymore. They had hired