But Sasha screams louder. “No! Please!”
And Tom backs off. He sits down in a folding chair resting against the wall and seethes. He’s caught and he doesn’t know what to do, clearly. He didn’t expect her to ruin his plans, and now what?
“Tom. This doesn’t add up. Please tell me what’s happening.” He looks at her with defeat in his eyes.
“Why did you have to come here? Goddammit.” Suddenly, he points the gun at her, and she holds her hands up and backs up a few steps.
“Tom,” she says, fear surging through her body.
“I never wanted to kill you. I saved you, even. I was supposed to kill you years ago and I fought for you.” He keeps the gun pointed at her and nods his head for her to move in the direction he’s pointing. She backs up and looks behind her.
“Go,” he says, and she obeys. She moves down the hall into the bathroom and he comes in behind her and closes the door. When she can’t back up anymore, she sits on the edge of the bathtub in stunned silence for a moment. He kneels next to her.
“I never wanted this to happen. I love you, Sasha. You have to believe that. When Raffy stopped making payments to the family, I was assigned to get rid of both of you. But I met you and... fuck. Sasha, you... It’s not my fault I was born into a family of fucking monsters. I never wanted to be part of it. I did fall in love with you when I met you. I did. You have to believe me,” he says, pleading, and she simply nods because she wants him to continue and also because she’s so astonished, she couldn’t even form words if she wanted to.
“I wanted out. I begged to get out. I refused to hurt you, and I paid the family Raffy’s debt without them knowing so they wouldn’t send someone else to do the job. All I ever tried to do was protect you and Chloe. That’s all.” When she hears her daughter’s name, the state of silent shock turns into rage, and she feels her blood boil. She starts to absorb everything that’s happening and knows she needs to escape no matterwhat it takes. And the words “Raffy’s debt” add fuel to her fire, as if he owes them even more. He was set up and did time and they still think the money lost when the drugs got confiscated is something we owe them.
The outrage stirs inside her, but she’s smart enough to arrange a look of empathy or compassion across her face—at least, she tries to mask her fury in hopes that appearing on his side might be what saves her.
“So the debt was paid and we got married. Then how has all this happened?” she asks, her voice shaking.
“I bargained with them to get out of the family business. I told you I never wanted any part of it. I was trying to do the right thing. I wanted to be a father—a normal guy. Run the restaurant, be done with all the rest of it—and they said they’d let me if I took care of one last job.”
“What job?” she says, impassively.
“It’s not important—it just all went wrong. My brother is doing time because of Jack Hoffman.”
“But he’s dead,” Sasha says, scanning the room for anything she might be able to grab to use as a weapon, but she can’t find anything of use.
“The family found out he wasn’t dead, but they couldn’t find him, so they figured if I got rid of Regan, that would punish him. We moved to Cloverhill Lakes so I could find a clean way to do the job. It went wrong. I was never cut out for this. It’s never been what I wanted. I’m only telling you all of this because you’re here. Because you’re in the middle of it now, and the only way out is if you can understand. I did what I had to for us—to get away from the business without getting killed myself. I had no choice. I don’t want to hurt you, Sash. Please. If you can understand why I had to do all this, we canstill get out. Together,” he says. He’s holding her knees as he sits on the bathroom floor in front of her, begging her.
Sasha’s mouth is dry. She remembers how she recognized Jack when Regan showed her that photo the first time. Once there was a photo up on Tom’s computer with all sorts of data, background check–type information, and she jokingly asked him if he was a PI in his spare time. He brushed it off saying it was just a guy applying for a job at the restaurant, but he had a criminal record. She remembers it because of the quick, nervous way Tom clicked off the screen and got up to do something else. What did she tell herself about that behavior—has she been willfully blind about other things like that, other small oddities that should have added up in her mind?
Then she thinks about Tia and still isn’t putting all the pieces together yet. She swallows and stutters over her words.
“And... T-Tia?” she asks.
“She was a full-time snoop. I’m telling you, Sasha, I’m never left with any choice. I didn’t want anything to do with her. She came to the restaurant that night in her jogging outfit and she was trying to flirt with me. I didn’t reciprocate and she said something about all men being cheaters and how she’d prove it. I went and got her order from the back and a couple minutes later, I found her at the counter, looking through my phone I left sitting there. I guess it hadn’t timed out yet and the screen was still open, so she just fucking snatched it like some entitled whore—she found some things she shouldn’t have. She ran out without the bag of food. I had to follow. And it just made sense to leave her at Andi’s—she was terrible to Tia. And they both deserve what they got. Tia could have ruined our lives. Do you get that?” he says. And then he puts his head in Sasha’s lap, pathetically, and her mind is spinning.
He killed Tia and let everyone speculate that it was Andi, and all the while he’s been taking advantage of Raffy’s altered state. He’s known about Raff, where he lives, blackmailing him for money all this time. He probably planted evidence like the headband in the firepit. Raff has a record, he’s unstable, he’s easily manipulated. Tom could have gotten away with all of it if I hadn’t shown up. Nobody would believe Raff, so there would be no reason to kill him, but Andi?
“You dumped her there. At Andi’s. To set her up,” Sasha says, putting all the pieces together, numb, terrified.
“Do you understand, Sash? Do you see that my hand was forced in all of this and I was just protecting us—protecting you?”
“Yes. Of course,” she says, because she wants to live, and if leaving with him and pretending is the only way, then that’s her strategy.
Bang.The silence is pierced with a repeated crash like metal striking metal and then the sound of a woman’s cry.
“Help!” and the banging continues. Sasha knows that voice; it’s Andi. Tom leaps to his feet with a ghostly look on his face. He rushes out of the bathroom and, before she can follow, swiftly locks her in. She hears him shoving a chair under the doorknob and then the pad of his footsteps running out the back door.
The cry comes again, from somewhere outside on the property. Sasha knows it’s Andi, but she can’t help her.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Andi
I find a bat at the bottom of a tattered box, so I start swinging it as hard as I can against the doorknob and metal lock until one of them gives. I scream bloody murder as I hack away at the door. I heard the truck come back, so I know someone’s here, but I can’t see who it is. They parked out of view. I know Tom will hear me but... Raffy is there, too. Maybe he’ll hear me and save me. He looked perplexed when Tom’s voice called him earlier. Maybe he’s not involved in all of this but a victim, too.
