Page 89 of The Keeper

“Derek? What...what are you doing?” I asked, trying to keep my voice steady despite the icy fear flooding my veins

His expression was unsettlingly calm, almost bored, as if this were a normal day at the bakery and not a hostage situation.

My heart seized in my chest, adrenaline flooding my system. I held up my hands in what I hoped was a non-threatening gesture, my mind racing. Dane wasn’t due back until the afternoon, and with my phone in the kitchen, there was no way to alert him to the very real danger we were in.

“Where’s my mom?” I asked, fighting to keep my voice steady. “Is she okay?”

His lips curled into a smile that sent a chill down my spine. There was no warmth, no hint of the easygoing guy I’d worked with for years. Just a cold, calculating emptiness.

“She’s a bit...tied up at the moment.” He chuckled at his own morbid joke.

Ivy’s eyes met mine, and I could see her training as a psychiatrist kicking in as she tried to reason with him. “Derek, you don’t want to do this. Whatever’s going on, we can talk about it. Just put the knife down, and let’s figure this out?—”

He pressed the tip of the blade into her throat until a bead of crimson welled up in a thin line. “Shut up,” he stated, with no inflection in his tone. “You sit there and play like you’re some expert on the human mind, but I know what you really are.”

Ivy winced as he dug the knife tip deeper into her flesh. “And what is that exactly?” she asked, her voice trembling slightly despite her attempt at calm.

Derek leaned in closer, his lips brushing the shell of her ear. “I’ve been watching you just as closely as I’ve watched Piper, but don’t waste your time trying to psychoanalyze me, Doc. I needed to know what kind of influence you had over what belongs to me.”

He turned his empty eyes to me, sending a fresh wave of terror coursing through my body. “Do you know what kind of person your best friend really is, Piper? She’s a slut. While you were at the hospital with Avery after her fall, Ivy was back at her place, fucking two bikers in her hot tub. The model and the cowboy.” His lips twisted in a cruel smirk. “You just couldn’t decide, could you?”

She paled but said nothing, a muscle ticking in her jaw. My stomach churned with revulsion, and I wanted to throw up, knowing he’d given himself front-row access to our personal lives.

Instead, I focused on the knife at her throat, trying to figure out a way to get us both out of this alive. The lower half of my body was hidden behind a couple of stacked boxes. I pressed my hand to my chest in feigned shock before slowly sliding it down toward my abdomen, where my .38 Special was strapped in a hidden holster around my abdomen.

I wasn’t confident I could draw and fire before he hurt Ivy. I had to keep him distracted long enough for me to retrieve it. “Derek, if you had feelings for me, why’d you wait until now to say something?”

His cold gray eyes bore into me. “I gave you every opportunity, Piper. Every chance to make the right decision. But you still chose a fucking biker over me.”

“If you wanted a relationship, you could have just asked me out like a normal person. We could have?—”

“Could have what?” he interjected. “Played house? Pretended like anything about our relationship would be normal?”

He laughed, a chilling sound devoid of humor. “You would have strung me along for a few dates until someone better came along. No, I had to take matters into my own hands. I even killed for you. And did I get so much as a thank you?”

Killed for me?

“You shot Timothy because he was hurting me. That’s what you said,” I whispered, my mind refusing to accept that the entire thing had been staged. That he’d put me in the situation so he could play hero…just like Dane said.

“Killing him at the bakery wasn’t part of the original plan,” he said with a casual shrug. “But he touched what belongs to me, forcing me to go off-script.”

“Why?” I demanded, my voice shaking with barely contained rage and fear. “Why would you do this?”

His lips curled into a macabre imitation of a smile. “For you. I’ve spent years putting in the work. Leaving you your favorite chocolates on the days you were on your period. Complimenting you on how beautiful you looked, even when you were exhausted and had flour all over your face. But you never appreciated any of it.”

I thought of the note left in my locker. “But how…how did you know when I was on my period?”

“I cloned your phone,” he said as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. “It was a necessary evil. You were so private, and I needed to know your every thought, every picture you took, and every message you sent. Right now, I know you’re in your fertile window.”

His eyes flicked down to my stomach before meeting my gazeagain. “I was the second person to know you were pregnant with Avery. Not that I was happy about that piece of news.”

“You...you’ve been watching me for years?” I finally managed, my voice sounding distant and hollow to my own ears.

“Of course I have,” he replied, sounding almost affronted I would question him. “I thought you were making progress, but then you went to that book convention and fucked some idiot biker you just met.”

He’d followed me to Houston.

I slipped my hand beneath my shirt, curling my fingers around the grip before inching it out of the holster. My eyes met Ivy’s, silently communicating I would get us out of this, no matter what it took.

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