Agent Reed purses her lips and acts genuinely surprised by my outburst. “I’m really not. Included in that witness statement are some very interesting things about you Sasha. It seems you are implicated as a potential accomplice yourself to some of these crimes.”
I sit back and cross my arms while I stare at her. “First of all, Donny is frigging deluded. So if you buy anything he’s trying to sell you, I feel sorry that he’s wasting tax payer’s dollars sending you on these types of goose chases. And second of all, I don’t know anything about any crimes. I’m just a dancer. A freelance one at that. So technically, I’m not even employed by that club. And unless you’re going to place me under arrest, you better take me back to my house.”
The agent sighs and gestures for the other man who is still watching me closely. He’s clearly an agent too, but something about him doesn’t feel right. I don’t like the way he keeps looking at me. Like he knows something I don’t. Like all of this is just for show.
He opens up a drawer and hands agent Reed a file which she then tosses onto the table in front of me.
“Donovan O’ Connor has been missing for some time now,” she says. “And by his own account, he suspected this might happen. He was prepared for it.”
She opens up the file and leaves me to have a look on my own. I swallow down my nerves as I slide it across the table and begin to flip through the pictures. Immediately, I know exactly who and what they are.
The photos themselves are grainy, and there’s no clear shot of his face. But it’s undoubtedly Ronan shoving a large roll of carpet into the trunk of a car behind Slainte. I take my time studying each photo. I’m trying to see if Donny actually captured anything of use.
The photos were obviously taken on a cell phone, and there are no lights in that part of the lot, so almost all of it is in shadows. There’s nothing that can identify the car that I can see because Ronan is blocking the plate itself. The photos have obviously been altered as much as they can to try to identify the subject, but a fat lot of good it did.
If I didn’t know it before, these photos only confirm what an idiot Donny was. He thought this would be his smoking gun. But it’s obvious that if they have me here they need me to corroborate his story. And without him being here to talk, I have to doubt they have anything else to go on.
“Before you say anything,” agent Reed interrupts my thoughts, “I think it’s pertinent you know Sasha, that you can be brought up on charges as well if you don’t cooperate. Alternatively, you can have the slate wiped clean. Move into our WITSEC program and begin anew. New name, new city. A chance to make a life of your own. I know that the last few years have been difficult for you. Supporting your mother during the final stages of her cancer could not have been easy. And then going to work at Slainte every night, knowing that you could never leave. You can’t tell me you haven’t thought about it. I’m giving you that opportunity now.”
I take a slow, controlled breath and look up at her. For the last three years, I’ve managed to fool everyone who ever asked about Blaine. He’s the fucking nightmare that just won’t go away. And this agent thinks I’m just a dumb stripper who doesn’t know what she’s doing. She thinks she can fool me with her sweet talk. Her promises of a new life. I know better. I know her sugar coated lies are really laced with venom.
Even if I had nothing and nobody to lose, betraying the syndicate is the last thing I’d ever do. It’s a death sentence, no matter which way you spin it. If it had been Blaine I was selling down the river, I might have felt enticed. But it isn’t. It’s Ronan and everyone else who has done right by me. And if I can stand up to Lachlan and his questioning, I can sure as hell handle this dumb broad.
“Look,” I tell her. “It’s obvious you think I know more than I do. But I don’t know what you want me to say. I have no idea who’s in those photos. Even if I did, it’s kind of hard to tell what he’s doing. I mean, it looks like he was doing renovations for all I know. So I’m sorry, but like I said before, I can’t help you.”
“That’s a shame,” she sighs. “We were really hoping that you’d be willing to cooperate with us on this.”
She remains calm, opening the other file in front of her and sliding it across the table in my direction. I give it a cursory glance and feel my own resolve fracturing just a little.
“The way I see it,” she says, “there’s only one obvious choice. Either you take the deal I’m offering… or you’ll be going down for multiple crimes that involve aiding and abetting a criminal organization.”
She points at the second piece of paper in the file to prove her point and then arches a brow for emphasis. “Those are all felonies, by the way. Not that it matters. It makes no difference which prison you end up in. The Irish have reach in all of them, I’m told.”
My eyes snap up to hers, and I seriously debate lunging across the table and choking her to death right here.