Page 90 of Look My Way
“Innocent?” He cackles. “Hardly. They were all flirty little redheads who used their bodies to get their way. Liam wasn’t supposed to be like them. And he wasn’t. Then you came along bringing out the worst in him. Then I saw all the bad that I’d seen in her. The mom you should have had instead of me.”
He means the old friend of my mom. One I’m wondering whether I ever met. There was someone she saw every now and then who had a little boy a few years older than me. Could it have been . . . shit. “That’s shitty. It is. But they still don’t deserve what you did to them, and neither does he. You hurt him every chance you got. You kept him prisoner.”
“It was the only way. Either I got the control, or he did. And it wasn’t going to be him. He was perfect. I didn’t think someone as weak as him would even be your type.”
“Someone weak like him?” I roar out. “Except he’s not the weak one here. You are.”
“Zavier,” a small voice whispers. “Where are we?”
“It’s okay, carino. It’s going to be okay.” I look over to where he’s lying with his limbs secured to the bed.
“You shouldn’t lie to him.” My eyes shift back to Daniel too late, and he throws his body at mine. We wrestle on the ground and he tries to get the gun from me, elbowing me in the face. I hold on, used to winning fights like this, and get him in a chokehold with my legs.
He gasps, squirming beneath me, and Liam shouts, shuffling against his restraints. “What’s happening? Why can’t I move?”
The sirens get louder and I breathe a sigh of relief, looking down at a purple Daniel. I slam the gun into his head, smiling. “Time for you to go away where no one will ever find you but me.”
His eyes bulge and I choke him harder until he passes out. Looking toward the roaring sounds outside the house, blaring down the street, I drag him down the stairs and out the back door, looking around me as I drag him out to the lake and lift him into the back of a boat. After taping his limbs and mouth, I loosen the rope, keeping the boat tied up but letting it drift further out into the water. I’ll be back for him later.
“Don’t worry. We’ll meet again, big brother.”
I blow a kiss and run back into the house. The door is being shoved at, and people are shouting. Cops barge through holding guns, and I lift my hands in the air. “He got away. He drove off in a brown car.”
“Quiet. You don’t talk until we tell you to. Drop to the ground.”
I do as they say, placing my hands behind my back as one searches me, while others run around the house to check all the rooms.
“We got one down here,” a man shouts.
“One up here too,” a woman says from up the stairs.
“Tell me what the hell happened here?” A heavier guy looks my way.
“One of yours . . . a cop . . .” I steady my breathing. “He brought Liam here and I came to help him. I didn’t know what I’d find when I got here.”
“One of ours, huh?” He scratches his chin.
“Sir, we found a camera in the bedroom. His story matches what was on it, along with what one of the victims is saying.”
He recorded everything he did. Did he forget? Or was he unaware? Was it Jared?
“It was in a bag I think belonged to Officer Carpenter.”
Ah, good old Jared. Had to get everything on camera so he could watch it later. See, this is why you can’t be too greedy, but I’m glad he was. The guy holding me down releases me, helping me up from the floor, and the one standing in front leads me to the couch so I can be looked over by paramedics. Liam is carried to where I am. When he sees me, instead of putting distance between us like I expect him to, he closes it, arms latching around me.
“Hey, carino. I’m glad you’re awake.”
“Me too,” he says, eyes glazed over. “He was going to kill me and make it look like you did it.”
“Yeah, well, we can be glad that didn’t happen.” I rub his back, kissing his head.
“But what if he comes back?” His tone is high-pitched.
“He won’t. Trust me.” I gaze down at him, reaching for his hand and he nods, Adam’s apple jumping in his throat. Lowering his head, he sits there quietly, and a man with an EMS uniform checks us both out. The guy from the basement is rolled out on a stretcher, and Liam lifts his head, eyes rounding in horror at all the cuts on his face.
“Why would someone do something so horrible?” His voice cracks.
“Because there are horrible people out there,” I whisper in his ear. And as soon as the others are out of hearing range, I say, “And that’s why people like me exist, to take them out when no one else will.”
