Page 134 of Cruel Riches

Nate lifted one shoulder in a shrug. “I haven’t decided yet. He and my mother really seem to believe that it’s too dangerous for him to go out anywhere. But on the other hand, keeping him trapped in a tiny old bunker for the rest of his life seems totally insane. I’m surprised he hasn’t lost his mind already.”

“If only I could imagine what that was like,” I muttered sarcastically, gesturing to the bunker around me. I turned back with my brows lifted. “You are going to let me go now, right?”

Nate squared his jaw and looked me dead in the eyes. “No.”

Incensed, I leapt up again. The sudden, brutal shock of his refusal seemed to have knocked the rest of my emotions right out of me. “Are you fucking kidding me?”

Nate stood up as well. “No. I can’t let you go,” he said, crossing his arms over his broad chest.

“Why?” My eyes felt like they were about to bulge right out of my skull. “You know I’m innocent now!”

“No, I know your father is innocent. Not you.”

“But half your argument against me is that I supposedly inherited my so-called psychopathy from my dad!” I said. “Now you know he’s innocent. So how the fuck am I still guilty?”

Nate narrowed his eyes. “I used to think it was in your nature to kill. That you inherited some sort of crazy killer genes from your father. Obviously, I was wrong about that,” he said. “But it doesn’t mean you aren’t a killer. The environment a person grows up in shapes who they are just as much as their genes. You know, nature versus nurture.”

“So?”

“So you’ve had a pretty horrible life, Alexis. Raised in a world where everyone thought your father was a psychotic murderer. Your whole life was uprooted because of it, and the shame followed you wherever you went, even after you changed your name, because you still knew who you were deep down. That sort of trauma could drive anyone crazy.”

“I’m not crazy. I’ve never hurt anyone.”

“Have you forgotten about Nessa Pratchett and Claire Reilly?” he asked, raising a brow.

“No, of course not. But I didn’t kill them!” I said. “Whoever the real Blackthorne Butcher was ten years ago… it’s him. He’s back. It’s what I’ve been saying all along!”

Nate let out a short, irritated sigh. “The cops have already established that the current killer is a copycat of the old one.”

“How?” I asked, practically spitting the word out.

“The old killer was left-handed, and they’ve determined that the new one is right-handed. So there’s no way it’s the same person,” Nate explained.

“Bullshit.”

“It’s not bullshit. There’s the original killer that the Golden Circle covered for, and now there’s a different one. A copycat. You.”

“No.” I clenched my jaw. “It’s not me!”

“Have you forgotten about the evidence I have?” he asked, tilting his chin. “Or do you have a good explanation for all of that now?”

Shoulders slumping, I sat back down, glaring at him. “No.”

“Didn’t think so.” He smiled thinly. “It’s also quite a coincidence that the murders stopped when I took you. I wonder why?”

I could feel my blood pressure rising with every second that passed. “Just wait,” I said. “You’ll see that you’re wrong as soon as another body shows up.”

“I seriously doubt that’ll happen.”

Seething, I pictured my hands wrapping around Nate’s throat. “Why did you tell me about my father if you aren’t even going to let me go?” I asked, wishing I could choke the life out of him. “Was that your plan all along? To make me feel like I finally had something good so you could rip it away and make me feel like fucking shit?”

“No. I’m going to take you to see him.”

My eyes widened. “What?”

“You might be totally fucking crazy, but it’s only because of what was done to him ten years ago,” he said. “If none of that ever happened, you’d never have felt the need to carry out these revenge killings, or whatever the fuck they’re supposed to be. So I’ll let you see him. I think you deserve that much, and I think he deserves it too, after all these years without his family.”

“Thank you,” I said stiffly, refusing to meet his eyes. Fucking asshole, I silently added.

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