Chapter 2

I should've known.

That thought went through my mind as I watched Martin looking at me expectantly. Too bad, asshole! Instead of answering him, I kept breathing deeply, relaxing, putting myself in a place where I could act quickly if he gave me any opening.

But to get that opening, I'd need him to relax. Hmmm... what would make a little control freak like Martin relax? Perhaps... I let my shoulders slump and hung my head a bit, averting my eyes from his. Though not speaking, I tried to convey a look of defeat... of capture.

As he took in my posture, he unconsciously stood taller, his feral grin returning. He was buying it, beginning to think that he indeed had me exactly where he wanted me. And, in the moment he gave me even the slightest margin to escape, I'd be ready to move.

Ready to disappear.

You see, before I ever became an illusionist, I became very used to disappearing acts. One doesn't go from being the bastard son of immigrant parents to the adopted son of a mobster to world famous stage magician with a secret past without knowing how to make what's real seem fake, and vice-versa. Perhaps that's why I'm such a good magician. Making other things disappear is a career. But making myself disappear... well, that's become my life.

Satisfied that I could do nothing more at the moment, I let the thoughts I'd been holding down bob to the surface.

That bitch! That fucking bitch! She set me up!

I let myself taste the rage behind my feeling of betrayal, taking a minute sip of its bitter vintage before spitting it out mentally and sweeping those thoughts away. All rage could do at this point is get me killed. There would either come a time when I could deal with Sherree... or I would be dead.

Suddenly, a voice inside of my head was screeching, "Your choices are cake or death... and we're all out of cake!"

Damn my sense of humor... and while I'm at it, damn Eddie Izzard, too!

Still, even gallows humor is good for me at this point. It helps push the rage back down, putting it to sleep for a bit. And, since rage always seems to fill up all the space in my head when it gets its hold on me, pushing it down helped other thoughts come front and center.

Vern Rosen! I knew we didn't shut him up quickly enough! Goddamn sleazy tabloid reporters AND their corrupt cop friends!

I knew that the cop who ran the check on my fingerprints for Rosen had to be corrupt because he would never break protocol for a sleazehound like Vern unless he was either bought or blackmailed. Plus, after finding out who those prints belonged to, you'd think he'd have hauled Vern in and grilled him until he spilled his guts about where he'd gotten those prints.

After all, one doesn't just stumble on fresh prints from the supposedly dead son of a prominent mob boss every day.

Still, I suppose I should be grateful. Like a good politician, this cop had stayed bought, perhaps glad to have whatever hold Rosen had over him finally broken. And, up to this point, I had remained free.

But that still left Martin, who had apparently gotten tired of standing and decided to perch his ass in a patio chair across from me, his gun still zeroed-in on my midsection.

Fucking bastard! It's not bad enough that I can't even be seen with my own brother for fear of arousing suspicion! Now you've come in here thinking you know something about me... that you can use it like a club to beat me up before you kill me.

At least Martin didn't seem to have any interest in my past beyond the fact that it explained who I had been before I became "Peter the Great." I suppose it might even be a great lever for blackmail, if it weren't obvious that Martin had an even better plan in mind.

Sherree was married to me. He was controlling Sherree. I get dead, and Sherree gets everything... which in turn means he gets everything.

Really makes you want to rethink that rash decision to forego the prenup, doesn't it?

Still, it was obvious that Martin's research had only been for the bare facts, not the whole story. It had been the same way with Rosen. "Tell me, Mr. Scallopini, how did it feel to see your parents and brother blown up in that explosion, and then be adopted by the man who killed them?" The fucker. I should've killed him as soon as he asked that question.