I raced up the drive, truck jostling like mad. I barely skidded to a stop before I was flying out the door and sprinting up the steps, banging on the door that whipped open a second later.

“Haven’t you done enough?” Mr. Marin spat, words close to a plea.

Not quite.

Because it was time for this all to end.Thirty-EightVioletI didn’t know how I made it to the library parking lot through the tears that kept fallin’. Didn’t know how I was functioning at all with the sheer, utter devastation that singed and burned and ate me alive.

My ribs feeling like they’d been cracked wide open and my heart ripped out.

I was running on adrenaline alone.

The bit of hope that my sister was comin’ home, even when I didn’t know what that was goin’ to mean. Knowing I was wholly unprepared for the things she’d been through. That I was gonna learn things that I didn’t want to know.

And then there was Daisy.

Daisy. Daisy. Daisy.

The vacancy in my chest howled with the grievance.

That outright fear.

But I just kept reminding myself this wasn’t about me. It wasn’t about me.

I fumbled out of my truck when the sedan whipped into the parking spot beside me, and I jerked open his door and slipped inside.

Unable to breathe.

Unable to see.

Knowing I had to fight for this one purpose. I could fall apart later.

“You’ve got the address?” David Jacobs asked, peering over at me.

“Yes. I think so. I talked with Mr. Baronson. He gave me the address for a P.O. box so I could attempt to contact my sister. I…I think I traced the renter of the box to a house in Lexington.”

“May I see?” he asked.

Hand shaking, I passed over my phone. He looked at the address and then was making a call with his.

“We got them,” he said. I guessed that was when his demeanor shifted from concerned P.I. to something else entirely.

When the mood whipped into something cruel.

And those three little words.

They danced and shivered and spun through my mind.

A moment held.

And then it hit me from all sides.

All at once.

A vat of ice-cold water was dumped over me.

The realization of what I’d done.

That voice.

Oh my god. That voice.

How hadn’t I made the connection?

“You shouldn’t go diggin’ up graves. You never know when you might fall in.”

I swung around to get to the door handle at the same second the locks engaged.

The car whipped out of the spot, and I fought the lock that wouldn’t give, yanking at the handle, trying to escape. “No. Let me out. Don’t do this. Oh, god. Please don’t do this.”

Despair and fear and terror.

They spiraled and curled and shackled.

Leaving me in chains.

I came to the quick, gutting realization. I’d let my despair over seeing Richard in those pictures with Lily overshadow the truth. What had been hidden in Richard’s eyes and in his cryptic words. What he’d been trying to convey.

Hot tears streamed down my face when I realized what I’d done.

The car accelerated like a bullet down the street.

And I knew I was a prisoner.

Nowhere to run. No chance of savin’ my sister.

The only thing I’d accomplished was leading the wolves to the den.

David Jacobs glanced over at me with a smug grin on his face. “You know, I thought you were going to be a complication when we first intercepted that hit that you were actively looking for Liliana Marin. Turns out you did my job for me. Maybe I should be the one paying you. I guess Richard Ramsey couldn’t help himself, could he? You are awful pretty. I’ll call that a bonus.”

He smirked a disgusting smile.

And I knew, I’d just made the biggest mistake of my life.Thirty-NineRichardSix Years Ago“I warned you that you needed to prove how much you wanted this,” the sinister voice mocked in Richard’s ear before he was met with another barrage of fists and feet. Pain splintered through his body, ribs cracking, skin tearing.

Soul shearing.

Richard climbed to his hands and knees, and blood gushed from his mouth and pooled on the floor. “Never.”

They’d tossed him at Lily and told him to “prove it”. He’d spat in Martin Jennings face.

He’d rather die.

He was pretty sure he was halfway to it.

Consciousness coming in and out. A darkness sucking him under where he’d never emerge.

A booted foot came at him with a swift kick to the stomach.

Agony bolted through his insides.

Blinding.

Vomit spilled from his mouth while Shawn laughed with the blow he’d inflicted. “Told you he wasn’t gonna be game. That he was gonna have to go.”

“I own you,” Martin Jennings leaned in to say again, “Shawn here gets it.”

Richard shook his head, trying to see through the disorder. Trying to find a way to climb out of hell. “Shawn can suck a bag of dicks,” he wheezed.

Motherfucker.

Richard knew there was something seedy about him. Knew he couldn’t be trusted.

Tags: A.L. Jackson Falling Stars Romance
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