Total pages in book: 97
Estimated words: 93929 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 470(@200wpm)___ 376(@250wpm)___ 313(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 93929 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 470(@200wpm)___ 376(@250wpm)___ 313(@300wpm)
But it’s clear from the look on his face that he knows everything.
God, I’m so stupid. If I hadn’t made that damn speech, we might be able to spin this. Make Mal think we killed Dermot to help him.
Instead, I ruined it all.
“Hands behind your head. Both of you.” Mal steps sideways. “There’s a car waiting downstairs. You’ll get in the back. You won’t say a word.”
“Doesn’t have to be like this.” Finn stares at my brother. He’s filled with latent violence and the threat of more to come. “Dermot’s gone. That leaves only you.”
“That’s right. Just me left to cross off your list.” Mal jerks his head. “Start walking.”
Finn hesitates, but when Mal aims the gun at me again, he moves to the door. We shuffle past him awkwardly, Finn with one arm around my shoulders, hugging me tight against him protectively. Mal stays close and the gun never wavers.
“I should’ve known from the start,” he says quietly as we walk down the stairs. “Who else had the access and the motive? Poor little Caroline. Always crying because her big brothers were so mean to her. And look at you, Finn Whelan, still as pathetic and weak as ever. What kind of man holds on to a childhood grudge like this?”
I cling tighter to him. Finn’s body is a coiled spring ready to break. “Leave her out of this,” he says through his teeth. “She didn’t do anything. I’m the one that put her up to it. Without me—”
But he gets cut off as we approach the elevators. The doors slide open and my father’s standing there waiting.
He raises his gun.
“Enough of that,” he says very calmly. “The only reason you’re both still alive is you’re more valuable to me breathing. So what we’re going to do is we’re going to go down through that lobby, and the doorman’s going to ignore us. He’s smart and he likes getting paid. Then we’ll drive back to my office, and we’ll hash this out together. Do you understand?”
I’m trembling with terror. That sounds like being buried alive. My knees go weak and I want to scream. I know what happens to me in that office when I disobey.
But Finn speaks up. “We’ll go. No more fighting. Just don’t hurt Caroline.”
“Smart man.”
Dad’s smile is wicked and proud. He jerks the gun. “Step inside. Let’s go straighten this out.”
38
CAROLINE
Mom’s body is covered with a bloody sheet. She’s lying in the corner like a piece of furniture. The room is still a horrible mess and it’s starting to smell bad. Dad stands behind his desk, opens a bottle of whiskey, and drinks straight from the neck.
This is all wrong. This can’t be happening. I’m so scared I could scream, and the only thing keeping me from collapsing into a blubbering, horrified mess is Finn. He seems totally at ease like he’s sure this is going to work out, but I can’t see it. I don’t know how. There’s no way this ends anywhere but a coffin for both of us.
And the part I hate the most is Dad and Mal will get away with it.
That’s the fucked-up thing in all this. Men like them are protected by their power. The people who can stop them are usually too invested in their schemes to really do anything. It’s a sick, fucked-up cycle, where abusive monsters continue preying on innocents and everyone enables them by turning a blind eye. Profit’s more important than anything else. With us dead, Declan will find a way to make peace, and maybe Cormac and Seamus will be unhappy about it, but they’ll fall in line too. Why rock the boat? Why make a scene?
That’s always been my life. No matter what, evil prevails, because evil isn’t always a blood-covered room and a murdered woman. Sometimes evil is a brother pretending to be pragmatic, or a lazy cop too tired to follow a lead, or a bunch of scared nobodies pretending like nothing’s wrong. Evil is the car that refuses to pull over when there’s a bad accident right next to them. Evil is doing nothing. Evil is so damn easy, and that’s the problem.
Dad wipes his lips. He looks over at Mom’s shrouded body and sighs.
“Your mother was a good woman. She understood her place. She didn’t always love the choices I made, but she knew the family was more important than any one individual. Your mother was strong.”
“My mom was a psychologically damaged abuse victim who couldn’t admit the truth staring her in the face.”
Dad’s face twitches. “You’re wrong. My wife was a good woman. I’m going to miss her deeply, but this is what happens when you raise strong boys. Things sometimes break.”
“Everything around you breaks.” I don’t know why I’m talking. I learned the hard way many, many times to keep my mouth shut, but I’m done. We’re at the end anyway. I might as well stand up to him now in this place under the shadow of my husband with my dead mother’s corpse still cooling nearby.