I step in front of Paisley, holding my phone up now the video is recording.Live on Facebook.I grit my teeth at his hand gripping my shoulder.The pads of his fingers sink into my flesh, creating indentations.“I wouldn’t do that, Mr Black.I’m filming live right now,” I warn him, shrugging my shoulder so his grip loosens.“And if you try to take this phone from me, I will make sure every shop on this street gives me a copy of their CCTV footage before you can bribe it from them.Now I don’t know why you stopped me or Miss Hayes here, but I’m asking you to step back and leave us alone.”
“You know why,” he warns me, his gaze flicking in the direction of the building he entered.“You were trespassing, and I want answers.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.This is a public road,” I lie, and make a point to show viewers the row of shops.“Now I’ll ask again, what is the real reason you have stopped us?”
“I want the world to know the truth about my father.”
“Oh, they will,” I promise him, using my sunny demure voice.“Did you not read the papers that stated that they have evidence against him?”
“Fabricated.Just like the tales your boyfriend and his family have spread about my father,” he sneers, looking down his nose at me.“I meant the real truth.Starting with you.Don’t think my team won’t uncover the files you planted on Katherine, the woman who gave you a job and a promotion when no one else in the building wanted you.”
“I’m sure the references I received from multiple bosses I worked under there, are fake then?”I snidely remark.Because really, is that the best he has.“I would also recommend accusing me of something other than planting stuff on your sister, if you want it to be believable.Katherine’s company was too paranoid for me to do anything like that, even if I wanted to.You know that, so I don’t understand why you wouldn’t go another route first.Oh, and before you spout more bullshit, I’ll remind you the police have my work laptop.And I never did anything that involved paperwork since Katherine wanted it all digital.”
“We will clear the charges against my sister and my father,” he warns, narrowing his eyes into slits.“Don’t think you are on the winning side.”
Paisley hums under her breath.“This conversation is really interesting, and not heading in the normal direction you and your family normally go.You also don’t sound like a son who believes my family has killed your father.In fact, it almost sounds like he’s alive.”
“And close,” I taunt, arching my eyebrows at him.“Really close.”
“Maybe he recently had a conversation with him,” Paisley declares, sharing a look with me.“Maybe that’s why the charade of, ‘you’ve hurt him’ has been dropped.”
He glares at the woman next to me.“Don’t twist my words.I know what your family has done to my father.I want to clear his name because he has worked hard for it.And maybe then the police will begin to search for his body, because right now, it seems they believe your tales.They don’t know what you are really capable of.It’s no coincidence that he hasn’t been seen since you planted that evidence on him.I think you did it to make the police focus their attention on him and not you.”
He almost sounds believable.
Almost.
Paisley tilts her head at the man looming above us, and I just realised he’s closer now, no more than two steps away.“Funny.He looked very much alive after beating my sister-in-law, after attempting to kidnap her and her baby, and he looked very much alive when he put a knife through my granddad’s shoulder.”
His eyes narrow.“Enough with the lies,” he barks sharply, causing more than a few people to stop and listen.“We both know that didn’t happen.”
“Oh, it did,” I snap.“Whilst I agree things can be forged—your company is proof of that—fingerprints don’t lie.And he left plenty at the crime scene.”
“He is innocent,” he grits out, taking another small step, one he thinks the camera is blind to, but it’s not.
Paisley nods, leaning into me.“Believe what you need to believe.We have it on camera.You can watch the highlights when the police have Andrew Black in handcuffs, standing up in court.”
I hold my phone up higher.“This should add to the movie collection we’re accumulating against your family.”
“Plus, the questions the police will have about all those factories,” Paisley muses out loud, tapping her lip with her index finger.“Tell me, how is business doing?Still booming?Because I read they’ve been polluting the air.”
“You fucking whores,” he snaps, reaching for the phone.
I shove him back into the man accompanying him.“Don’t worry, we got your good side,” I taunt, then open my car door.I’m still recording as I get in, keeping my eye on Paisley as she races around the car to get in the passenger side.Sebastian bangs on my window, the glass cracking.
“Go, go, go,” Paisley squeals as the man with Sebastian begins tugging at her door handle.
I put my car into drive and pull out of the space, my heart racing.“Call your brother,” I order when I see them running in the road toward a black car.“I think they are coming after us.”
“Oh no,” she cries, panting heavily.She turns in her seat to look out of the back window.“They could be leaving.”
I want to believe her, I do, but my gut clenches as a minute later, the car they were racing to swings around the corner, the tyres screeching on the tarmac.“Where do we go?”
“The police station,” Paisley yells, as her phone begins to ring.“Landon, you have to tell—”
“We are watching live.Reid got the alert and clicked on the video,” he bites out.“Where are you?”
She rattles off our location.“We are going to the police station.Can you ring the police?Summer’s phone is still going live.”
