Black Listed(76)

He brought her inside and locked the door behind her.

Mitch’s bullet-ridden body lay on the floor underneath her bookshelf, his chest and head bloody. She stared at him, waiting for him to show any sign of life, but he never blinked. His chest didn’t rise or fall. The blood didn’t flow from the bullet wounds.

He was dead by his brother’s hand.

And according to him, he’d done it for her.

Her attention jumped to her desk. Someone was sitting in her chair, the back of it facing her, obscuring the person’s identity.

The chair slowly spun around. “Good to see you, Annaliese.”

She blinked, her eyes trying to make sense of what she saw.

It had to be a mirage.

Or a ghost.

He couldn’t be here.

He was supposed to be dead. Asa had said that he’d died.

Of course he had. He’d conned her. Made her believe she was safe.

After years of hearing and telling lies, she should’ve known better than to accept the death at face value.

A single word escaped her mouth as she slid to her knees in shock.

“Dad.”





Chapter Twenty-Five

HOW COULD SHE have been so trusting?

Asa stood with his back up against the door, blocking the exit. “Okay, so I got her here,” he said to their father. “As you see, I made sure Mitch didn’t get the black list or her, so I’ve done my part.” He turned and waved the gun at her. “You give Dad back his black list, and we can leave together. That’s the plan.”

Her father looked so much smaller, his muscles having wasted away and the extra weight he’d carried gone from his frame. He’d never been a tall or particularly big man, but now he was a shell of the man she’d known and feared. Somehow, he didn’t seem as intimidating. With all his wrinkles and his gray hair, he just looked old.

But she wouldn’t make the mistake of believing the image he projected. That was one of his greatest skills. He was a chameleon who could change his skin as easily as a person could change his clothes. He’d always claimed she was just like him, comparing her to a chameleon and saying she had a reptilian sense of preservation about her.

Pretending to be weak and frail would give him an advantage over her. She wouldn’t expect him to have the strength to overpower her. Underestimating him could get her killed.

By the way Asa was speaking to him, she wondered if Asa believed their father’s act. She had a feeling that Asa’s plan and her father’s plan were not one and the same.

She stared up at her dad. “I thought you were dead.”

His smile made her skin crawl. “Aren’t you going to give your old man a kiss?”

“No,” she said, standing with her arms crossed.

“Where’s the black list, Annie?” Asa asked. “Just give it to him, and he’ll let us go. That’s all he wants. I searched everywhere for it.” When she didn’t answer, he began to shout. “Where’d you hide it? You said it was here.”

Her father pushed back from the desk and stood, holding a gun by his side. He turned toward Asa. “Fool. I don’t give a shit about that black list. It’s useless to me now. Just like you’ve been useless your entire life. You thought you were so cunning, manipulating your mother into loving you best. You stole her from me, and now you want to steal her again.” He pointed his gun at Asa. “I’ve been waiting years to do this.”

Her brother didn’t have time to react before the bullet pierced his brain right between his eyes.

She screamed, her ears ringing.

As he fell forward, the gun went off again, the bullet hitting him in the throat this time. But she doubted he’d felt it, the first bullet having been a kill shot. By the time he landed face first on the floor, he was dead.

Still, that didn’t keep her from racing over to him. “Asa!”

“Don’t touch that boy, you hear?” She froze to her spot, her father’s voice too powerful to resist. “He’s gone. Roasting in hell with his brother. He’ll never get his paws on you again. That I promise. I did all this to protect you. To be with you.”

Protect her? When had he ever protected her?

There was only one man who’d ever protected her, and she’d left him sleeping back in their hotel room.

By now, he would’ve gotten up from his nap. He would’ve realized she was gone.

Would he look for her? Or would he believe she’d run from him again? She had to believe he’d find her.

What did her father want with her? Both his sons were dead at his feet. Was she about to join them?

Her heart was racing, her ears were still ringing, and an unknown drug was making her sluggish, but she refused to give up, refused to give into the bone-chilling fear of her situation. Instead, she chose to trust that Sawyer would find her and she’d make it out of here alive.