“I bet you wish you never found that album,” I say. “That you never took drugs from your father.”
He steps closer, eyes flaring with rage and disgust.
“I bet you thought Chase and Brax would drop everything after what happened to Jack and Elliot but you didn’t bother keeping tabs on them to confirm it.”
His eyes harden, the weight of my words sinking in like I’m pointing out the flaws in his plan he saw too late.
“You panicked after the Clarissa Rose fiasco when you realized the connections,” I say as my mind pieces it together. “You dumped the necklace at Brax’s. Left your research you’d collected over the last year at the lakehouse when you found out Laurel was back, hoping we’d blame Brax and Laurel.”
“Stop talking,” Brodie growls.
“The research was yours, which means that you were the one in Brax’s house,” I realize. “In his office. Going through his things. Not Laurel,” I say. “You didn’t have to sneak in. You’re his brother, you have an open invitation. No one would ever suspect or question you being there at all—you wanted us to think it was Laurel.”
“I said be quiet.”
“At what point did you realize Brax knew it was you?” I ask. “Before or after you sent a man to his house, where your nephew lives, to kill him, you asshole!”
“I didn’t tell him to shoot him,” Brodie seethes. “Just to get the necklace!”
“But you sent him!” I hiss back. “And when he failed, he shot Brax. “You didn’t fly home to celebrate—you came to get the necklace before Brax found it.”
“Shut up.”
“You just weren’t expecting Chase and I to be there. And when Brax got hurt, you wanted him to go to the hospital, because you needed him to leave. But he wouldn’t. He knew you wanted him to go. You left after watching your plan implode. But Brax knew you’d come back. He wanted you to. You just thought he’d be alone.”
Brodie’s hand cracks across my face. Pain explodes behind my eyes, blood sliding down my chin, but I refuse to show him it hurts. I turn my head to face him and that’s when I latch onto the gun on his hip.
“Your father wants to bring me into the fold,” I say. “I bet he told you to threaten the people I love if I refuse. But you won’t follow through on his order, will you Brodie?”
He stiffens.
“You can’t stand the idea of his attention shifting away from you. So, you’ll tell him I fought, that I refused, that I tried to escape, and you had no choice but to get rid of me because I knew too much.”
“Shut the fuck up.”
“I’ll take that Scooby snack now.”
His hand goes to his gun. “Sorry,” he says, lifting it. “The only thing I’ve got for you is a bullet.” He cocks the gun. “Goodbye, Lucia.”
“My name is Erin!” I roar and drive my knee into his crotch.
He drops with a strangled cry.
And I run.
We’ve been movingthrough the shipping yard for almost a half hour, containers stretching endlessly in every direction. We’re in a maze of metal. Gravel crunches beneath my shoes, and the air is polluted with dust that burns the inside of my nose. Every time a container gets cleared, my nerves spike harder.
“Check the containers again,” Brax mutters into his radio, eyes scanning wildly as he moves with precision. Every few minutes, someone reports back—empty, empty, empty.
“Where are you, sweetheart?” I whisper to myself.
A sharp gunshot cracks through the air.
I whip around, my pulse hammering in my ears. Rudy spins beside me, muscles tensing like he’s ready to move before someone says go.
“Who fired?” Brax shouts into the radio. Another shot clangs against metal, echoing off steel panels.
“I said—who the fuck is firing?” Brax charges ahead, gun raised.
