Nari smiled, but her lips wobbled, so she stopped. “True, but times have changed. He wouldn’t be able to take two deaths like that.”
Lassiter slowly shook his head. “I know my friend better than you do. He was obsessed with finding me before, and once I cut you up, piece by piece, he’ll have no choice but to continue the game.”
Nari’s mother made a distressed sound behind her, and Nari straightened. “He won’t continue any sort of game with you. I promise.”
Lassiter flattened his hand over his thigh and rubbed it. “Angus will be so proud of how I’ve overcome all those bullets.”
Proud? The nutjob wanted Angus to be proud? “He’d admire you more if you let us go,” Nari said. “In fact, it’d make him wonder more about you. About figuring you out, because that’d be a shock to him.”
Lassiter smiled. “You’re a smart one. Figures. My Angus would only like an intelligent woman.” He sighed. “Well, friendships are two-way streets, no? I should have my needs met, too. If I eat the heart of the woman he loves, I’ll always have a part of him, too.”
Nari’s mom gagged.
“While that’s interesting logic,” Nari said, “I think you should intrigue him instead. Throw him a curveball. Let us go and make him worry about why.” She was grasping at straws, but it was all she had right now. The stun guns mounted on the wall behind the two chairs promised there wouldn’t be any sort of a fair fight here.
“I do like your line of thinking, but I don’t have the time required to play a long game with you. The rest of the team will have to do, and it’ll be lovely watching them witness Angus’s descent into that dark place only I have been able to take him.” Lassiter pressed his fingers together, watching his narrow hands. “It has to be you, Nari. Your mama is just a bonus.” His smile revealed a flash of the evil inside him.
How was she going to get her mother out of this? Nari looked around the room. How many women had he butchered here? “Why are you under a time constraint?”
“It’s a long story.” He picked off a piece of lint from his pants leg.
There was only one solution. Nari took a deep breath. “Let my mom go. Seeing her fear and stress after you kill me will only torture Angus more.”
“No.” Her mom pushed her to the side. “Take me. Let her go.”
Lassiter’s blue gaze narrowed. “So that’s what a mother’s love really looks like.” He tilted his head to the side. “I wonder if I’ll feel such sweet warmth when I eat your heart.”
Nari scrambled for a way to turn his attention. “It’s my heart you want. Taking two of us at a time breaks your pattern. It’s not what you want and it’ll lead to bad luck. Very bad luck.”
He laughed. “I like how your mind works. To be honest, I’ve never eaten a brain. Yours might be interesting.”
She stepped away from the bars. Once he went for a stun gun, she was out of options. “You have changed your routine, haven’t you? Why?” she asked.
He lifted his chin. “I was in rehab for a long time, and then I took counseling from a friend in this game. Well, somewhat.”
The door out of sight opened loudly. Who was coming? Nari stiffened, trying to see.
Lassiter turned, the smile sliding from a face that most women would consider good-looking if they couldn’t see beneath to the monster. “What in the world have you done?”
Angus came into view, his wrists handcuffed together.
“Angus,” Nari breathed, rushing to the bars. She grabbed them. What was going on?
Opal walked behind him, her gun pressed to his back. Was this some type of rescue plan? What was happening? Nari stared at the woman, who was staring at Lassiter.
The two chairs. Wait a minute. Oh, crap.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
The second Angus saw Nari’s terrified eyes, he settled. Everything inside him went calm and cold. He tilted his head to stare at Lassiter. “Looks like the bullet to the face did some damage.”
Delight filtered across Lassiter’s face. “Angus, my friend. It’s nice to have you in my space, but this is much too early.” He cranked his head to look beyond Angus. “Opal? The game is over. I have Nari in my cage.”
Opal pushed the gun barrel harder against Angus’s spine. “She’s still alive with a beating heart, so I’d say we’re at a tie.”
Nari stumbled back from the bars, her face going pale. “Opal?”
Angus scanned the entire area with his peripheral vision. Opal had refused to talk on the way here, promising that all his questions would be answered when the time was right. Not that he hadn’t figured a lot of it out already. “Here’s what I think.” He kept his focus on Lassiter to hold his attention.
