Her bitter laugh levels me. I move to stand behind her. Rest my hand on her shoulder. Don’t know why. Maybe to show this scumbag we’re a united front. Who the hell knows? It just feels right to be close to her, to give her my support. My strength should she need it.
But she shrugs off my touch. Examines George. Turns around so goddamn slowly and cuts me with her cold, blue glare. I see the war playing out behind her eyes. She’s got to be fighting an inner battle over what’s happening here. No sane person does what I’ve done to George. It takes a psychopath to hurt someone as I’ve done to this motherfucker.
In my defense, he asked for it by creeping up on the wrong cabin to murder the wrong woman.
Mywoman.
“Was this business for you, too, Havoc? Or was it pleasure?” she asks, motioning to my biohazard of a basement.
I shake my head slowly, one corner of my mouth lifting in a mockery of a grin. “Business/pleasure. Tomayto/tomahto.”
Kerri licks her lips. Swallows. Sucks in a deep breath and has to choke back a gag at the stench. “I see.” She faces George. “If you tell me who shot my father, I’ll make this stop.”
Bold promise, but it’s true. For her, to get that information, I’ll end this motherfucker’s suffering in a heartbeat. But I know something she doesn’t. Any smart criminal organization compartmentalizes for just such occasions as this. Plausible deniability. Thing is, I don’t know if we’re dealing with a smart criminal organization or if it’s someone with a grudge and enough money to buy themselves a triggerman. All I can do is keep digging information out of his brain section by section until there’s nothing left but an empty skull.
George squeezes his eyes closed. Tears river down his bruised cheeks.
“You know, don’t you?” I growl out the question.
Already, I’m moving toward the toolbox. I slam the snips on top and grab the knife—my go-to weapon. Because I know. I fucking know what he’s going to say, and I’m ready.
Ready to execute this scumbag for her.
“Did you pull the trigger?” Christ, her ragged whisper is brutal to hear. “If you tell me the truth, I won’t kill you.”
George opens his eyes, and there it is—acceptance of his fate. The pathetic flare of hope that his suffering will end if he confesses.
Poor delusional bastard.
At his nod, Kerri’s entire body sags. As if her bones disintegrate. But she regains her composure and squares her shoulders. Notches her chin, and when he spurts out, “I’m sorry,” she takes a step backward. Distancing herself from the man who put a bullet in her father’s brain.
Rage, hot and pure, rips through me like liquid fire. My grip tightens around the handle of the knife as I rush forward, but Kerri stops me by holding up her hand.Fuck. I stop dead mid-step. Every goddamn thing inside me wants me to stick this knife in his gut and drag it upward until I reach his throat. Tear him open and spill him out on the plastic until he’s an empty carcass—to erase the dignified pain etched on Kerri’s face as she inches closer to George. Gets so close to him there’s not even room for air between them.
I doubt she’s aware she’s standing in a mess at his destroyed feet. Nor do I think she’d care if she looked down and noticed. “Say the words.”
The demand is a crack of thunder.
“I shot him,” he breathes. “I’m so fucking sorry.”
Kerri says nothing as she inches away. She turns her back on him. Gives me a barely perceptible nod. When I stalk forward, George calls out to her, screaming for her to save him from me. She stops. Turns, and there it is. Her heartbreak hits me like a fucking blade right through my soul.
“Patricia,” George cries. “I did it for my sister. I’m sorry. She made me shoot Marcus and your father. And then you started asking all those questions. Patti got scared you’d find out about her and Ralph. She didn’t have a choice, Kerri. Why couldn’t you leave it alone?”
Kerri sways, and for a second, I think she’s going to drop to her knees. I’m ready to catch her if she does. But not her. She’s got steel in her spine. The only betrayal she gives of the emotion ripping her apart is the sheen of unshed tears behind her eyes. She marches back to George.
“Tell me everything.” Her voice is an arctic blast that brings the temperature down at least ten degrees.
He drags in a deep, ragged breath. “You were never part of it, Kerri. I swear.”
As if that can make any of this better for her.
“Why my father?”
“He knew too much?” He hangs his head, snot and tears streaming from his nose and eyes. Agony and regret are etched on his face when he looks up at her. “It was all about the money.”
Of-fucking-course.
The crack of Kerri’s palm across George’s cheek sounds loud in the confines of the claustrophobic basement. “Now tell me about Ralph Miller.”
