“None of this makes sense. My uncle killed my father?” I’m too stunned to even try to process my feelings.
“That part is still conjecture. I’m talking about the feds make sense.”
“How?”
“Because when the feds would lock in on a case and finally have evidence enough to go to court, the criminals in question usually have no choice but to trust their lawyers with all the details they can manage to share, so their lawyers can best defend them. Not to mention they get to read over the probing information the prosecution has gathered as well. See? It’s brilliant. He failed at his attempt to simply take the money and pin it on a patsy. That wouldn’t work twice, so he decided to steal the money-making formula and form his own empire, since it’s shady but not as risky as drugs, guns, or gambling.”
It runs alongside my theory that a fed would have done it to get the info that way. A lawyer never crossed my mind. I don’t even know what to say. But Sarah does, because she continues.
“Your uncle has all the makings of a criminal mastermind, but he has bad luck. First there was your father. He recruited him as the perfect scapegoat. A chunk of money goes missing, you blame the man who has immediate access to your accounts. My guess is that the Death Dealers threatened Aaron, and your father was smart enough to figure out it was your uncle. He hacked your uncle’s computer, somehow found the account, and transferred the money back, while also locking your uncle’s access out. If I had to guess, your uncle had a bug in your dad’s work computer to find out account codes to begin with. All your father would have had to do was change the access codes.”
Mind. Blown.
Headache.
“Then there’s you—his second string of bad luck. He recruited Ben as muscle and a scapegoat in case shit went south. Ben assumed all the risks because he wanted the girl, and I’m guessing your uncle is good at selling someone whatever they want. But you got desperate and went to Benny for help. Herrin has been taunting Benny for a while with knowledge of how the feds knew so much about his business and how they broke up a few of his associates’ gambling rings. Benny used you as a bargaining chip, and well, the dominos fell after that.”
I lean back, sucking in air as we pull up to a crappy one-floor motel that makes my old place look like a five-star hotel.
“Where are we?” I ask as she turns off the car.
Only a couple of other vehicles are in the parking lot.
“My current squatting place. It’s nicer on the inside. Promise. No one here asks questions or eavesdrops. No one here wants to know what you’re doing in a place like this, since they have their own dirty shit going on. Gotta love these places.”
I get out as she walks toward a door and opens it, motioning for me to hurry up. I take in the fact she’s dressed in all black leather like she’s definitely an assassin and dressing the part. Her makeup is heavier than she ever wore it before, and her hair looks even blonder than it did, and it’s cut differently.
I don’t study her long, because her appearance is the last thing I need to focus on right now.
“How are you processing all of this?” she asks as she shuts the door behind us. Surprisingly, the inside really is a lot nicer.
“I’ll let you know when my mind catches up. I need to call Drex.”
“Not yet. He’ll trace your phone and they’ll come here. I’d rather not have to kill anyone else today.”
“You’d kill one of them?” I ask in disbelief.
“Not unless they tried to kill me first. I don’t just let someone point a gun at me without pulling my own trigger, Eve. Speaking of which…”
She pulls a gun out of her purse and hands it to me—the same one she used to kill Dumb and Dumber. I take it and look at her like she’s sprouted a second head.
“If anyone walks through that door without knocking three times, shoot them until they drop. Understand? I have to call the hospital to check in on Colleen. When she called me, I heard what was being said and I showed up in time to put a tracer on that SUV. Fortunately I was fishing out some information from a guy nearby. I cut them off at the alley when I realized where they were going.”
“Why can’t you call from in here?” I ask her as she pulls her phone out of her purse.
“Because I’m paranoid for one, and for two, I don’t want you hearing who I’m talking to. I trust you, but I also know you well enough that I know you’ll tell Drex anything and trust him with it. Two can only keep a secret if one of them is dead and all that. For now, I have someone on the inside, and I’d like to keep it that way.”
“Why?” I ask, only because I can’t help myself.
She raises an eyebrow at me. “Think of how you feel about Drex. That’s how I feel about Jude.”
“Jude?” I ask, confused.
“That’s Snake’s real name,” she says with a sad smile. “I only call him that when the guys aren’t around.” She blows out a breath, and that chipper look fades ever so slightly. “I fucked up, and I regret not trusting him with my secrets, but… Anyway. Doesn’t matter now. I’ve heard how he feels about this entire situation, and it’s fine. I get it. Doesn’t mean I’m willing to just walk away until I know he’s safe. Stay put. Shoot anything that walks through this door without knocking three times. No more. No less. Understand?”
I nod, even though I really hope no one walks through that door.
“I’ll only be gone for a minute.”
She disappears out the door, and I listen to it click shut. It’s an automatic locking door, so I stare at the handle for no real reason. It’s not like someone can just walk in.
Why did Colleen call Sarah instead of one of the guys? One of the guys could have saved her sooner. Sarah could only listen, since Colleen couldn’t talk. Would the guys have even figured out where Colleen was? Would they have hung up if they answered and just met silence?
Then again, they might have shot both of us with their cowboy antics. Sarah is like a snake that coils and waits to strike.
Getting up, I peek out the window as Sarah’s car pulls away, and I move back to the bed, sighing as I try to wrap my head around everything.
My uncle. At the center of everything is the man my father saved over and over. Dad wasn’t kidding when he said Uncle Marshall was a sociopath.
After twenty minutes, I start to get worried. But then the knob of the door jiggles, and my stomach muscles tighten. If that was Sarah, she’d be knocking, right?
I slowly lift the gun, feeling my entire body start to shake as adrenaline and fear collide. The handle jiggles harder and something snaps on the other side as a man’s voice mutters a curse.
“AJ?! You fucking in there?” he growls, causing me to tense so painfully that I can barely even feel anything but knots upon knots.
As the door swings open, I don’t hesitate. One. Two. Three. Three shots fired, and all three shots slam into the walls nowhere near the man who just stumbled inside with dark shades and long dark hair.
“The fuck?!” he roars, ducking like he heard those silent shots, even though he doesn’t look my way.
I start to fire again, when I hear the distinct sound of Sarah’s voice.
“Bentley? What the hell are you doing here?”
The guy cocks his head as though he’s confused, but he still doesn’t look my way.
“Who the hell is shooting at me if you’re out here?”
“Who is—Oh shit. Don’t shoot!” Sarah gasps, leaping past him with apologetic, fearful eyes landing on me immediately. My hands are shaking violently now, and the gun is still clutched in front of me. Sarah looks at the three bullet holes I’ve made by glancing behind her. Then she looks back at me.
“You’re a terrible shot,” she says, amused.
“Thank fuck for that,” Bentley—I think she said his name was Bentley—snarls.
“How could you think that was me shooting?” Sarah asks while whirling around to face him like she’s insulted.
“Why is there someone shooting at me at all, damn it?” he gripes.
It’s like a morbid sitcom is playing out in front of me, and I can’t let go of the gun in my hands. It’s frozen in place, just like me. I’m legitimately locked in place like fear’s bitch and adrenaline’s toy.
“You shouldn’t be here,” she tells him. “I told you not to come.”
“No, you left a message saying to come by and bring you that file in person if you didn’t answer your phone. You said you might be getting tracked.”
“That was four days ago. I left another message with my new burner number and email address.”
“No you didn’t,” he growls.
Why is he still wearing his sunglasses? Why do I even care?
“Oh,” Sarah says while frowning. “Oops. Well, I meant to call.”
“Un-fucking-believable,” he grumbles.
“I lost my tail, tossed all my phones, and got some new burners. I meant to give you the number.”
“That makes it okay that the girl shot at me. Get the damn gun out of her hands.”
“How do you know it’s a girl and that she’s still holding a gun?” she asks him as she walks over and pries the gun out of my shaky hands before patting me on the head very patronizingly.