Page 138 of A Smile Full of Lies
“Fucking coward. You could have done something, you could have convinced them to at least spare Ava, but you didn’t even try.”
I drove my blade in deep, twisting until he went limp, blood pooling on the deck.
Chad was last, reeking of piss, his dark eyes wild and frantic.
“I got a kid, Knox, please…”
“So did my parents.” I forced him to face his brothers’ bodies. “You chased Ava to her bedroom. She didn’t deserve to die, but you shot her three goddamn times on Thayer’s orders.”
He broke, tears mixing with snot and leaking down his face.
“We didn’t plan to hurt anyone… we needed that tech your dad had in his office…”
“Bullshit,” I snarled. “You wanted it. There’s a big fucking difference. The Williams family isn’t broke or desperate. You had plenty of wealth to your names. Thayer wanted to steal that tech from my father. What I want to know is why.”
“He was sick of your family always being on top, always richer, always more influential. He wanted it to be time for the Williams family to shine. He thought he could make that happen if he got that prototype out of your father’s safe and auctioned it off to the highest bidder?—"
One slash, ear to ear, and he was gone. The deck was a slaughterhouse, blood seeping into fiberglass, the metallic tang thick enough to choke a horse.
The cover-up was meticulous. TheGulf Reaper’s electrical issues were documented; I’d hacked logs to confirm it. I rigged the wiring panel in the cabin — frayed cables exposed, a spark waiting to ignite. Poured accelerant to mimic a fuel leak from the engine room, subtle but deadly. A timer on a rigged outlet would set it off after I was clear. The fire would be ruled accidental: faulty wiring sparks vapors, boat erupts, bodies charred to bone. No knife wounds would show; blades leave no ballistic scars. The Gulf’s depths and sharks would scatter any fragments.
The forty-footer would burn itself down to the waterline before dawn. I’d set the failure where no one would think to look — stripped insulation, an overloaded breaker buried behind a panel. Not sabotage. Not arson.An accident waiting to happen.By the time the fire investigators logged it, there would be nothing left worth tracing.
I left her drifting in open water, throttled the inflatable away at a steady clip.
I took the mask off, checking it carefully – no drop of blood had sullied its leather, there was nothing to tie it to what I had just done. And with that certainty, I let the moment go, let the mask be just the surface of Nox Obscura, all about playing thirst trapgames for the woman I loved. Vengeance was mine, bitter and twisted as it was, and that was enough.
It was twenty miles back to shore — nothing but black gulf under me and the metallic stink of gasoline on my hands. Behind me, the sea swallowed the first smoke, the promise of flame.
The boathouse rose out of the dark like a shadow kingdom, pilings stacked with history and power. The yacht was moored quiet, lights trimmed low, a hulking silhouette against the breakwater. On deck, Jerry waited, coiled line neat in his grip. Always early. Always ready. That was why I paid him to stay on retainer.
I cut the engine well short of the slip, let the current nudge the dinghy in on silence. Boots hit dock, rope bit into my palms as I swung her bow around. Jerry dropped to meet me without a word, clipped the davit hook in one practiced motion. The steel groaned, hydraulics hissed, and the little boat rose dripping from the gulf, water sluicing down its sides until it dangled clean against the yacht’s rail.
In less than a minute, it looked like it had always belonged there. Just another tender, another forgettable toy in a rich man’s arsenal.
I brushed salt from my hands, looked at Jerry dead-on.
“Make sure this inflatable can only ever be traced back to us and this boat. Spend at your discretion to make it happen.”
He gave the smallest nod.
“Understood.”
That was enough. Behind us, far out on the gulf, the first orange bloom broke against the horizon. The sportfisher was burning itself into nothing, exactly as I’d planned.
I turned my back on it and walked up the gangway, the mask tucked against my side, under my jacket. The water closed over the past, and the night closed over me.
Chapter
Thirty-Two
ROS
NOVEMBER 18
The river was black glass,swallowing the reflection of the moon. I had my blanket wrapped tight around me, tea cooling in my hand, when the woods lit up. A faint purple shimmer at first, like lightning behind clouds. Then sharper. Steadier. The glow of neon, pulsing through the trees as if the forest itself had a heartbeat. My chest seized. I knew that color. That mask. The Nox Obscura mask. My mug of tea shattered on the porch planks as I stumbled backward, breath caught sharp in my throat. For a second I swore it winked at me, that sickly purple grin hovering in the treeline, patient, waiting. My pulse throbbed at the base of my throat and roared in my ears.
“No,” I whispered to the dark.
