Chapter 113 Blood on my hands
My parents are not talking to me.
I don't really care because I know this will pass. Hopefully soon. It would suck to live in a house where I'm being ignored. Plus, this is my first time getting the cold shoulder, too.
Never before did I do something so horrendous that I got this reaction from them.
There's a knock on the front door, and Dad gives me a scathing look before getting up and answering.
I hear T.J.'s voice talking to Dad, and I already roll my eyes. This is just great. He probably came to complain about how I ditched him and then spent an entire day with my lover.
I'm safe with Miguel. He won't let anything happen to me, and it's not like we were gallivanting the streets of New York for the whole world to see us.
I sip my coffee, watching Mom over the rim of my cup. She's typing furiously on her phone, probably to Aunt Farrah to discuss what a disappointment I am.
Dad and T.J. joins us in the kitchen, and I do not like the grim expression on T.J's face.
"Is this another intervention?" I ask drily, not in the mood for another lecture of how irresponsible I was, and what the consequences could've been. Nothing happened to me, aside from getting deliciously fucked.
"Madison." T.J.'s voice sounds dark. "Something bad happened."
Dread settles in the pit of my stomach. "Is Simon okay? I just spoke to him last night."
"What's going on T.J.?" Mom breaks her silence, frowning. "Did something happen to Miguel?"
The blood literally drains from my face. No. Please let it not be Miguel. We have plans, a house that needs decorating, a future.
"Miguel is fine." T.J. shakes his head, and I exhale a sigh of relief. "I have eyes on Simon, he's fine too."
I frown, my stomach knotted with nervousness. "So what happened?"
T.J. looks at Mom with regret in his eyes. "The model you were photographed with the other day, the one in the tabloids?"
"Armando?" Mom asks. " What about him?"
There's a beat of silence from T.J. and I just wished he would spit it out. I don't really care for Armando, but he seems like a cool guy.
"He was killed last night outside his apartment building."
The mug I was holding falls from my hand and clatters on the table. I don't even feel the burn of the coffee as it spills into my lap, just that Dad is dabbing my lap with a kitchen towel.
"How?" Mom asks, a tremble in her voice. "Who told you?"
"My contact at the police, he saw the article of Madison and him and thought he should inform me." T.J. explains.
I take the towel from Dad's hand and ball it in my fist. "Do you think it's Ben?"
Is Armando's death connected to me? Everybody probably saw that damn article, and the damn speculation that we might be dating. People believe that sort of thing.
"I don't know. Again, I have eyes on him, and he didn't leave his apartment last night." T.J. opens his laptop in front of us and pulls up a video. "The police says it's a mugging, but if it is, why kill the guy? Why not just grab his bag and go?"
He presses play on the video, it's surveillance footage from outside an apartment building. You can see Armando exiting the building with a backpack slung over his shoulder. Then out of nowhere a guy approaches wearing a black hoodie with the hood over his head, and just starts stabbing Armando before grabbing the backpack and running away.
"He was stabbed fourteen times." T.J. continues. "That's a bit overkill for a mugging. And he dumped the backpack two blocks over before disappearing into the subway. The cameras lose him somewhere."
"You don't think this was a mugging?" Dad wants to know.
"No, this was carefully planned. He knew where the cameras were, we never once see his face. He knew where to run to, to disappear from the cameras. He might have had different clothing stashed somewhere." T.J.'s eyes burn on me. "This was definitely premeditated."
I can feel myself getting sick, so I get up and run to the nearest bathroom to throw up the breakfast I just had.
Oh god. Armando is dead.
What if....
What if he was killed because of me? Because we were photographed together?
Mom enters the bathroom, and rub soothing circles on my back. "This is not on you, baby girl. It's one me, I wanted Armando to have lunch with us and I told Dario we should leave the two of you alone so you can get to know one another."
Tears burn my eyes. I didn't know Armando all that well, but he was so young, and he had the whole world waiting for him. He did not deserve to die, and not in that way.
The question is, is it really Ben?
If it is, Armando's blood is on my hands.