Page 56 of Cruel Charming Psychos (Necessary Evils 2)

“I don’t want to play anymore.”

Nick’s father sits on the edge of the bed, his shirt unbuttoned.

I exit out of the file and click on another.

It’s Emily. Maybe four years old. I can’t be certain.

I power off the computer and hunch over the side of the chair, vomiting onto the floor.

Disgust. Rage. Fills me from within. I cock my gaze to the gun beside the computer. Wanting to go shoot the fucking pervert in his head. That’s the only way this will ever truly be over, but then I consider the idea of his ass behind bars. Killing him would be too easy. Carter was who he was because of the sins of his father.

Regret comes next. I did what I did to protect Emily from Carter, but he was a victim too. I eject the disk and toss it back into the bag. This all ends tonight.

ChapterTwenty-Six

ADDISON

The bar is eerily empty, but that’s because I haven’t seen this place at this time of night since I was a little girl. The sun is set to rise within the hour, and it’s been the second longest night of my life. The longest was the night I fled the Hamptons, scared and lonely with no set destination. It was a night that never ended if we’re to measure the cycle of day and night through the lens of waking and sleeping. I didn’t sleep for days, as exhausted as my body and brain was. I couldn’t fall asleep because I feared that escaping this place was nothing more than a dream and if it was, I didn’t want to wake up. I eventually fell asleep on a bus that next night and when I woke up to find that it was not a dream, I breathed a sigh of relief.

The price of freedom is often high. We must sacrifice everything comfortable and too often, we must also sacrifice everything we love. The thing is that I didn’t love anything or anyone. I surely didn’t love myself. I hated everything about me, everything but the way my skin bled every time I dug deep with the sharp blade of a knife.

I don’t know if I’ll ever experience true love, but I know that my heart skipped a beat when I saw the video of Nick and Emily. I can’t imagine losing them. It’s almost as if they are a family that I have chosen for myself. As fucked up as we all are, we are forever bonded by the sins of our parents.

The bar is so quiet that I begin to second-guess if I was right about the location. I’ve never had the best memory, but I swear I recognized the place in the video like the back of my hand. It’s like I could see the memories I’d long forgotten playing out in front of me like a family film, which we didn’t have. Neither of my parents were good for capturing memories. I think they were too caught up in trying to survive from one day to the next to stop and smell the roses.

I walk slowly and carefully across the wooden floors, trying not to alert the people downstairs, if they’re downstairs, to my presence before I’m ready to make it known. I gently sit the duffel back on the counter and dig out the pile of disks. When I make this trade, the disks aren’t a part of the deal. Those will be handed to the police once I obtain Emily’s permission to do so.

“Fuck…” I groan, tossing my head back. I don’t even know how I can tell Emily what’s on these damn things. How does one break that news? Maybe she already knows, like somehow she didn’t block out the trauma. Maybe that’s why she was so angry with me for so long about Carter, even after knowing what he had done. Like somehow she had normalized their perversions after they ripped her innocence away from her at such a young age.

There’s a part of me that just wants to go straight to the police. Nick isn’t known for being clear-headed. He’s prone to rash decisions, made on the whims of passion. What’s to stop him from putting a bullet in his father’s head himself? I wouldn’t blame him. I want to do the same thing, but justice is best served at the hands of the police. If either one of us pull the trigger, we would only be sentencing ourselves to a life in prison. There’s no room for vigilantism in the world of justice.

I stash the disks in the pocket of my jacket and sling the duffel back over my shoulder before making my way through the kitchen and down the basement stairs. I don’t even consider knocking when I reach the landing.

When I push open the door, two men on the opposite side of the room jump up from their seats and aim their guns at me. I raise my hands over my head.

“Who in the fuck are you and what the hell are you doing here?”

I swallow a nervous lump in my throat. I’m no stranger to danger, not anymore, but it’s always unnerving to have a gun pointed at your head. “I’m here to make the trade for the ransom on behalf of the Callaways.”

One of the two men, the taller one, steps closer to me as he circles around the back of Emily and Nick. “How did you find us?”

I question silently why neither of them are wearing masks. Sure, Nick made the boneheaded move to hire them, but Emily can clearly see their faces. As can I. I suddenly don’t have such a good feeling about this. “My father used to own this bar.”

The taller man looks to the shorter man, to which the shorter man says, “I’m not buying it.”

“Hear that? He doesn’t believe you.”

I point to the wall behind the shorter man. “There’s a hole in that wall that’s covered with a removable piece of drywall. Inside it are some of my favorite games I used to play when I was little.”

He turns on his feet and kicks at the wall. It caves in, the drywall cracking in half to expose a cupboard filled with board games and books. He looks back to the other man. “She’s right.”

The taller man grunts. “That might be true, but I’m not sure any of you understand how ransoms work. You don’t meet us. We meet you. You’ve seen our faces, so are we supposed to trust that you won’t say a word?”

I point at Nick. Stupid, dumb, sexy Nick. “I know that he hired you to fake a kidnapping that has somehow turned into a real kidnapping and ransom. I also know that that makes him liable. He has no incentive to go to the police.”

“And what about the little slut?”

Emily tries to plead with them, but her mouth is covered by duct tape so it’s not clear what she’s trying to say.

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