My Tragic Mafia Life | ✔️

56

Josephine had remembered it well, and nothing much had changed around the bar. It was still a mess. Though in broad daylight, she hadn't seen how the wooden tables protruding from the corners were covered with embroidered tablecloths. The dust lining the shells had been invisible, but the blankets made for outsiders like her to step on still draped across the floor. She trailed in after everyone in silence. The memories formed here were not of comfort.

Dante was transfixed in his own world. After the passable conversation they had yesterday, Josephine thought it best not to intervene. Not with a comment or a word. This was where his brother was murdered. She'd give him that, at least. Though she still had no idea what they were here for.

One by one, they all walked off the path. Josephine stayed put. They each paced around the bar, avoiding every shard of broken whiskey bodies and green, purple, or yellow beads rolling across the floor. Their minds were clouded with other things.

Maybe they're brainstorming on how the murder happened. She thought. For every time she was dragged along with them it had only been in pursuit of information. Ruling out suspects only to realize that no one was innocent. It had never been about stringing it all together.

Josephine snapped her eyes across the bar, shifting when her gaze reached the chalk outline where Hugo was murdered. He was long-legged and quite thin. She couldn't focus on just that area so much. This was her opportunity to jest for clues. Since when had remorse gotten in her way?

Minutes of quiet thought sustained. Ideas poured into Josephine's mind then out. Each one more unruly than the next, but not entirely out of the world.

Until Houston ruined it. "What are we thinking?"

Annoyed, Dante turned silently. His glare was insidious, before snapping it away. He said, "I'm thinking it was Valentina."

Of all the suggestions, Josephine thought this one was the worst.

Her face turned shrewd as Isla's eyes widened. Here she went with the negation.

"It can't be Valentina," Isla started. Josephine briskly rolled her eyes. "Maybe we found her shoes at the crime scene, but that still doesn't mean—"

"Then who do you think did it?" Dante's voice was flat. He had enough of her savior complex and was already beginning to narrow his options. He had no time for self-serving excuses. He waited for her to answer. Isla swallowed as she prepared her answer.

Josephine almost felt bad. To choose from the line of friends you once knew, you once loved, then incriminating them like this. If only this were a perfect world, but perfect worlds didn't exist. You tried to make them.

"I, uh," Isla looked around the room for reassurance. Her eyes found Houston's and seemed to tremble, a wordless plea for help. But he kept his silence, waiting for her to answer. She had no choice but to. "Maybe it was Valentina. I don't know." Isla looked defeated.

"Very well." Declared Dante, then strode to an area far left from the door. He crouched down, staring at an open spot where the glass sharps seem to curve around, along with the shadows. "Her shoes were found here." That made sense even if the accusation against Valentina seemed bland. "If she was fighting Hugo, then that would explain the stab wounds. Compared to him, she barely reaches his shoulder. And several footprints show that she was running around the bar matching these shoes."

Houston's gaze seemed to have narrowed on that particular spot, but Beatriz kept on shaking her head. There was something clearly bothering her with this initial idea, but she wouldn't say what.

It was also bothering Josephine. She wouldn't say anything, but that didn't mean she agreed. What would Valentina get out of killing Hugo? Maybe Valentina had approached her and warned her to back off Camillo, but this wasn't the first time it had happened. And from all those sharp-toothed warnings, there was not a time where she actually did anything. She cried, spat, maybe even chastised Josephine behind her back, but Valentina was all bark, no bite. If she couldn't so much as push Josephine off the edge for interfering with her childhood romance, even when Josephine pegged her back with a few tongue-lashings of her own, how could she kill for it too?