Page 149 of Kiss of Deceit
I swallowed thickly. “Curious about what?”
“If you’d kill again,” he said simply. “You were in prison for more than three years. Were you the same person as before? I had Hallie test you, and you passed. You only lasted a few weeks before killing him.”
“Because I thought he was hurting her,” I said, my voice shaking. Did I kill an innocent person?No.He did hurt Hallie,even if he was being lied to. He’d brought me out to the woods to hurt me.
“The cravings came back after that.” Leo’s leering grin had bile creeping back up my throat. “You’re a killer, Danielle. Just like me.”
“I am nothing like you,” I snarled, wincing when Miles squeezed my arm hard enough to bruise.
Leo checked his watch. “It’s time to clean this mess up. Miles, you take her to the station. Delete the email. I’ll take him to our meeting spot.” His eyes darted to Kole before looking back at me. “If you try anything, he dies. Painfully.”
Hallie’s unimportant questions faded out as panic engulfed me.Meeting spot?I didn’t think he’d make me go to the station too. I’d been trying to make it more even by at least one of them leaving after forcing me to give my computer password.
“You going to behave for me?” Miles asked as he pulled me toward the back door, picking up my jacket along the way. “Or will I have to teach you a lesson?”
“Dani,” Kole roared, struggling against the zip ties. Leo threw his fist into his jaw, reopening the cut on Kole’s lip. “Fuck you, you fucking asshole…”
His yells became nonexistent when Miles dragged me outside in the cold, slamming the door behind him. He threw my jacket over my shoulders, hiding my bound arms as he spoke.
“If I find out you’re lying about this email, you’re going to regret it.”
CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN
dani
The cuts Leoinflicted were stinging, the dried blood crusting on my skin. My arm ached from how tightly Miles was holding me. I shivered from the cold as we trudged through the snow at the edge of the forest. There were still loud voices in the center of town, proving the chaos of the escaped inmates was continuing.
“I’m guessing you had something to do with them getting out of the prison,” I gritted out as he pulled me along.
“It was in place before we realized you wouldn’t be getting on the helicopter,” he replied tightly, his eyes darting around to make sure no one was around. “I have to say, you surprised us with that.”
“Surprised about what?” I sneered. “That I’d kill to get what I want? I wasn’t leaving this town until I found you and your fucking father.”
He glanced at me. “For a while there, I thought meeting Kole would be enough for you to stop killing. But I guess my father was right…you are just like him.”
My stomach knotted painfully, disgust shooting through me. I was nothing like either of them. No matter what they thought.
We were nearly to the police station, and panic was beginning to set in. If he found out there was no email, Kole was dead.
“Leo was out of the prison before tonight,” I said, hoping someone was close enough to hear me talking. “How did he run around Winterlake if he was locked up?”
“The guards are inmates. Bribing one of them was one of the easier tasks.”
“Have you killed? Before coming here?” My own curiosity had me blurting out the question. I’d never met a father and son who were serial killers. It wasn’t common at all.
He slowed his steps, a hint of a smirk on his lips. “My body count isn’t as high as yours.”
My face flushed as rage consumed me. “I don’t kill for joy. I do it to rid the world of people like you. Like your father.”
“Really? You don’t enjoy taking the lives of monsters?” He tugged me closer, wrapping his arm around my waist. “Don’t lie to me, Dani. I watched as you pushed Lucas off the cliff. You can’t fake a smile like the one you had on your face.”
Before I could answer, he stopped once we reached the back door of the police station. My mouth grew dry when he pulled a key from his pocket. He noticed my shock as he slid it into the keyhole.
“It was Tristin’s.” He unlocked the door. “No one noticed it was missing after you killed him. Made my job easier.”
He gripped my bound arm with one hand while slowly cracking open the door with the other. Once he seemed sure no one was in there, he pushed it open the rest of the way, revealing the empty room. The main lights were off, with only one on, just like the night Natalie was killed. He yanked me inside, quietly closing the door behind us.
When he marched me to my desk, dread filled me. He’d been in the station so many times. Keeping track of the murdercases all while acting like he was traumatized from his attack when it was his own fucking girlfriend who did it. I clenched my restrained hands, anger building in my core.
