The accusation has me flailing for air. What did he just say? Though nothing about this is funny, I feel like laughing. Mack is crazier than I ever thought.
“That isn’t true!” I shoot back. “Nothing he is saying is true…”
Then it’s as if Zerro loses it. I feel a hand sweep roughly across my face, knocking me off my knees. I am unaware of what’s taking place because my mind goes blank for a second as my eyes roll to the back of my head. My head throbs, and something trickles down my face, but I can’t quite get my wits together to sit up.
“There’s more… Her father borrowed the money because he was trying to pin you for something. When it backfired, he sent his daughter in for him. She knew this whole time. She was simply pretending to be something that she wasn’t.”
“No…” I cry out as my vision swims. Did Zerro hit me? Why does everything I see have black spots in it?
Silence ensues for a long second before Zerro speaks. “Get the ropes and tape!” he yells to Mack. I’m lying on the ground on my side when his face comes into my vision.
“Was it all a lie, Bree? Was it all some fucked up lie, so that you could get into my head? So you could get the inside job done and walk away unscathed?” His voice is so loud in my ears, I push away from him.
“WAS IT?” he demands, his fingers gripping my chin, pulling me closer again.
“No!” I gasp. “I love you. I really do. I don’t know what he’s talking about. He’s a liar.”
I try and push myself up. I need to get up to escape, but I know there’s no point in running. Zerro wants me dead. The man I love wants me to die.
“Bind her feet and duct tape her mouth,” he orders Mack. Zerro takes a step back, and I await my fate.
“I didn’t do it...” I cry and beg. My pleas go unnoticed, though, as Zerro finds a container of something and starts drinking it straight from the bottle.
“Shut up, you stupid bitch,” Mack says smugly, pressing my face into the wood floor. More blood falls from my face, and I feel the blackness begging to take me under.
“Listen to me!!!” I demand over and over again. Nothing changes in the way he looks at me. I know the hate he has for the people who killed his mother, and I know that even the absurd possibility of me having any relation to them will do me no good.
“Leave the duct tape off. I want to hear her screams when I shoot her in the head,” Zerro coldly commands. His voice is far off, and I wonder if it’s me who’s slipping away or him.
My body is pulled up until I’m resting on my knees before him. Is he really going to kill me? Is this the end?
I look into the eyes of the man who took me, the man who I had saved from death, but I see nothing of the person I fell in love with. I know today isn’t just my funeral, but his as well. With my death will come guilt and heartache like he has never felt before.
The gun in his hand is cocked and loaded. The light glistens off the metal as I watch him raise the barrel toward the side of my head.
“Tell me you didn’t know, Bree…” His face is the same of the beautiful man I made love to merely hours ago. Our love is magnificent, but in the big world of things, it is nothing. Fear courses through me as I wait for him to pull the trigger. He will… I have watched him kill too many people to think otherwise. He always pulls the trigger…
“Tell me! Tell me you didn’t fucking do it, Bree! Tell me that this bullet isn’t for you. Tell me because right now, I’m contemplating killing the one person who means more to me than anything else in the world!” Zerro’s voice, though frantic and anguished, is soothing me and giving me hope. Maybe, just maybe, our love can conquer the darkness that is lurking close to his surface.
There is no point in begging him. I know it will do nothing for me, but I have to try to make him understand Mack is lying. “I didn’t… I didn’t know, I swear...He's lying! My God! How could I have even known you were going to be at my house to collect from my father the day I came home on break? You met my father whom you, yourself, described as weak and simple minded. You honestly think my father could kill someone? He didn’t even fight to save me, his own daughter! He let you take me because he was scared of you! There’s no way a simple, spineless farmer could be a tough, intelligent FBI agent...” My voice halts in the midst of me trying to convince him I’m telling the truth. Time stands still as Zerro stares into my eyes. He’s looking at me, but doesn’t see me. Hate and anger come to the surface with a vengeance.
“He's your father, Bree. You had to have known. Payment is due, and this bullet has his name written in your family's blood. So, I suppose this bullet is meant for you.” He refuses to listen to reason, refuses to believe me. Gone is the man I have grown to love and care for. I know death is imminent when I feel the cold metal of his gun against my head,