I plan to give every woman who’s known this man’s wrath the peace they deserve, the peace Jolie deserves. She’s my main concern.
The front door opens and slams shut. A smile tilts my lips as the last drop of whiskey falls onto my tongue. “Perfect. It’s show time.” I toss the bottle to the side, then get comfortable on the bed. Maybe I’m too relaxed. I should be ready to fight at the door and not give him the chance to fight back.
But this isn’t what this is about for him. He wants to fight me, or maybe he’s too much of a coward to face me after all these years; I’m not sure.
Things always find a way to come back around, don’t they?
“I brought my favorite girls some food,” he says from the other side of the door. “And then I want you to get into positions. You remember how to do that, don’t you, Jolie?” He chuckles darkly, and that makes me reach for the whiskey again. This time I squeeze the bottle so hard, the glass shatters in my hand and a few pieces lodge themselves in my palm. Blood trickles out, but I’ve had worse.
I grab a large shard and tuck it in my pocket.
He realizes something is wrong when he tries to open the door, but it swings open without effort. “What the fuck?” he growls and stomps inside. He hasn’t seen me yet. He’s staring at the empty bed, and he drops the bags in his hands and roars, spinning on his heels to run to search for them when his gaze finally lands on mine.
“It’s been a long time…” I pretend to search for his name. I have no idea who he is. Nothing about him looks familiar to me. He has a shaggy beard, long hair, aged skin, and bad teeth. If I did know him twenty years ago, I bet he looked a lot different. “It seems you’re a pretty difficult man to kill. Bullet in the chest, not many can live to tell the tale.”
“Where the fuck are they?”
“Like I’d tell you.” I swing my legs over the bed and stand. “This is between me and you. Let’s settle it. Tell me what I fucking did to deserve this, what these women did to deserve this.”
He pulls out a knife and points it at me. The blade is long, rusted, no doubt hardly used and has never been cleaned. I look at him closer, and alarms go off in my head, warning me that I know this man, but I don’t know how. His eyes look familiar, but it’s been too long to place them.
“You killed my wife. All these women, they were supposed to be here. They were supposed to replace her, but—”
“The death of your wife turned you into a killer.” That makes sense.
“You don’t get it, do you? You don’t see it? The connection? You don’t recognize me? You’re pathetic.”
“You’re the pathetic one. You’re killing innocent women.”
“I wanted my wife back!” he roars. “Just like you wanted yours back, but I took that from you. It sucked killing
her. She was great, your Annabeth. I should know.”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” I take a step close, and my palm closes around the glass I have in my hand.
“Well, she was my sister, after all.”
I stumble back, hitting the bed as I lose all train of thought and control of my body. “Derek?” I whisper through watery eyes. “It can’t be.”
“It is. You didn’t even know. You didn’t blink when you saw my name across the company page. List after list, you must have wondered who done it, who killed Annabeth. Maybe it was her brother, the one who fell off the face of the earth after Teresa died. You remember Teresa. She made the honey ham you loved so much at Thanksgiving.”
“Why?” I blink, staring at my former brother-in-law. “Why would you do that?”
“You deserved to know what it felt like to lose her.”
“I didn’t know!” I scream at the top of my lungs. “I didn’t know about the medical equipment. I didn’t know it was faulty. I didn’t know.”
“You should have.”
“You killed your own niece. How could you do you that to her?”
“Because Teresa died pregnant.”
“You’re a sick fuck.” I throw the piece of glass through the air, and it pierces his shoulder.
He grunts as the glass is dipped in red, and his shirt stains from the blood.
I never looked for Derek after Annabeth died. I didn’t care to. He wasn’t a good brother. He treated Annabeth like shit, so when she died, I had no reason to keep in touch with him, especially since Annabeth didn’t like him either.