Page 11 of Three to Fall

If I could kill my foster parents all over again, I would. But Trig had already taken care of that.

“Gray,” he said softly, honestly. “I swear, I didn’t kill this Alice woman. Why would I lie about that when I just admitted to killing your wife?”

My fingers shook, and I squeezed the gun tighter.

Trig didn’t even blink. “Kill me if it’ll make you feel better. But we both know it won’t.”

I fucking hated he knew me as well as he did. “I made you a promise.”

Trig nodded slowly. “You promised you’d end me if I killed an innocent.”

“You agreed. No, not even agreed!” Anger rose inside me, boiled through my blood, and bunched my muscles painfully. I stepped forward, closing the distance between us. “You made me swear, Trig! You wanted this! And then you went and killed them without giving a shit about how I would feel, knowing I had to put a bullet through the brain of the one person who was always there for me.”

He nodded. “That’s still how I want it.”

“Then why?” My voice dropped to a low, miserable tone. “Why Annette? Were you just jealous I had someone else in my life?”

Trig shook his head. “I was happy for you.”

“And yet you took it away so fucking carelessly.”

Whip sighed, folding his arms across his chest. The other guys just watched on silently, X still for once in his life.

Trig’s eyes darkened. “You didn’t love her.”

“I did.” Except even as I said the words, I was no longer sure I believed them.

Kara’s fingers interlaced with my free hand, a silent support.

I glanced over at her, filling with a warmth I’d only ever felt when she was around.

I’d never felt like that with Annette. I’d wanted her body. Enjoyed verbal sparring with her. Drinking. Partying.

I’d never wanted to take care of her or protect her the way I did with Kara. Never wanted to spend all night holding her, reciting a list of everything I loved about her. Annette and I had gotten married because she’d said people expected it. Not because of some undying desire to be together forever.

If I put aside the anger over her death and really studied what we had, it wasn’t very much.

Not compared to the way I felt when Kara was around. An internal war raged inside me.

Trig narrowed his eyes. “Want to know how I know you didn’t love her? Because you didn’t even know her, Gray. You know what she and her bitch of a sister and their friends were doing when they said they were ‘working’? I know you don’t because I know your bleeding fucking heart and you would have never loved her if you’d truly known who she was.”

My head spun. I wasn’t sure if it was because of the lack of oxygen or the realization that maybe he was right, and I’d been holding on to anger for the past five years rather than love.

“They were trafficking women. Actually, I wouldn’t even call half of them women, because most of them were so young they should have been called girls.”

I recoiled sharply. “What? That’s bullshit. Annette would never.”

But pieces clicked together in my head. The way she never really talked about her day, always diverting the conversation to mine. The way she and her sister were regularly out of town on business trips. The way she spent all of her time at the ‘office,’ but I’d never even known where it was.

The way she told me their business was ‘importing and exporting goods.’ And I’d been too wrapped up in myself to question or even care what that meant. I’d just enjoyed the money and lifestyle it had given us.

A trickle of fear skated down my spine. “That’s not true.”

At least, I didn’t want it to be.

Trig pulled a thumb drive from his pocket. “I knew you wouldn’t believe me. I always trusted you, but I knew it never fully went both ways. So I brought receipts. All the proof you need to understand why I killed all four of them. None of them were innocents.” He swore low under his breath. “I fucking loved you. I would have never hurt your wife just for fun. Or because I was jealous. But good to know how fucking little you thought of me.”

He tossed the small electronic rectangle at me, and I caught it easily.

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