Page 50 of Dangerous Lies

“I’m coming,” Lucas said, and Xavier’s face softened.

Ginger didn’t have time to figure out what the hell had happened. He needed to get to Rose. He followed Xavier around the corner and down a long hallway. Grim was behind him with a large black bag he hoped was full of guns because Evan wouldn’t live. He didn’t care about the consequences. The man needed to die.

They climbed a set of stairs to the roof, and the warm air hit him when they stepped outside. Twenty yards away was an AH-64E Apache helicopter. He wasn’t even sure how Xavier had pulled off getting a military-grade vehicle, but he wasn’t going to complain.

He looked around, realizing they had no pilot.

Grim slid into the front seat and Xavier slid into the other. Ginger jumped in the back, while Lucas climbed in next to him. He had the cameras up on the laptop. His eyes trained on the screen as he slid the headset over his ears.

“Ready to fuck shit up?” Grim said through internal comms.

Ginger didn’t reply as the bird lifted off the top of the building. Evan and Aden had dragged Rose by her hair to the bug room. Her back was up against a wall of cages. His eyes caught where she slowly worked the ropes on her wrists against the metal shelf. Good girl.

“Is it possible to get audio?” he asked.

Lucas nodded. He brought up a black screen that covered the camera. His fingers flew across the keyboard as he typed. Green letters appeared on the screen, but Ginger couldn’t follow anything. Seconds ticked by before Rose’s voice came through the headset.

“Why?” she asked.

He hated how her voice wavered.

Aden stepped forward and raised her shirt. Ginger’s fingernails cut into his palms, causing a trickle of blood. He felt helpless watching the woman he loved in danger, and he couldn’t do one thing to help her.

“I think of this night often. All I wanted to do was tell you who I really was, except that man interrupted us, and he had to die.”

Evan stood to the side with his arms crossed.

“The building was my hunting ground. It was never my home, and Dad thought it was the best place to find people who deserved to die, and he could cover it up,” Aden said.

Tears streamed down Rose’s face.

“I wanted to bring you into my world, but Dad said you wouldn’t understand. He was right. I saw the look on your face the night I killed that bastard. You weren’t the only one to see me. Which was why Dad made me fake my death.”

Evan stepped away from the wall. “He talked about you so much. By the time we came back for you, your sister and you were gone. Dad told us to forget you.”

“But I never met you,” Rose replied.

Evan stepped closer and pressed the gun to Rose’s head. “But I watched you. Aden and I do everything together.”

The bindings on Rose’s hands dropped to the ground, but she kept her arms behind her back.

Ginger’s gut tumbled as her fingers touched the cage with a red top.

“God, no,” he said.

Grim’s voice came over the speaker. “We’re ten minutes out.”

So much could go down in ten minutes, and his only option was to watch it on the screen.

“Why bring me into the jobs? I know you killed all those people.”

Aden paced the small room. “Dad made us follow a code.”

“Like the television show Dexter?” Rose asked.

Jesus, woman.

Evan’s hand came across her face, and the echo of the slap defended Ginger’s ears.

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