Page 46 of Taking Root

Chapter Twenty-Two

Adrian had given out a lot of cancer diagnoses through his time in residency.

Every time, the fear lit their eyes like he drove a car straight for them, no brakes. No matter what way they reacted or how they processed, there was always the initial pause as the gravity of cancer smacked them in the face.

He’d never been able to understand the moment precisely until now. When Danny’s father stepped inside the abandoned parlor, the pause hit as reality crashed down on him. Adrian had been rolling on adrenaline from the moment Danny told him the truth until he crouched into the booth, and the buzzing in his veins had quieted the thoughts. The fears.

Yet as he hunched over the ripped vinyl and sat in perfect silence, all those fears surged in like high tide. His palms slicked with sweat as he gripped Danny’s pistol, his finger resting on the trigger while he waited. He’d never even told Mom or Dad what he’d gotten himself into. All Lex and Cal knew was he had headed over to Danny’s to make up with her, but even if they searched her apartment, they wouldn’t find any clues there.

He’d gotten wrapped up in a recklessness so unlike him, swept into the tempest of Danny’s situation. And now that he slammed the brakes, all the sense he abandoned battered down.

Adrian watched from the booth, trying to keep his breaths silent. Trying to restrain any movement that could alert Kyle Peterson of his presence.

“I’ll admit, I was surprised to find your note.” Kyle’s voice echoed through the abandoned room, the sort of calm that chilled Adrian’s bones. “You’ve run for this long, so why confront me now?”

From Adrian’s vantage point he could see Danny’s hand balled into a fist on the countertop. “Because you’re after me now,” she said. “I figured a one-on-one face-off was the only chance I might get to stick a knife in your chest.”

The laugh her father followed with chilled him like the dry scrape of a blade on a whetstone. “Going to get started in the family trade?”

Danny stared at the surface of the counter, but even from where he hid, Adrian could see the turmoil raging in her eyes. He couldn’t imagine living with the impossible weight she’d been burdened by from the moment she discovered her father was a murderer. A serial killer.

“If you’re hoping to trap me, you’ll be disappointed,” her father stated, as casual as if he asked her to pass the salt shaker at the breakfast table. “I made a clear appearance in North Central, so the Feds will be crawling around the area for a while now.”

Adrian’s stomach sank. Their entire plan hinged on the Feds rushing to the location Danny texted. But their priority was the capture of psychotic killer Kyle Peterson, not chasing down an errant woman in WitSec. If the Feds weren’t on their way, the two of them would be facing off against a man who’d amassed a body count higher than Michael Myers. After meeting Kyle Peterson in the flesh, Adrian could believe the rumors.

“Then tell me something,” Danny continued, braver than ever. He couldn’t imagine how she still stood as she faced the man who’d destroyed her childhood, who haunted her for over a decade. The woman was forged steel tempered by flames. “Why are Mom and I your last victims? Why now?”

Kyle Peterson took a seat on one of the ripped-up barstools, his gaze cool and calculating. Danny could whip out a knife on him then and there, and Adrian doubted the guy would blink. His palm grew slick as his pointed finger drifted along the trigger. His back cramped from the way he hunched, but he couldn’t risk moving an inch. If the Feds weren’t going to back them up, the element of surprise was their last line of defense against Danny’s father.

“Funny thing about the mind,” Kyle said, leaning forward on the counter. Danny stepped back as if slapped. “I’ve relied on my intellect my entire life. Clever thinking allowed me to pursue my hobbies for years undisturbed.”

Bile rose in Adrian’s throat. By hobby the man meant butchering other human beings. It was the stark opposite of everything he believed in. He had dedicated his life to saving others while Kyle Peterson snuffed out lives for kicks.

“So you can imagine my quandary when I was diagnosed with early onset dementia,” the man continued in his slow, level tone. The calm way he stated everything crawled under Adrian’s skin, and his calves burned with the need to move, to run. “My life may not be running out, but I refuse to depart from this world a prisoner in this useless body. I plan on ending my own life. Before that, Abigail’s and your deaths would offer the closure I’m seeking. There’s a beautiful cyclicality in ending the life I brought into the world.”

What sort of sick fuck said that to his own daughter? Adrian’s blood burned as the fear percolated into rage, a furious one running deeper than the Atlantic. He couldn’t imagine growing up with a man so subzero, who calculated every single move devoid of emotion. If he had a father like Kyle Peterson, he might’ve spent most of his life on the run too.

His finger never drifted from the trigger, but Christ Almighty he’d never wanted to pull it more.

“Losing the one thing you ever cared about?” Danny shot back, her voice dripping with sarcasm. “Excuse me while I don’t give a damn.”

“I suppose I should thank you for arranging this,” Kyle Peterson continued, as if the hatred burning in her gaze meant nothing to him. Based on the lifelessness in his eyes, it didn’t. “Rather than dodging around Feds or continuing to track you down, I can end this here and now. Then I’ll find your mother, and that will be my final salvo.”

Adrian had never met a demon in the flesh. This man defied anything he could’ve dreamt up, the sort of evil that dwelled in nightmares, in prison cells, and in massacres.

Kyle Peterson reached for his waistband, and Adrian snapped to attention. Let him try pulling a weapon on her. Just let him.

The man lifted a Smith and Wesson knife, and Adrian pointed the muzzle toward Kyle’s ankle. His finger paused on the trigger. He might’ve fired at the range a thousand times before, but never on a live target, let alone a human. Fuck. Pull the trigger. His finger froze, refusing to listen to his internal commands.

“This is the knife you’ll be well-acquainted with by the time I leave here,” Kyle Peterson murmured, a sick gleam in his eyes.

Shoot. Just shoot.

Danny squared her shoulders, baring her teeth in response. The woman was unrelenting, a thunderstorm force in the face of her greatest nightmare. For a brief moment, her gaze flickered to him like the snap of a Polaroid. Those green eyes filled with terror even as her hand remained out of sight on one of her weapons.

If anything in the world could galvanize him, she could.

Adrian squeezed the trigger.

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