Page 95 of Choosing Stella

I hit the end of the first corridor and followed the tracker left.

“Because you wanted his casino?” Stella asked.

“The casino was never the valuable part.”

“Then what was?”

“Antonio’s trafficking operation. The routes. The money. The people he thought belonged to him.”

My jaw locked.

“You wanted his operation.”

“I wanted control of what I’d spent years protecting for him.”

“And you murdered him for it.”

“Antonio believed everybody around him belonged to him. He was wrong about me.”

Another scrape sounded through the feed, followed by Stella’s breathing.

“And you put my card beside him.”

“You’d already given me the perfect story.”

“I gave Antonio a reading.”

“And he told me you warned him that betrayal would come from inside.”

“You corrupted the cameras.”

“I had access. That was the point.”

“You framed me.”

“I gave the police enough to frighten you. You were never supposed to spend your life in prison.”

I reached a second intersection.

The tracker held steady now.

A closed door stood twenty yards ahead.

Stella’s voice came through my earpiece.

“You were going to make the case disappear.”

“I could’ve.”

“So I’d owe you.”

“So you’d understand who could protect you.”

“I already had someone.”

“DiNero complicated things.”

“You mean he stopped your men from drugging me.”