Page 139 of House of Lies

“You’ve got a type. Brunette’s with green eyes.” He points the gun at Cassidy. “She’s chubbier than the last, though.”

“Why?” I grate out. “What the fuck did she ever do to you?”

“Her?” Angelo spins to face me, Becks’s head swinging like a gruesome air freshener hanging from a serial killer’s rear-view mirror.

“Oh, Becks was lovely, Ethan. I really liked her.” He shakes her by the hair, making a kissy face at what’s left of her decomposing head. “Until you moved out here to the middle of nowhere. Started talking about kids. Closing the company.”

His teeth shine orange in the soft glow from the crypt’s spotlights.

“You left me no choice. Something’s gotta give, you know?” He walks back to Cassidy, and she cringes away with a disgusted moan when he swings Becks’s head closer to her.

“Thought things would go back to normal if I got Becks out of the picture. But you just kept turning down jobs. Guess you had enough money by then, huh? Didn’t give a fuck about what I wanted. It was all about Ethan Remington. You know how much money I was making before you got all fucking soppy on me and quit?”

“You killed my fucking fiancé!” I roar. “How the hell did you think I was going to react?”

“Bullshit!” Angelo stabs the gun in my direction. “You thought she’d run off. Felt so fucking sorry for yourself, you just gave up.” His voice keeps rising, the gun in his hand gesturing so wildly that Cassidy ducks her head to avoid getting slugged.

“I begged you, Ethan, fucking begged you to start up the business again. But you never gave a shit about me, did you?”

He drops the head into Cassidy’s lap, laughing as she tries to buck it off.

“I’m going to peel the skin off your tiny little dick and feed it to you,” I growl.

Angelo laughs like it’s the funniest thing he’s ever heard. “Gonna be hard when you’re multiple life sentences for murder.” He runs a hand over Becks’s head like he’s stroking a cat.

Christ, this guy is so goddamn unhinged. How the fuck didn’t I see this coming?

Because he’s right.

I never cared about anyone else. It was always about me.

As if snapping out of a daydream, Angelo shoves the gun into the small of his back and darts into the shadows, emerging with a golden candlestick.

He walks up to Cassidy with such determination that I can already see him bashing in her brains. She gives up trying to push Becks’s head off her lap to stare at Angelo with wide, panicked eyes.

“No!” I yell, and he has the fucking audacity to laugh at me.

But instead of turning her skull into a pulp, he wraps her fingers around the base of the candlestick. “That’s it,” he murmurs. “Hold it tight, sweetheart. Gotta convince forensics you were defending yourself.”

Cold realization slams into me like the fucking iceberg that hit the Titanic.

He’s going to make it look like I dragged Cassidy down here to kill her…just like I killed Becks. That’s what it’ll look like to the cops, anyway.

And then what? He’ll kill us both?

She won’t be alive to tell the truth, and the cops will thank God this case was handed to them wrapped in a neat little bow.

Merry fucking Christmas.

Chapter 57

Cassidy

Ethan goes down with barely a grunt of pain when Angelo hits him again. The candlestick glances off his temple, and Angelo stands over him for a few seconds before letting it drop to the ground by Ethan’s head.

The knife makes quick work of slicing through Ethan’s ropes. I’m holding my breath the whole time, desperately hoping that Ethan’s just playing dead, that he’ll jump up any minute now and tackle Angelo to the ground.

But he just lies there, blood trickling from the cut on his head, as Angelo bundles up the ropes and tosses them into a distant corner of the crypt.

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