Page 139 of Cruel Lies

The silence on the other side of the couch was deafening, and I took that moment to rise to my knees, glad that he hadn’t bothered to turn on any overhead lights.

"That bitch killed herself with the heroin in that needle. I just helped her along, is all."

But he hadn’t. He’d shoved the needle in her arm, conveniently forgetting to tell her it contained more than a hit of her drug of choice. He killed her to cover up what she’d found out, what she’d suspected all along.

"You’ve had Nash’s mother in an induced coma since the day of her car accident, simply so you could declare her legally dead for marital reasons and move in your newest bride." Angel’s mother hadn’t spoken much English when he picked her up as a desperate hooker in a strip club where a lot of the women came from countries far away against their will. "Another woman you took advantage of."

I could hear his feet shuffling, and then the sound of a clip locking into place echoed around the room. I guessed he was about three feet away, to my right, this time.

I could slide around the chair and put the desk between us with ease.

Hell, if he wanted to kill me, he could have fired through this fucking chair by now.

So why didn’t he?

The door to the study creaked open, and I didn’t have time to think. Knowing it could mean I missed a man, I let a single blade fly, the one in my hand, regretting the action almost immediately as it landed in the chest of a man dressed in all black.

"Fuck," a familiar voice groaned out as he fell to his knees, a hand reaching up to cradle the knife in his heart. "I always knew you’d be the death of me, Harpie girl. I just didn’t think it’d be like this."

FIFTY-FIVE

ROWAN

Someone had takenout a lot of people in a short amount of time. By the time we pulled up to thehouse, there wasn’t a guard in sight, and the alerts had gone radio silent. Whatever movement had tripped the alarms I’d set, it wasn’t moving anymore.

Which wasn’t the best of news.

Each of us armed with a blade, ready for anything, we slipped from the Torino and headed toward the guard shack, expecting some sort of resistance.

Instead, what we found was blood, and no bodies.

Strange.

Whoever had been through here was efficient. Fast. And very, very smart.

Surely she couldn’t be responsible . . .

I had this sinking suspicion that something terrible was about to happen, but with no time to make a stable, thought-out plan, I had to make split-second decisions based more on instinct and feeling than rational logic.

I didn’t like it. The chance of something going wildly off the rails was higher than ever. Unfortunately, I hadn’t been left with a choice.

"There’s a whole lot of blood with no bodies in sight," Nash remarked dryly, poking at a dead radio with the tip of his blade. "Why did we rush here again? It looks like whoever was involved in this cleaned house pretty well. Not much left to do."

"If they got through the guard station, the odds are they got inside, too." Angel’s frown deepened as he slipped from the building, scoping out the surroundings. "Who do you think did this?"

"I don’t know, but it’s not like Father lacks for enemies in this town."

Nash grinned wildly. "Wonder if whoever it was got inside and actually got to the old fuck. Maybe we won’t have to take care of him after all."

"Would be nice if someone did our work for us," Angel lamented. "I’m so tired of cleaning up after others."

"Looks like this is gonna be a longer night than we planned, boys. Maybe we should let our girl know not to wait up for us."

I watched as Nash dialed Harper from his phone, turning it on speaker for the rest of us. I held my breath as it rang once, twice, three times, and then went to voicemail.

Sheneverlet it go to voicemail.

"Odd," he muttered, dialing it again. When he got the same response this time, Angel whipped out his own phone and dialed her, too.

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