Total pages in book: 111
Estimated words: 110273 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 551(@200wpm)___ 441(@250wpm)___ 368(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 110273 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 551(@200wpm)___ 441(@250wpm)___ 368(@300wpm)
I stopped and squatted in front of him. My arms were loose, my elbows resting on my knees, and I stared up at him from this position. Maybe it was time to start asking the hard questions.
“Who raised you?”
No flicker. No response.
His face was like granite.
Okay. Next one.
“Did you know our mother?”
He blinked this time, a slight wince, but he caught himself, covering his reaction. A second blink. And back to a face of impassivity.
One more. “Did you know our father?”
There was no reaction from that one.
“Calhoun had our aunt raped. Were you there?”
His shoulders jerked up, but nothing on his face.
“Did you hear her screams?” I didn’t wait. I pushed up and stood over him. “Because I did. Those tapes were sent to our mother. She listened to them, and I heard them, sitting outside her door.”
I walked forward. This was a risk, but I was going to take it.
I leaned down, getting into his space. My hands went to his armrests and I was right there, almost eye to eye.
“He tortured them both. Mentally. Physically. Sexually. Emotionally. He did it all, then he killed them both.”
His eyes were blazing. He tried, he struggled to put up his wall, but it slipped. He couldn’t keep it up, and he was glaring at me. He moved even closer to me, trying to get into my space, trying to make me uncomfortable.
“If you’re trying to figure out if I hate our grandfather, let me save you the trouble. I hate him. I have hated him all my life. I have dreamed about killing him, putting the knife in him, and I want to twist it, run it through the rest of him. Up his stomach, though his chest, and then turning, pushing it directly into his heart. And I would savor that moment, watching the life drain out of his eyes.” He paused, breathing harshly. His nostrils were flaring. “If I had the power, I’d bring him back from the dead only to do it all over again. You didn’t grow up under his thumb. I did. If you want a tutorial on torture tactics, I’m the one who should be giving it to you.”
“And yet you’re the one tied up here.”
His eyes went flat at the reminder. His hands jerked, but they didn’t ball into fists.
They remained flat, resting.
I was looking at him all anew, thinking back on everything. How he hadn’t fought. How he hadn’t asked questions or made demands. He’d been perfect … but those hands.
They never balled into fists. Not once. He jerked his arms, but they still remained flat.
Understanding dawned, and I stepped back from him.
Like he was preserving his energy.
Like he was waiting.
Like he was looking for his chance.
He knew how to fight. I bested him in the apartment, but had I?
That small knife.
“You knew,” I murmured.
Yes. He knew he would be taken captive.
He knew there were body scans.
He knew he’d have to go in weaponless or he never would’ve gotten in, but he needed to go in.
“You couldn’t stand going in without anything to defend yourself. That’s why you brought in the small switchblade. You hid it. We found the towel on you. You had it wrapped up, and there was tape. We had someone put it back together. You had the tape to cover the ends of it, to make it look like something else, not a knife at all.” Shit. Shit. I saw the knife taped back up, but I hadn’t thought about it.
I was thinking on it now.
I moved back another step.
He wasn’t moving. He wasn’t reacting. It was like he was just waiting for … what? For me to piece it all together?
And then I really thought about him, and about where he grew up.
Another step back, toward my gun. “I turned myself into a human living weapon, and that was just training in preparation for him. But you…” Yeah. I was right. I felt it. It was clicking all the way down to my bones. “You lived with him. You were under his thumb. He tortured our aunt. He killed our mother. Jesus. You were there. You endured that. What does that make you? No way could someone live through that and come out unscathed.”
He had to be unhinged. Had to be.
His eyes twitched. Not his eyelids, or his lashes. His eyes themselves. That was the real him. I was getting in there. I was digging all the way in there.
I just needed him to show his face, his real face.
I needed to see who I was really dealing with, because what I was seeing was a mask.
Had to be.
I kept on, my voice growing soft. “If he knew you were gone, he would be frantic. What was his plan with you? Because he had one.”
He didn’t talk.
His eyes flashed, then went dull. His head lowered. His shoulders slumped.