“I didn’t do anything to your son”, Shane exclaims through his gritted teeth, “He was ready to shoot up when I saw him. He was a long-term junkie. He was a criminal way before I met him. He did interfere with our lives, he did injured my wife badly. I didn’t do anything to him, I didn’t have time. And anyway, he would have ended that way even without my help”.

“But you facilitated the process, didn’t you?”, Sanders says coldly, turning to Shane, “You forced him to OD. You forced him to shoot up, that night. You had a gun aimed to his head and you wanted to see him die, didn’t you, McCutcheon?”.

”I smoked the shit that made you love
Drowned all your problems like a wife
Blanked out your anger with my face
Wasted my days to hide disgrace
I did it all, did it all
All in the name of pity”

Shane grimaces, caught off guard. In the meantime, one of Francois’ men handcuffs my wrists in my lap. Still, they don’t touch Shane and Carmen. Still, they don’t look at Tasha, Alice and Cassandra. And even I cannot look at them. I don’t have to. I have to keep my concentration. And even if the matter is becoming more and more dangerous as the minutes go by, I still have to think like I have plenty of time and like I’m about to find the solution. At least for them. My life is secondary, at this point, and I don’t care.

Sanders’ words silenced Shane, and now she’s looking at him like he’s some kind of alien abruptly landed on our planet.

“How do you know?”, Shane murmurs, “How the fuck you know what’s happened that night? You weren’t even there!”, he exclaims then in a louder tone.

“Keep your cool”, I whisper to her, and she swallows hard, closing her mouth.

Jack Sanders chuckles.

“There are many things that you don’t know about me and my son. And I am a loyal player. I want you to know everything before you die”.

“A loyal player?”, Carmen replies disgusted, glancing at me, “You aren’t a loyal player. You just handcuffed Dante because you know well that he could kill you in less than two seconds”.