Black Listed Page 21

  “Kidnap is such a messy word. Besides, when we took you home with us, your parents were already dead.”

  Tears slipped down her cheeks. “How did they die?”

  “They weren’t supposed to have been home. Had some charity event in Milan, and the three of you were supposed to leave on the private jet a couple hours earlier. They came home because you were sick and found me and your mom cleaning out their safe. Mom was their maid for a couple of months, while she scouted out the house.”

  Conning wasn’t in her blood, because she’d never shared DNA with any of the Hunts.

  Her real parents had cared about her. Loved her. She would’ve lived a completely different life if they hadn’t died. Instead of a trailer, she would’ve grown up in a mansion. She might have gone to college. Would’ve had friends and a real family.

  When she got out of here alive, she’d mourn the life that had been stolen from her.

  Asa’s comment about him not being her brother now made sense. “Asa knew, didn’t he?”

  Her father began pacing the floor, pulling at his hair. “ ’Course he knew. That boy knew everything. Too much. He thought he was so much smarter than me, but look who’s smarter now? He always took what was mine.” When he turned his gaze on her, she saw that his eyes had changed. One pupil was so large, it practically eclipsed the brown iris, while the other pupil had shrunk to a pinpoint. “He took you from me. He was in love with you. In love with his own mother. Disgusting. Why did you do it, Helen?”

  In love with his own mother?

  Eyeing the door, she popped up from her chair. Gun or not in his hand, she had to get out of there. “I’m not Mom. I’m not Helen. I’m Annaliese.”

  He grabbed her by the shoulders and shook her. “Don’t lie to me, bitch! I can’t believe you cheated on me after everything I did for you!” His hand flew at her cheek with a loud smack. “You’re disgusting. Letting that boy touch you like I touch you.”

  She was confused. Who was he seeing as he spoke to her? Did he really believe she was her mother?

  “What boy?” she asked, taking a step backward to get closer to the door.

  Her question only worked to anger him, his body vibrating with immense fury. He shook her even harder. “What boy? You know what boy! I caught you with him. I caught you with Asa. Did you think I wouldn’t find out?” He suddenly released her, and she toppled to the floor. He stood over her body, the gun aimed directly at her heart. “What were your plans, hmm? Were you and he going to kill me as I slept? I couldn’t allow that to happen. That’s why I had to do it.”

  “What did you do?” she whispered, dreading the answer.

  “I didn’t want to do it. I just didn’t want you to leave me.” He lowered himself to the ground, straddling her. He slid the barrel of the gun from between her breasts up to the middle of her forehead. “A shot through the brain, and it would all be over. But there was so much blood. So much blood. And you weren’t dead. You begged me to call an ambulance. I made you promise you’d never leave me. But you lied. And I couldn’t take you with me. I had to leave you all alone.”

  She trembled violently. “Oh my God. You killed Mom.”

  His face dipped down and hovered over hers. “I didn’t want to, but the voices made me. They told me if I killed you, I’d never lose you. But they’ve gotten louder and louder. They never shut up. And they were wrong. You left me. Asa knew he done me wrong. Thou shalt not covet another man’s wife.”

  “How long had they been . . . ?” She couldn’t bring herself to say the words.

  He frowned and got to his feet, as if he wasn’t sure how he’d gotten on the ground in the first place. “Not sure. How long had he been her favorite?”

  As long as she could remember.

  She noticed he’d said “her” and not “you.” He knew she was Annaliese.

  “Did anything happen between Mom and Mitch?” she asked, sick to her stomach. Wobbling, she got to her feet.

  Her dad tipped his head as he thought about it. “I don’t think so. Tell you the truth, I never asked. He was such an angry child. And he turned into an angry man. He didn’t know how to take his beatings like you did.” He shook his finger at her. “I know that husband of yours is into that BDSM shit, so I’m assuming you are, too. Guess you liked what I did to you, huh? Maybe I should’ve locked you up in a dark closet without food or water for a couple of days to teach you a lesson. That’s what my daddy did to me. Believe me, once you sit in your own shit and urine for days on end, starving and thirsty as hell, you learn not to piss off the old man.”

  She rested up against the wall, using it for support, and slowly inched toward the door. “What happens between my husband and me is none of your business. But just because someone enjoys the pain aspect of BDSM doesn’t mean she enjoyed getting hit and kicked by her father. There’s a world of difference between the two. My husband has never harmed me and has always respected my limits. You broke my ribs. You beat me out of anger. Don’t ever confuse yourself with my husband. He’s the greatest man I’ve ever known. I love him. But I hate you.”

  He suddenly began smashing the butt of the gun into his head over and over until blood dripped down the side of his face. “It’s time for us to be together, Helen. Asa is gone. Mitch is gone. There’s nothing left for us here in this world. But we can be together in the next. This time, I won’t chicken out. I’m going to kill myself too. This time, we’ll go at the same time.”

  “I’m not Helen,” she shouted. “I’m your daughter, Annaliese. And I don’t want to die.”

  She ran toward the door, praying he wouldn’t shoot her in the back. Her fingers covered the doorknob and pulled, but nothing happened. She’d forgotten Asa had locked it. Her shaky fingers attempted to turn the lock.

  “I wouldn’t open the door if I were you,” he warned. “It’s connected to the bomb I built. It started counting down the minute Asa closed the door. We’ve got about ten minutes left before it goes off, but if you want to go sooner, feel free to trigger it. I’m good either way.”

  She jumped back and confirmed a thin black wire was wound around the doorknob. Her gaze followed along the length of the wire until it came to a metal briefcase in the far corner of the room.

  “Don’t believe me?” he asked in a singsong voice. “Check the suitcase, but be very gentle when you open it. You wouldn’t want it to accidentally go off. You thought you married a no-good idiot, but could an idiot build a bomb strong enough to take out this room? Would an idiot know how to wire the door so that no one could go in and out? It’s time for you to admit you underestimated me, Helen.”

  She believed him about the bomb, and there was no way she was going anywhere near it. “Fine. I underestimated you,” she said, not wasting her time convincing him she wasn’t Helen. “Now, will you disarm the bomb and let me go?”

  He covered his ears. “I want to, but the voices, they won’t let me. They’re getting louder and louder. Shut up, shut up, shut up!”

  What voices?

  “What’s wrong with you?” she asked, hoping he could hear her.

  He took his hands off his ears. “The doctors say I have a brain tumor, but they’re wrong. The voices show up on the MRI as a mass, and radiologists think it’s cancer, see? I’m dying. Dying. Dying. Dying.” He smiled at her. “But now, I get to die with you, so it has all turned out right in the end.”

  She was running out of time. Even if he arrived before the bomb went off, there was nothing Sawyer could do to save her. She was on her own.

  She didn’t want to die, but she acknowledged her chances of getting out of this were slim to none. Still, she had to try.

  She collapsed to her knees, playing the role of a lifetime. Playing Helen. “I loved you once.”

  “Yeah. There were good times, weren’t there?” He was lost in the memories, oblivious to her crawling across the floor toward her brothers. “Before things got so complicated, and it was just you and me against the world? Do you thin
k you could love me again, Helen? Could we go back to the way it was from the beginning?”

  “Yes,” she said nodding, making her way to Asa. “But you first have to keep that bomb from exploding.”

  “I can’t. The timer is running through an Internet app. If anyone tries to disarm it, it’ll go off. The only way to halt it is by stopping the timer from counting down.”

  “So do that!”

  “Need a computer for that,” he said, regret in his voice, as if he would’ve stopped the timer if he could. “It’s our time to go, honey. Just accept it.”

  Her brothers’ blood stained her knees as she crept between them and snatched the gun from Asa’s hand. She angled her body toward her father and rose from the floor. “I can’t. I’m sorry.” She released the safety and pressed the trigger.

  The gun went off, jerking in her hands and knocking her backward.

  She did it again.

  And again.

  And again.

  Until there were no bullets left to shoot.

  At least two of the bullets hit him, blood splattering on her desk as he fell to the floor. She tossed her gun aside and calmly walked over to him, first kicking him with her foot to test his reaction and then removing his gun from his hand in case he wasn’t dead.

  Her clothes and hands were covered in blood. Her family’s blood.

  She shook her head.

  No, these men weren’t her family.

  She would never think of them as her family again.

  Pounding shook the door. “Annaliese! What’s going on in there? I heard gunshots.”

  Sawyer.

  The pounding got louder. “Why is the door locked? Open it right now!”

  She ran over to the door. “Sawyer! Stop! It’s wired to a bomb that will go off if the door opens.”

  “Thank God you’re alive,” he said. “When I heard the gunshots I thought . . . I’ll call the bomb squad.”

  “They won’t get here in time.” She caressed the door with her fingertips as if it were Sawyer. “I only have five minutes, and they can’t get in here anyway.”

  “Then they can tell you what to do to disarm it.”

  She sighed. “My father already told me. There’s nothing I can do. But there is something you can do.”

  “Anything,” he said, his voice cracking. “I’ll do anything.”

  “Leave.”

  There was a long silence. “I’m not going anywhere.”

  Stubborn man. She knew he’d say that.

  “I’m going to die, but you don’t have to,” she said.

  “I’m not leaving you alone.”

  “I’m not alone.” Her gaze flew to the bloody mess lying around her. “My father and my brothers are here.”

  “Let her go, you assholes,” he said in a snarl.

  She sunk to the floor. “They can’t hear you. They’re all dead. My whole family is dead. Not that they were my real family.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Never mind. It’s not important.” She sighed. “But I’ll tell you what is. I love you, Sawyer. I always have, and I always will. I didn’t want to leave you, but I had to in order to keep you safe. But now my father and brothers are dead, and they can’t hurt you anymore. I’ve spent the last four years defending your life. Don’t make me die in vain. Leave. Now.”

  His voice came sure and strong from the other side of the door. “I love you, Annaliese. I never stopped. And if you go, I go. You won’t be dying in vain, because all I ever wanted was to be with you. A life without you is no life at all, so please, don’t ask me to leave you. Because that’s the one thing I’ll never do.”

  She started to cry. “Sawyer . . . I wish I could see you.”

  “Got your phone? We could Facetime.”

  She laughed through the tears. Only her husband could make her laugh when they were about to die. “No, it’s in Asa’s car. But maybe one of my brothers does.” She got up and went over to her brothers, rifling through Mitch’s pocket until her hand bumped into a cell. “Found one. What’s your number?”

  She dialed as he recited it to her. Then she returned to her spot on the floor, sitting with her back up against the door. He answered, his handsome face coming in so clear, she could see the dark circles under his eyes. “Hi.”

  “You’re beautiful,” he said softly. “Hey, there’s one thing more I want to know before we die.”

  “Anything.”

  “What’s your natural hair color?”

  She laughed again. “Blonde. I’m a natural blonde.”

  He smiled sadly. “I’m glad when I die, I get to do it while looking at you. Thank God for technology, right?”

  “Normally, I’d agree, but it’s technology that’s killing us.” How was that for irony? Technology would kill her techie husband. “The bomb can only be disarmed through shutting down the timer, and my father used some kind of app—”

  “Let me see it,” he ordered.

  “What?”

  “Let me see the bomb. Now.”

  “Okay.” She scurried over to the briefcase, holding her breath as she released the latch and opened it. She turned her phone around, giving him a good view of the bomb.

  “I’m hanging up,” he said.

  “So much for dying while looking at me,” she said to herself.

  “I can hack into the timer through my phone,” he announced from outside. “Well, through the Internet.”

  Hope burst through her. “Hurry, we only have one minute left.”

  Her heart was about to fly out of her chest as she waited to see if her brilliant husband could save their lives.

  “I picked up the signal,” he said. “Now, I . . . damn it.”

  “What?”

  “Firewall.” He cursed loudly. “Let me try this.”

  She watched as the timer counted down. “Thirty seconds!”

  “There. It’s working. I’m in.”

  “Ten seconds!” she shouted.

  Nine.

  Eight.

  Seven.

  Six.

  Five.

  Four.

  The bomb’s clock went black, and the numbers disappeared.

  “Did the timer turn off?” Sawyer asked.

  She inhaled a shaky breath. “Yes.”

  “Then I’m coming in.”

  She quickly unlocked the door and then threw it open. Sawyer swooped in, and she jumped into his arms. His lips slanted over hers, desperate and hot. She held onto him, her fingers in that hair she loved so much.

  It was finally over.

  She was free.

  Epilogue

  OUT OF BREATH, Lisa flew down the hallway, her heels clacking on the hospital floor. She still hated hospitals—nothing would ever change that—but now she had some happy memories to replace the others. As she turned the corner, smashing the box in her hand on the wall, she heard a cry.

  A baby’s cry.

  Her own eyes filled with tears when she walked into the private room and saw Danielle in bed, resting comfortably while nursing her baby. Cole sat in a chair at her bedside, joy and love shining in his eyes, eyes that would go completely blind in the next couple of years. Lisa was grateful he had the chance to witness the beauty of his wife and baby girl before that happened.

  She and Sawyer owed their friends so much. After all, it wasn’t as if she could explain away three dead bodies in her office. Logan and Cole had both called in favors from the FBI, and Kate had represented her in a plea deal. With full monetary restitution given by Sawyer to all her victims and the black list in the government’s hands, Lisa had avoided prison time.

  She no longer had to look over her shoulder.

  “She’s gorgeous,” Lisa said, smiling down at Danielle.

  “She is,” Danielle agreed. With the baby asleep, she tucked her breast into her nightgown. “Would you like to hold her?”

  “I’d love to.” She set the gift down on the foot of the bed and accepted the tiny bu
ndle from her friend.

  “Rosa Grace, meet your Aunt Lisa.”

  Although she now went by the name Annaliese Hayes, everyone other than Sawyer and the guys in Vegas called her Lisa.

  The baby’s eyes were closed, her face pinched and her pink lips pursed as if sucking even in her sleep. Wisps of dark hair covered her head. “Beautiful name.”

  “We named her after Roman and Gracie,” Danielle said weepily. “If they hadn’t been there, I don’t know what . . . ”

  “What happened?”

  “Cole was downtown at a meeting when I went into labor. It all happened so fast. One minute my water broke, and the next the baby was coming.”

  “There wasn’t time to get her to the hospital,” Cole added, dabbing at his wife’s tears with a tissue. “Gracie and Roman worked together to deliver the baby.”

  “Oh wow. When she called me, she didn’t say a thing.” Which was very strange for a woman who never stopped talking. “Where is she now?”

  “I’m not sure,” Cole said. “She and Roman followed the ambulance to the hospital, but I haven’t seen them.”

  Kate walked in with Jaxon by her side and a present in her hands. “Hmm. Maybe they’ve finally pulled their heads out of their asses.” She laughed as she came over to see the baby. “She’s so small. And she looks just like Cole.”

  Jaxon swept his thumb down Kate’s cheek. “Someday.”

  Kate nodded, a small grin on her face. “Someday.”

  Jaxon crossed the room and thumped Cole on the back. “Congratulations, Cole. You’ve got yourself a beautiful family.”

  “That I do,” Cole said, shaking Jaxon’s hand.

  “Rachel and Logan are on their way up,” Kate said. “She panicked because she hadn’t gotten you a gift yet, so they stopped in the gift shop.”

  “That’s ridiculous,” Danielle said. “I don’t need anything other than my family and friends. That’s all I ever wanted.”

  Kate’s eyes widened as she looked at the door. “That is the biggest teddy bear I’ve ever seen.”

  Lisa turned her head to see Logan march in holding a four-foot brown teddy bear. Rachel was by his side.