Page 81 of An Unending Claim

“I wiped our tracks as soon as I was old enough to figure it out. I thought we could finally relax, finally live without fear.”

“Who told him?”

“My cousin, of all people,” she sneered. “She was talking to her aunt, who still lived in our old pack. She mentioned me and the aunt was so shocked to hear we were alive that she said something to her sister-in-law, who told someone and so on and so on until word got to Xavier.”

“It was an accident,” I murmured.

“It doesn’t matter! We lived with her, helped her around the house, helped pay her bills, anything she needed and that was how she repaid us? It seemed appropriate that she should take my place in that fucking grave.”

“How did your mother die?”

“The car accident. We found out Xavier was on his way to our town and we were rushing home to pack and leave. It was cold and rainy, making the roads slick, and we hit some black ice. We were both taken to the hospital. I was in bad shape, but she was DOA. They didn’t think I’d survive, but they didn’t know I wasn’t human. The nurses did a shift switch and I hacked the records to match my cousin. So when she came to see me, I made sure they had a body to declare dead and bury next to my mother. I was tempted to hang around and take care of Xavier when he arrived, but he always travels with a shit-ton of security, so I ran, got a new face, and started over.”

“I get it,” I said sadly.

Lisa’s voice was soft when she said, “I know you do. And you had to live with him for so much longer. Without your mom…”

“How did we both end up back here?”

Her expression turned grim, but it was directed over my shoulder. I was sure Nathan wouldn’t have come in when I was making progress, so my guess was that she saw an imaginary Xavier Castile. “I spent the next eight years planning how to take him down and setting myself up in the perfect position to do it.”

“How?” I asked, infusing my voice with fascination.

“I built a reputation. My job at KBO helped with that. I felt a little bad about what I was planning to do to them, but they were just casualties of war, right?”

“Mmhmmmm.” I didn’t want to say too much and pull her from her memories, but I also wanted to encourage her to impress me.

“I met Bane online and realized he’d be the perfect tool. So, after a while, I encouraged him to contact Xavier and propose the plan for helping him find victims, ones that would help Xavier gain power. Then I put a bug in Bane’s ear to recommend me to Xavier to help with the hacking. He only gave Xavier my hacker handle and references. Xavier didn’t even bother to check if I was really an employee at KBO, just asked for a little demonstration. He really,reallyhates Nathan King, so that’s probably what sealed it for me.” Lisa’s smile was a little maniacal when she continued, “He hired me without realizing he’d just handed me the keys to his destruction.”

Lisa licked her lips and I pulled a bottle of water from my bag. I held it up in question and she nodded, so I rounded the table, thankful that Nathan could only hear and not see what was happening. He’d have handed me my ass if he knew I’d been so close to the crazy woman. I twisted off the cap and handed it to her. As she sipped, I returned to my seat.

“How did you plan to take him down?”

“Besides the fact that he was paying me money he didn’t have?”

I nodded. I’d noticed that Xavier was mortgaged to the hilt. He was likely counting on gaining more territory to save his ass financially.

“I intended to let him get right to the finish line, so close he could taste victory, then turn them both in to the authorities with all of the evidence I’d collected.” She shifted her weight and winced at the tight band of steel around her ribcage, just below her breasts. “Then I’d finally have my moment when I snuck into Rikers and shanked the bitches. I had the job all lined up—their security system is a fucking joke—and it would be blamed on the other prisoners.”

I made a mental note to do some digging into the guards and other employees on Rikers Island. Even with Lisa’s plans derailed, someone was obviously on the take. If it wasn’t Lisa, it would be someone else who came along and tempted them.

“After several months, I requested to meet Xavier in person, and he agreed, so I went to the Castile lands. I didn’t expect it to be so difficult not to rip his throat out right then and there. I nearly blew it a few times when he said something that pissed me off. I spent so many nights dreaming of all the ways I could kill him. But that was too good for the old bastard.”

I didn’t disagree with that point, however, it was clear that my… fuck, what was she, my aunt? Anyway, she’d obviously had a mental breakdown at some point. What sane person would find victims for a serial killer just to get to one man and ruin his life?

“Why did Xavier go after the shifters out here?” I knew why, but I wanted to encourage her to talk without sounding accusing and asking if she was involved straight out.

“They were all strategic moves to help him gain power. I didn’t have much to do with that, and after I found out about you…”

I raised an eyebrow, but waited for her to go on.

“I didn’t know who you really were until Xavier figured it out. You… you had it even worse than I did with that son of a bitch and I just… I just didn’t want to cause you more pain. But, by then, I was in too deep and I’d already set things in motion to mess with the KBO missions. I was actually relieved that you were able to save the operations.”

Her attitude toward me was interesting. It didn’t give me the warm fuzzies or anything, but there was something not so horrible about it. However, it didn’t matter what she felt about me or how she’d reacted when she found out I was there, the woman was batshit crazy. I was a little sad about it, though, because in the end, she was yet another casualty of Xavier Castile. He was nothing but flesh, bone, and evil.

Lisa took another sip of water and winced when the metal bracelet on her wrist chafed her skin. “When I found out he was trying to pin everything on you, I tried to stop it, but… I hadn’t figured out how to do it without being caught yet.”

Nathan had given me the Cliffs Notes of what they got out of Lisa in interrogation, but as I suspected, she hadn’t told them about our familial connection or the evidence she’d been collecting.

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