I STOOD IN THE hallway outside Mark’s door. My chest heaved as I sucked down a steeling breath, hand shaking on the knob. Searching for courage just to open the fucking door.
Quiet echoed down the hall of the huge house. All the guys were gone and Austin was tucked away in his room down the opposite hall.
We’d been back in L.A. for two days and my girls would be here tomorrow. This needed to get done and soon.
We were pressing on with our original plans, refusing to back down to Jennings’s threats. Besides, we figured it was safer for them to be here. With me.
God knew I’d sleep better.
Had Kenny, another attorney, and some of their guys here in L.A. digging their heels in deep, trenching through any shit they could find on the pompous bastard. Shit that had nothin’ to do with Sunder or Shea or any of us. Safe shit that would still send him straight to hell, because we knew where his greedy hands had been.
What Shea didn’t know was I had a reserve. A backup plan. That I’d gladly incriminate myself to finally make Jennings go away.
For good.
One way or another, we were going to make sure he had no say about anything in Kallie’s future.
Now I just needed to make it through this door. Just didn’t know it was going to be so damned hard.
Cold raced up my arm as my hand clutched the metal knob, and I squeezed my eyes, forcing myself to turn it. The door swung open, hinges squeaky from disuse.
The smell clinging to the abandoned room hit me like two tons of bricks.
I squeezed my eyes tighter as I fought it, before I finally released the breath I’d been holding and shuddered through a deep inhale.
It was musty and stifled, but in it was him, like the leather of that old jacket he’d always worn and a hint of the herbal cigarettes he’d always smoked.
Grief that’d been locked up tight battled for escape. Gathering like a thunderstorm in my chest. Slowly building. Enclosing on my throat.
The loss of Mark had been so sudden and traumatic, part of it still didn’t feel real. Sometimes I imagined I’d look up and find him rounding the corner—that shy, insecure smile he always wore spreading into something genuine and honest when he looked at me.
God, he’d been a lost soul.
So fucking lost.
But that didn’t mean the bond between the five of us wasn’t solid. Distorted, warped pieces that somehow perfectly aligned and fit. My fucked-up family. But I thought maybe the bond between Mark and I had been even greater because I’d been so fucking lost, too.
Dazed, I drifted out into the middle of the room as I felt the weight of my friend’s loss. Rays of light streaked in from the gap in the blinds, cutting into the gloom. The king bed was unmade, a rumple of sheets and blankets that spoke of a thrashing spirit, sheets of paper strewn about the floor, the words so often silent on his tongue lashed out across the pages.
I wandered over to his desk. My fingertips trailed over the picture displayed in a frame. It was all the guys with our arms slung over each other’s shoulders, beers in our free hands, Zee and Austin there, too. It brought on a wistful smile, and I shook my head, wondering how the hell I was ever going to get through this.
But I had to.
Had a little girl who was ready to shine her light on this desolate room.
I tore the linens from the bed and shoved them into a black garbage bag, then grabbed one of the empty boxes I’d left out in the hall and began to clear out his desk. This stuff? I’d just roll tape across the seam of the box. Seal it up. Save it. Knew one day Zee would want to go rummaging through when his broken heart was ready to take that step.
The drawers were filled with a ton of old cassette tapes and CDs, his own words scrawled across them, music we had made. All the scratches and scribbles of paper when we’d jammed, the guy always quick to jot stuff down when we were capturing a moment in a song.
My chest tightened with unspent sorrow.
God. It fucking hurt.
My eyes blurred as I filled one box then another, forcing myself to just forge through.
When I cleared out his desk, I moved on to his walk-in closet, flipped on the light switch. Light flickered before it came to life, and I blinked to adjust to the harshness. It was just a long, narrow path, clothes hung up on either side, old, tattered shoes shoved in the cubbies, and clutter clogging the shelves.
A soft chuckle of affection slipped into the room. Guy couldn’t get rid of anything.
I shoved sections of shirts together, pressing them between my hands to lift the hangers free, and threw them out into the middle of the bedroom floor. I continued on till one side was clear, then the other, until there was a fucking mountain of clothes in the middle of the bedroom floor.
Some hipster thrift shop was going to have a field day.
I started pulling out boxes, the anguish oppressive as I struggled to make it through what felt like ridding the last of Mark’s presence from our lives.
Knew that’s why I’d stalled for so long.
Wanted one last thing to hang onto, even when I hadn’t had the strength to step through the door.
Getting down on my knees, I pulled out a few storage boxes Mark had shoved under the shelves at the far back corner. I lifted a lid and peeked inside.
Pictures.
I sat back and pulled out a stack. Nostalgia, darts of regret and pain, and a forever kind of connection I knew could never be severed hit me. Image after image of us as teenagers, hanging out in Ash’s garage, back in the days when we were gonna take the world by the balls and there was nothing that could have stopped us from making it big.
Back before we’d let the lifestyle wear us thin and the endless parties take us down all kinds of roads we never should have gone.
My gut clenched at some of the faces, some of the guys we’d called friends who were nothing less than dealers feeding the blood-thirsty frenzy. The need to feel something that in the end just didn’t exist.
Only thing there was emptiness.
Pissed me off more because some of these guys were directly tied to Jennings.
I cringed when I saw a picture of Donny. One of Jennings’s right-hand guys. Blitzed-out blue eyes stared back, face tweaked with that seedy fucking grin.
Seemed the second Mark started hanging out with that creep, he’d been sucked into a downward spiral he couldn’t stop. Tripped right into the cesspool that would be his demise. He’d gone and gotten in deep. Started hiding shit. Even from me. At that time, Donny had always been lurking, hanging out at every show, acting like it was his place and all part of the gig. I knew better. He’d been plying Mark with his supply.
I dug a little deeper in the box, moving more photos out of the way. I had the sudden urge to understand Mark better in that period of time. Wishing I’d paid closer attention. Done more before it’d been too late.
A thick leather-bound journal was tucked to the side. I pulled it out, feeling like a sick fuck for invading his privacy. But hell, he’d been my best friend. And I missed him. Missed him so fuckin’ bad it physically hurt, my chest feeling like it just might cave with the pressure in my heart, and I wanted to hang on to a little more.
I unlaced the leather strap and flipped to the first page. Immediately, I recognized his handwriting. The date jotted at the side was close to seven years ago.
The road’s tough. Especially nights like these when everyone is passed out around me. I can never sleep. Who would have known the loneliest time in the world is the moment before the sun comes up? Night after night, I meet that moment intimately. I know it like a lover even when there’s no comfort in its touch. It’s worth it. The band is worth it. But I get the sense I’ll never know what it’s like to be home.
I rubbed my hand over my face and tried to break up the overwhelming urge to weep. Killed me he’d felt this way. I rifled through more pages. Most of the entries echoed the same, sometimes skipping months. Getting just a little more desperate with each passing year.
I tried. I fucking tried. Baz got out of jail and got clean. I tried. I tried.
Why hadn’t I done something? Intervened?
I wavered, part of me wanting to slam the damned journal closed. Close it up and forget. But the other felt compelled. I skimmed through more pages where Mark had recorded just how lost he’d felt.
When I turned another page, my sight narrowed in on the handwriting that had turned messy and frantic, slanting crooked down the page.
I fucked up. Fucked up bad. Donny told me Martin said it’d only be once. Once. That was all it was supposed to be.
What the fuck?
He was talking about Jennings.
My heart rate sped and I sat up higher on my knees, fingers gripping the journal as I scanned for more.
Fucking Donny and his fucking mouth. Always with his fucking mouth. I didn’t want to know. I didn’t want any part of it. I knew Martin was sick. Both of them were sick. But not that sick. I told Martin so. I told him to go to hell when he demanded the money I owe him. Told him I’d take everything I know to the cops. I was going to anyway, money be damned. I knew what he’d had Donny do to that girl. I knew what he planned to have him do. She was a loose end. A liability. Just like me. Call me a snitch. I didn’t care. Let the asshole burn.
A thread of awareness dangled in my periphery, something ominous and dark. Felt like I couldn’t grab a breath when I desperately flipped the page. A small stack of snapshots fell out from between the pages, fluttering to the floor. What my attention immediately latched on to was what Mark had written on the page.
Donny’s gone. Dead in the water. I’m going to be next. I know it. Feel it coming. Am I scared? Yeah. Terrified, really. I led Martin on. Made him believe I’d leaked info. Ratted him and Lester out. He thinks I’m blackmailing, but I don’t have anything but Donny’s word. And Donny’s word is about as valuable as a ten-dollar whore. My only intention had been to thwart the plans he had to hurt that girl again. Only this time, make it final. Sick. Fucking sick. Couldn’t live with myself if it happened, so I’d rather die stopping it. I guess I finally did something in my life worth a shit.
It was dated two days before he’d overdosed.
Cold dread seized my heart, everything going heavy, like it was attempting to pump ice through my veins.
He killed him.
Oh God. My head spun. He killed him.
With trembling fingers, I reached down and picked up one of the pictures that’d fallen face down on the floor, hesitant to discover what was there, but knowing I couldn’t look away.
It was a snapshot of Mark and Donny and my baby brother. The party happening around them was clear. All three of them were obviously lost to a bombed-out wasteland.
But it was the woman Donny had draped across his lap that shook me to the core. A face so fucking familiar, that the breath punched from my lungs and left me on a shocked wheeze.
I’d seen that face hanging on Shea’s upstairs wall more times than I cared to count. Showcased in old frames, appearing years younger there than in this image. The woman who’d pushed her and pushed her and pushed her, Shea’s childhood memories a horror story of manipulation and greed.
Shea’s mom.
I gripped my head as I tried to process, swarmed with an onslaught of confusion and anger and utter devastation.
Mark, Jennings, Austin, and motherfucking Chloe Lynn.
She was a loose end. A liability. Just like me.
Who was he talking about? Didn’t want to accept the possibility it could be Shea. But I knew…I fucking knew.
I roared and shot to my feet. Another rush of dizziness hit me. My shoulder rammed into the wall, my balance blown, my world shattered. I stumbled over the shit blocking the closet doorway in a frantic bid to get out with one of the pictures fisted in my hand. I charged out of Mark’s room and down the hall. Didn’t even hesitate at his door, just threw it open. It flew back and crashed against the inside of his wall.
Austin jumped from his bed in the same second I stormed in.
Something livid ate up my insides. Propelling me forward.
“Baz,” my baby brother said as his startled expression twisted through confusion and nervous doubt. I didn’t pause, just gathered the collar of his shirt in my hands and pushed him up against the wall. My teeth grated where they clenched, and that surprised expression on his face morphed into fear.
“Tell me you didn’t lie to me when you swore you didn’t know what happened the night Mark died.”
Alarmed eyes flashed with recognition. Going back to the day I’d confronted him right here in this room after the failed mediation with Jennings.
The day he started spouting off about Mark being nothing but pathetic.
I shook him, my voice a desperate seethe. “Tell. Me.”
No. I wouldn’t hurt him. Never. But there was no way I was leaving this room without the truth.
“Baz,” he begged.
Releasing one hand, I shoved the crumpled snapshot in his face. “Tell me why the fuck you and Mark are with Shea’s mom.”
His face went deathly white.
Guilt.
Guilt.
Guilt.
Fear soured my stomach, and the words grated with betrayal. “You lied to me. This is why you’ve been so weird about Shea?”
Tears filled his eyes and overflowed down his cheeks. The kid’s reaction was like a punch to the gut. I knew he was caught somewhere between the tormented child I’d taken responsibility for and the man trying to make his way out.
But that was no excuse.
“Tell me what you’re doing in a picture with Shea’s mom, Austin. Tell me what the fuck Mark was talking about in his journal…all this shit about Donny and Jennings and the trouble he was in. The girl he hurt.” The last turned into a plea.
He swallowed like he was seeking courage. “I don’t fucking know everything, Baz. Promise you.” The words began to fly. “All I know is Mark got in over his head. Owed Jennings a bunch of money. Honest, I don’t know all the details. I just know it was a lot. Enough that he didn’t know how he was going to get out from under it, and it was Donny who’d gotten him involved.”
His attention darted to the opposite wall, contemplating what to say, before he turned back to me. “I’d seen Shea’s mom…Chloe Lynn...around a few times when we’d partied. I had no idea who she was. Not until one night Donny was all coked up.”
Austin’s lip curled in disgust. “He always acted like such a badass. Wanted everyone to think he was. That night, he started bragging about all the shit Martin had him doing for him. All the drug runs he headed, the beat downs when someone got out of line.”
I struggled to find some control as Austin’s eyes pinched closed. “He was laughing when he started talking about how years before he’d been sent to fuck up Delaney Rhoads. Said something about ‘taking care of it.’ Then he’d mocked Chloe Lynn for being the mother of a washed-up country singer.”
I wheezed in a breath, my head spinning with hatred. My hands curled tighter in Austin’s shirt. My legs were trembling as everything inside me began to break apart.
“He what?” The words scraped with the affliction, horror, and shock, as I barely caught a glimpse of the carnage.
What did he do?
What did he do?
Mark.
Shea.
I’d claimed to know exactly what Martin Jennings was capable of.
Turns out what I knew didn’t come close.
“Did Chloe Lynn know what’d gone down…what he’d done?”
His entire face winced with the regretful nod. He looked at me, sorrow pulling at the edges of his mouth. “Mark…you knew him, Baz. Better than all of us. As fucked up as he was, he was a good guy. What Donny said got to him. Ate at him. The night he OD’d…I told you before he was acting all sketchy and paranoid. That was the truth. But what I didn’t tell you was he was stumbling around the bus, saying something about going to the cops about Delaney Rhoads. Said he couldn’t keep quiet about an innocent girl being hurt…and it was a secret he wouldn’t keep.”
Austin choked over a sob. “I know Martin was responsible for Mark, Baz. I know it. Donny disappeared, without a trace, and the next thing I know, Mark’s dead.”
Outright fear bled from his pores, my baby brother shaking in my enraged hands.
“I was so fucking scared, Baz. So fucking scared. You immediately forced me into rehab, and I wanted it. I wanted to break out of that life. Run from it. I thought maybe…maybe I was finally going to be free of everything horrible I continually let ruin my life. I’d let Mark down. But for once, I wasn’t going to let you down. I’d promised myself to get clean and everything would be better. Martin would be forgotten and we’d move on with our lives.”
Agitated, his tongue darted out to wet his lips. “But then he came onto the tour bus. Digging. Asking questions about what I knew about Delaney Rhoads. I’d told him nothing. His response was to slide three pills my way. He knew I couldn’t resist. Knew I was weak.”
He knows our weaknesses. Shea’s assertion crashed down around me. Anger pumped furiously, feeding the hostility.
“Next thing I knew, I woke up in the hospital. I took it as a warning to keep my mouth shut, and that’s what I’ve been doing all this time.”
“Do you know what Mark was talking about in his journal?” I demanded, my nose pressed up to his like maybe if I got close enough, I could fall inside and find out what he’d been keeping a secret for far too long. “About a girl who was a loose end.”
I shook him. “One he was willing to die for.”
His brows drew deep in question, obviously unaware. It became clear when he came to the same conclusion. His eyes rounded like black, blank buttons of fear.
Like I’d been burned, my hands jerked free, and Austin dropped to his knees on the floor.
Shea.
Head slumping forward, Austin’s words slurred together. “Don’t hate me, Baz. Please, don’t hate me. I was scared. So scared. Please don’t hate me. You’re the only person I’ve got. When I found out Shea was Delaney, I wanted to tell you…I did…but I couldn’t risk it…couldn’t risk you losing it again. I can’t lose you, too.”
A harsh sound tore up my throat, raged with the flash of fury.
“I could never hate you.”
Never.
All I’d given had always been for my family. Standing up for them. Defending them.
I shoved out the door and down the hall to the sound of Austin calling after me. But I couldn’t stop from moving. My feet pounded down the stairs.
A red haze colored my narrowed sight. Blinding hate.
What did he do?
He hurt her.
And Mark. My baby brother.
Dizziness spiraled across my vision, and I gripped my head, trying to stay upright.
Jesus help me.
What was this?
Mark was a threat, so he took him out?
Austin a threat?
Shea…a threat?
I reeled with the magnitude.
I’d always believed him dangerous.
But this?
Stunning rage seethed beneath my skin. Every piece of me felt like it was gonna crack, fall to the ground in jagged pieces, as I stumbled out the door and to my truck. I turned the ignition and the engine roared. Slammed it into gear and peeled from the driveway and onto the street.
I blinked and blinked, squeezing my eyes closed then opening them wide. Tryin’ to see through her storm.
Dark, dark, dark.
Promise me.
Her words filtered through me like wisps of smoke, and I pressed the heel of my hand into my eye, my mouth dropping open on a silent cry as I tried to focus through the streaks of blinding light.
How could I just turn away with what I knew and with what still needed to be learned? Sit back and hold tight?
That wasn’t me.
And Shea…
Shea had always seen me. Recognized who I was beneath all the hard and scarred.
And this was me.
Guess she’d known it all along.
Promised I would do whatever it took, give up everything to set it right.
And I would.
On pure instinct, I sped down the narrow roads out of the Hills. When I hit the congested West Hollywood streets, I accelerated, weaving through traffic and jumping lanes. Everything around me was a blur except for the focus of my destination.
Tires squealed as I took a sharp right turn into the pretentious Beverly Hills neighborhood. My truck careened to a stop in the drive in front of his house.
Inhale. Exhale. I struggled for composure. For some measure of reason in this fucked-up situation.
Seemed I always found myself in these positions.
Trouble.
It followed me wherever I went.
But this time the fight was ending on my side.
I stepped from the truck, pulled out my phone, and set the recorder before I slipped it back in my pocket. If the fucker was here, I was going to capture every word.
Inhale. Exhale.
Promise me.
Fuck. I can’t, Shea. I can’t let this go.
Inhale. Exhale.
I slipped over the low wrought iron fence and dropped into the courtyard.
Shaking.
Fucking shaking.
Water lapped at the fountain and birds rustled through the trees.
Peaceful.
The calm before the storm.
But the storm was there, gathering force, igniting the madness that propelled me forward.
My hand went for the ornate latch of the double doors. I was surprised when one side gave.
Through pursed lips, I pushed out a stifled breath. Every muscle in my body was rigid with restraint, my movements guarded and subdued as I slipped unseen into the quiet of the massive house.
The peace, the quiet, the calm was at odds with the rapid-fire sensations gutting my insides. Hate and vengeance and revenge.
White walls and floors everywhere, the ceilings high and color the starkest white.
I’d heard it said it was cold in hell.
I inched through the foyer, shoulder up against the wall, as I rounded the corner and eased along the edge of the formal living room, drawn deeper into the house. I emerged at a tall, wide entryway. Pillars flanked it like some kind of Greek god’s castle, precisely like the bastard thought he ruled.
It opened to a large space that boasted the kitchen and another sitting area that looked out over the lawn and pool.
But none of that held my attention.
Jennings. Casually sitting sideways at the high granite bar, rocked back in a stool with his ankle hooked over his knee. Smug bastard. His fingers drummed on the counter like the asshole was bored, not a fucking care in his warped, perverted world. In his other hand, a tumbler rolled with amber liquid.
Eyeing me, he took a sip before his head cocked to the side, snide and spite taking over his filthy expression. “I wondered when you’d come. Always have to be the hero, don’t you?”
The walls closed in.
Motherfucker.
He knew I’d show.
Just like Shea.
He might as well have laid out the welcome mat.
My fists curled, trying for once in my fucking life to maintain control.
Fix this.
That was a promise I could keep, and it killed me, the thought of being without Shea. Of letting her down. Because I loved her so goddamned much. So much it eclipsed all reason. So much that I’d let it all go, give it up to keep them safe. How many times had I promised it? Just didn’t know being struck with the reality of losing them, staring it down through the wicked eyes of depravity, would be so excruciating. A rending crack right down the middle that broke me in two.
“This ends now.”
He scoffed, raked his teeth over his bottom lip.
“And how’s that, Mr. Stone?”
“You’re going to tell me what you did to them. What you did to Shea. To Mark. To my brother.”
When I said their names, a fragment of the composure I was barely clinging to flew out the window. Exposing what was inside.
Vulnerable.
Martin caught it and smiled a venomous smile. “I always do what has to be done.”
“Not good enough,” I grated. All I needed was a little evidence. Something condemning, so I could send this asshole straight back to hell where he belonged. Where he could rot. Even if I was rotting right alongside him.
He took another slow swill of his drink.
“What do you want to hear, Mr. Stone? You want to hear your best friend wasn’t a strung-out addict? That he had some other reason to succumb to the drug running hot through his veins, slowly snuffing the life out of him until he lay there wasted? A heap of decaying garbage face down on the floor? Because we both know that’s exactly what he was. Just like your brother.”
Fiery dots of hate glimmered across my vision and I felt an earthquake shaking beneath my feet.
I fought to maintain my footing on the rippling ground.
He grinned. Goading. Prodding like a branding iron. “But there are some things people just shouldn’t know.”
He skirted around the details, luring me into his fucked-up cage-match, forced me into a ring made up of chain links and barbed wire and razor blades where nobody came out alive.
“What did you do?”
He ignored my question with a slow, repeating shake of his head as if he were getting lost in contemplation. “Some would call it brave. Others would call it stupid. Just like Delaney…sticking her nose in places it didn’t belong. Trying to use it against me.”
He grinned. “Yeah. I guess I’d call it stupid, too.”
That malicious grin widened when he saw the shudder roll through me, another reaction I had no chance to contain.
With the glass in his hand, he pointed at me like we were the best of friends sharing an inside joke, tipping it my direction as he chuckled through suggestive laughter. “But that Delaney Rhoads. Mmm. She’s quite the fuck, isn’t she? Can see why you’re hung up on that one. Those legs. Of course, she cried like a bitch the first time I took her. Tore her open like a brand new present, just like her momma had offered me.”
Fury.
Like a strike of lightning to a dry, withered tree.
A force of nature. An act of God.
Unbridled and unchecked.
I didn’t even realize I was moving until the moment my body connected with his.
I flew into him like the crack of thunder. The stool crashed to the floor and we tumbled over the top of it.
Jennings and I were a tangle of limbs and aggression and the foulest kind of hate.
I scrambled to get on top of him. I went straight for the throat, squeezing at his lifeline, because God knew I wanted nothing more than to squeeze the life out of him.
Like he’d done Mark.
My teeth ground.
His depraved eyes darkened, something vile and wicked, sucking me down into the depths of his barren soul.
I squeezed harder, my breaths grunted through the rage dripping from my words. “What did you do to Mark? To my brother? To Shea?”
I was desperate.
Fingers dug into the back of my hands as he struggled below me.
He gritted out the words. “Do you know who I am? What I’m going to do to you?”
Not if I ended this first.
“Who’s Lester and what was Mark gonna stop?”
That question evoked the first flare of fear in him. A blanched whiteness flashed across his face that had nothin’ to do with the air I was repressing from his lungs.
Finally, I found his weakness.
“Tell me…who the fuck is Lester and how’s he involved with Shea and Mark?”
Just one fucking word, that’s all I needed.
A fist suddenly hooked me at the temple. The hit took me hard enough to stun me, to catch me off guard, and it gave the bastard time to shove me off and stumble to his feet.
But in a second flat I was on mine. With all my weight, I lunged forward.
We collided.
A rain of glass shattered around us as we busted through the sliding door and crashed out onto the patio. Stone dug into flesh, muscles burned with exertion. I barely registered my skin stinging with sharp lances of pain.
It only served as fuel to the fire.
I hit him over and over. One brutal blow after another. “Tell me what you did. Admit it, you piece of shit. Admit it. Tell me! What did you do to Shea? Who’s Lester? Did you kill Mark? Did you hurt Shea?”
Bones crunched and blood splattered.
Rage spiraled, spinning and curling and whirling until it sucked me down to a place where all my dark and ugly reigned. That place where Shea had shone so bright it’d been obscured. Nearly forgotten. A place I’d begun to pretend didn’t exist. It was a place so dark I couldn’t see. A place screaming echoes of pain so loud it erased all logical thought.
A place so foul it wiped out my humanity and obliterated my mission.
The goal I had come to attain.
Because ending him would do better.
“Freeze!”
The command boomed against the static buzzing in my ears. Everything slowed. My mind was just able to comprehend the furor of bodies rushing onto the scene. I became aware of the guns pointed in my direction.
Frantic, I clamored to my feet. Eyes blinking through the haze of bloodlust, I tried to focus on the swarm of officers stepping through the broken door, others coming around the side of the house to surround me.
“Get down…on the ground…hands behind your head,” one shouted.
Slowly, I dropped to my knees, hands raised in surrender, before I slumped forward and put them behind my head.
Officers surrounded me.
My face was pressed into the ground, and I reared with the overwhelming violence still skimming through my system.
Nausea swelled.
A knee was forced between my shoulder blades, and my arms were wrenched back as cuffs were slapped on my wrists.
“You are under arrest. You have the right to…”
The reality of what I’d done hit me.
An officer yanked me to my feet, jumbled words vying to press into my senses. “…remain silent. Anything…”
Through the blur of voices and pain and regret, my clouded gaze lifted to Jennings who was sitting up on both his knees, attempting to climb to his feet. Blood smeared across his face.
But there was no shock in his expression. No regret or worry of negative consequence.
Those vile eyes just smirked back at me as he reached for my phone where it lay next to him in the grass. It had fallen out of my pocket.
Fuck.
He held the face out toward me. Shattered into a million splintered pieces. But the red dot could still be seen, indicating it was recording. The bastard knew.
Chills cinched my entire body when he leveled me with a baleful gaze.
He mouthed a single word.
“Yes.”
A silent admission of guilt that no one was ever gonna hear.
Then he tucked my phone into his back pocket, gestured just as casually at the cameras mounted on the wall.
Cameras probably inside as well.
I wondered when you’d come.
Jennings had completed his mission.
Getting me out of the way so he could get to Shea.
That fucking bogus suit asking for custody of Kallie. Every time he’d gotten in my face. He’d incited and provoked and spurred until he had me ensnared.
He’d removed Mark.
He’d found the best way to remove me.
Shea was right.
He watched for weaknesses.
Knew exactly how to wreck and ruin.
He knew Kallie was Shea’s weakness.
And without a doubt, he knew Shea was mine.