Page 79 of Seducer

“Yeah, well, the jerk deserved it.” I’d used Walker to find the last remaining living asshole who’d tormented me growing up. The guy obviously hadn’t been happy to see me. I’d thought that part of my life was over, all my desires for revenge and bloodshed ending with that final act of retaliation.

Now I knew I’d been wrong.

I still had dark, demented urges.

“I doubt you can find anything else unless you want to tangle with the US Marshals’ service. They’re tough.”

As if I cared. “And her car being tampered with? A pattern you’ve seen before?”

“Honestly, maybe. Yes. No. Who the fuck knows. I think it was a crime of opportunity because the damage done was messy.”

Just like crime syndicates. The Blackwell brothers had experienced our share of run-ins with a couple of mafia organizations who’d become determined to get involved with the lucrative gaming business. We’d made certain they understood just how brutal the profession could be.

What if the justice department believed she had some knowledge about the crime syndicate? What if she did?

“You can leave now and unless I specifically request it, don’t return to my office again.”

Walker remained where he was. I’ll be damned if he didn’t have a sheepish look on his face.

“What is it, Walker?”

“Well, you might be pissed, but I figured you’d tell me the information on Ms. Capshaw was light and wouldn’t square my debt.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning,” he hesitated, glancing over his shoulder at my closed office door. “I saw the news broadcast.”

I stared at him and could tell I’d made him very uncomfortable.

“You know the one I’m talking about. Where the reporter spouted off some shit about your biological father.”

I instantly bristled and he threw up his hands.

“Hey, I watch television,” he continued. “You need to keep up with current events. Anyway, while I was searching shit about your girl and using my contacts, I made a few inquiries about your dad.”

I moved from being annoyed to furious and he knew it, sitting back in his seat as if that would keep him safe from my reach. “And?”

“Let me tell you, discovering anything about him was worse than sniffing around WITSEC. It took two contacts and a long night to find out the sperm donor in your life was one bad dude. I mean bad with a capital B. He made your basic serial killer look like they were playing in quicksand. He was supposedly responsible for thirty-five deaths and none of them the kind you want to talk about in mixed company.”

With no reaction on my face or in my body language, his eyes opened wide. Although I’d suspected my father had been a murderer, at minimum killing my mother, his news filled in some of the blanks. Like why the records had been tightly sealed. “Go on.” I made the statement through gritted teeth.

“Blackwell was your mother’s maiden name. She was… um. She was his last victim. From what I was told, she had some evidence after long suspecting he was the killer. Your dad must have found out. I guess the powers that be in the system changed your names so you guys wouldn’t have the stigma attached.”

For anyone to hear their father was a true monster and ended their mother’s life was devastating. Even worse. Now I knewwhy my brothers and I had resorted to violence over the years, thinking nothing of taking a human life.

The only difference I could see? The assholes we’d driven into extinction had deserved their fate for what they’d done not only to the foster kids, but to their families as well. As if that had snagged me a get-out-of-hell-free card. That wasn’t possible for all the atrocities I’d committed.

My brothers as well.

“Anything else?” I growled.

“Isn’t that enough? I have everything I managed to get right there and it’s sketchy, but you can put the pieces together like I did. I doubt you’ll get any further.”

“Where did they put the murdering bastard?” A cold chill settled in my system.

“The Red Onion prison facility in Wise County, Virginia. I checked there. I had to come up with a whale of a story. Anyway, supposedly, he died a couple years ago, shanked on his first day out of solitary. I guess the dude continued to remain violent.”

I eyed the man who’d provided me with decent information over the years and drummed my fingers on my desk. There was no reason my thoughts drifted to fucking on this very desk the night before. Perhaps my brain needed time to process what he’d told me. “Why supposedly?”

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