The smile is wiped off her face when Charlie yanks her head back and slices a line across her right cheek. Piercing screams reverberate around the derelict barn as blood drips down her face and over her chin.
Lauder stalks forward, calmly taking the knife from Drew before he drives it straight through her crotch, embedding it in the chair. The smell of urine perforates the air and Alessandra’s painful howls are animalistic as she screams. “This is a waste of time,” Lauder says. “She’s not going to tell us anything of value.”
“Even if she does, we can’t hang around to interrogate her. We need to get the fuck out of Dodge,” Anderson adds.
“We can’t let her live,” Charlie says, releasing his hold on her hair. “She’ll go straight to the elite.”
“No,” she whimpers in between sobs. “I won’t tell them because then I’ll lose the money.”
A dark chuckle rumbles from my chest. “You’ll lose the money anyway because we’re going to steal it back.”
I nod at Drew, and he withdraws his gun.
“We can split it!” she cries. “We can work together to locate the money and share it.”
“Nice try, but I’m not buying it,” I say. “We don’t trust you or like you.”
Drew turns the safety off and readies his gun.
“He’ll come after you!” she screams. “If you kill me, he’ll take you all down.”
She must be fucking him if she is this delusional. Hamilton won’t give a shit about her, except for the inconvenience of having to recruit another lackey to replace her.
“He’s gunning for us anyway, sweetheart. One more kill won’t make a difference.” Drew tilts her head up, staring straight into her eyes. “You should count your blessings we don’t have time to prolong this. If I had my way, I’d kill you slowly over the course of a week. Bringing you to the brink, over and over again. Inflicting unimaginable pain that would have you pleading for death.” He straightens up, pointing his gun at the center of her forehead. “Enjoy your reunion with Daddy in hell.” Drew pulls the trigger, and the light instantly goes out in her eyes before her head slumps forward.
“Pity we couldn’t take her with us. I would’ve enjoyed watching you destroy her,” Charlie says, staring at her with a face devoid of emotion.
Every so often, these guys provide a glimpse into the dark malevolence hiding inside them, and I never want to find myself up against them. I know this is only the tip of the iceberg in terms of what they are capable of. No one could endure the shit they endured as kids and not be at least a little fucked in the head.
“You know what to do,” Drew tells Charlie, tucking his gun away and turning his back on Alessandra’s lifeless body. “Let’s wait in the van while Charlie burns the body.”
“That was some heavy shit back there,” Xavier says after we have both showered and changed in our motel room. “I knew Drew hated her, but I’m still a little shocked he went through with it.”
“I’m not. She was an evil bitch. She called you a faggot, and she taunted Lauder about Dani. She deserved to die.” I pack my stuff neatly in my duffel bag. Diesel suggested we take an alternate route home, and he organized new hotel rooms in Knoxville for us before he took off with his crew. It’s approximately a four-hour drive, and it won’t be pleasant; it’s almost midnight, and we’re all pretty drained. But we can’t risk hanging around.
“Do you think she was bluffing about Hamilton coming after us?” Xavier says, zipping up his bag.
I shrug, slinging my bag over my shoulder as a knock sounds on the door. “We know he’s coming for us. I’m guessing she was trying to save her ass by implying she’s important to him or she was deflecting the responsibility in his direction. Hamilton wasn’t a player until after Hearst was killed,” I remind him, opening the door to Drew.
“That’s only assumption,” Drew says, entering the room, picking up on the tail end of my statement. “For all we know, Hamilton was the one helping Atticus. Hamilton could have a lot more reasons than we know for wanting us dead.”
“Whatever the reason. We need to take him down now,” Xavier says, propping his butt against the small desk by the wall. “It’s all coming to a head. I feel it in my bones.”
“Was there a reason for your visit?” I ask Drew, checking the time on my watch. We’re not due to hit the road for ten minutes.
He nods, clearing his throat as his gaze bounces between us. “I was skimming through the photos we took in Denton’s office, and I came across something you need to see.” Pulling Charlie’s cell from the pocket of his jeans, he opens the screen and hands it to Xavier. “Zoom in on the top left.”
Xavier pulls his fingers across the screen, and his face gets paler and paler as he stares at Drew’s phone.
“What is it?” I walk to his side and snatch the phone. The screenshot is an image of the framed photos on top of the piano, and it’s zoomed in on a photograph of four men. Denton and William are in the middle with a familiar younger guy on Denton’s other side and an unfamiliar older man on the far side of Hamilton. I stare at the pic for a few seconds, but there is no mistaking his scrawny, nerdy ass. “Holy fuck. We’ve been royally played.”
“You mean I’ve been played.” Xavier’s shoulders slump as he stares with downcast eyes at the threadbare carpet.
“It gets worse,” Drew adds. “Look at the next screen.”
Xavier lifts his head, pinning troubled eyes on me as I swipe right. He stuffs his fist in his mouth at the image of Jamison and Alessandra with their arms around one another. Jamison is kissing the side of her face, and she’s smiling at the camera, looking genuinely happy. “Motherfucking asshole,” I hiss, handing the cell back to Drew. I stand in front of Xavier, placing my hand on his shoulders. “Xavier. Look at me.”
“Don’t, Sawyer.” He shoves my hand away. “Don’t try to make this better when there are no words in existence in the English language that could ever make this okay.” His Adam’s apple jumps in his throat as he lifts his face to mine. I see so many different emotions on his face, and I know he’s beating himself up for this.
I need to do something, say something, to make it better. “If this is anyone’s fault, it’s mine. I recruited him last year to help me and Lauder. I’d known him for years. He’d been interning from the time he was seventeen. I was the one who recommended him for this project.”
“Stop it, Hunt!” Xavier shouts. “You weren’t the one fucking him!” he yells. “You weren’t the one working closely beside him every day. Showing him exactly what you were doing and what you were planning to do! No wonder I couldn’t make any progress. He was watching everything I did and covering his tracks any time I got close to uncovering the truth.” Picking up a bowl on the desk, he throws it at the wall.
“Xavier.” I reach out for him, but he swats my arm away.
“Just don’t.” He grabs his bag and swipes the keys from my hand. “I’m going to wait in the car. I need a few minutes alone.”