Page 92 of Hell and High Water

“Come on. I know you know what I'm talking about. Your aunt works for them too, right?”

“Ugh. Fine. I am aware of the…” I tilt my head expectantly.

“The Sinful, The Sinful, yes!”

I smile, nodding like I tricked her.

She squints at me suddenly, trying to decide whether I got her to spill a secret or I already knew.

“Ah. You little… Oh, I see. You knew exactly what I was getting at.”

“I wanted to make sure.” I shrug.

“Well, if you already know everything, little miss smartass, I’ll just go.”

“No, wait!” I lurch forward, reaching out as she turns away.

Of course she was bluffing. Dammit. “You know, you are really hard not to antagonize,” I grit out.

“I know. I'm pretty antagonistic. Cocks to clubs, you’re a bit of a prickly pear yourself, Hell.”

“Don’t call me that. I’ve had a rough time lately. You know, getting shot, auctioned off.”

“Do tell! That’s precisely what I am trying to figure out. Who is controlling whom?”

“We… I am trying to find that out. But every time I get close to any answers, everything blows up.”

“I can relate, honey. I can relate. Seems like I get blindsided around every corner. My safehouse was invaded. I lost the only clues I had in that safe your boys took.”

I grimace again, debating whether or not to confirm her suspicions.

“All I know is, those Sinful were already killing each other off fifty some years ago. Grandpa took out the fella in the mansion up on the ridge. That’s how I knew about the place and who lived there. I didn’t think anything else of it until I got hired to take out a few of them several years ago. Same setup. Outside of town. Panic room. Secret files. Well, the ones that hadn’t been cleaned out.”

“And my dad? How did you find out he was one of them?”

“I ran into your father when I came back into town a few years later. He was in deep. He worked with the Sinful for years. He lived out here for years. Something not a lot of people are supposed to know about.”

“Yet he told you? Why would he do that?”

“There’s that Michaels wit. You’re finally asking the right questions.”

“Did he hire you to take out his rivals?” I ask the question rhetorically, my mind racing over the possibilities. “No… he wouldn’t do that. Not knowing that you could find out who he was and that he was here. Not after leaving you to die…”

It forms like a fog in my head, the sinking feeling dropping before the realization.

“Yes, keep goin! Gah! I swear it’s like you’re him, standing right here in this kitchen, having a gab with me. Which also just so happens to be the last place I saw him.”

“What do you mean?”

“This is where I killed him. Your dad.”

My brain implodes.

Alaya sighs, her shoulders slumping dramatically, like she’s put out it took me so long to figure it out, like she’s been wanting to get it off her chest.

A deathly calm settles over me, the noise quieting.

“You’re really gonna stand there and calmly tell me that you murdered my father.”

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