Total pages in book: 78
Estimated words: 74670 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 373(@200wpm)___ 299(@250wpm)___ 249(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 74670 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 373(@200wpm)___ 299(@250wpm)___ 249(@300wpm)
“I didn’t lock my daughter in a basement!” he said with a mock look of horror on his face.
“No, you locked mine in one,” Mal snarled.
“The girl you saw in the bedroom isn’t Dalia,” he said, shaking his head. “Dalia is a beautiful woman and uses her beauty to control men, persuade them.”
I was done. It took only a few long strides, and I was in front of the son of a bitch with my Glock pressed between his eyes as I seethed.
“I’ve been told I can’t kill you,” I told him, then leaned down close to his ear. “But I don’t follow the fucking rules. I want your blood on my hands, you sick motherfucker. So, say one more goddamn word about Lace, call her Dalia one more time, and I will blow your brains all over this tacky-ass living room.”
“Luther,” Linc said as if he were talking to an uncontrollable child, “we agreed you wouldn’t do this.”
I let out a sadistic laugh. “I changed my mind,” I replied as I glared at the man. “I saw the basement. The cardboard she slept on. I loathe every breath you take.”
His breathing was coming in fast and short, and there was no color left in his face.
“Might be a good time to start confessing,” Thaddeus warned him.
“Okay,” he said. “It was Dalia in the room. She…” He let out a sob. “She has a severe psychiatric condition. It was diagnosed when she was younger, but she only got worse. None of the medications they tried helped. They wanted to admit her. I couldn’t have that. She was my daughter. Mine.” His eyes darted toward Mal, then quickly away. “She had a life ahead of her, one I had planned for her. But she began growing more and more uncontrollable. She would go from a catatonic state to hysterical. I hired a nurse to stay with her, but she wasn’t always able to control her. One night, she sprinted from the house.” He stopped and sobbed again. “She got on a horse and was thrown. Her head hit a large rock. I thought we were going to lose her. And we did in a way. But I believed she’d come back to us. I was just going to use Lassandra as long as it was necessary. Not let the world know what had come of my beautiful girl.”
“Lace,” I said, interrupting him. “Lace was seven when her mother drowned. Seven when you told the world that she’d drowned too.”
“Yes,” he whispered.
“WHY?!” I shouted when he didn’t say more.
“Be-because I was afraid she’d tell someone. Tell them that her mother had been having an affair. I couldn’t let her ruin her sister’s life.”
“Back away, Luther,” Linc ordered as my body twitched from the rage hammering through me. “LUTHER!”
“He’ll pay, Luther. But not yet.” Mal’s tone sounded as if he was struggling to contain his sanity.
“I’ll see you bleed out, watch the light go from your eyes, after I’ve carved you up, listened to you scream,” I told him before taking my gun from his head and lowering it as I took a step back.
“Now, what you’re going to do is tell us the story from beginning to end. All of it. Or I’m going to let Luther carry out his plan for you,” Linc said calmly.
“Dalia has been promised to Arun Al-Bahrani, and his father is a powerful man. If she—Lassandra—doesn’t marry him, he’ll seek his vengeance on me and all of you,” Alpheus warned.
One of the Louisiana boys chuckled, and I could see Forge grinning from the corner of my eye.
“Let him come on back to Southern soil, and we’ll see who seeks their vengeance,” I told him. “That’s another bastard I want to carve up.”
“I can’t pay him back the money they gave me up front for Dalia!” he cried. “I don’t have it.”
“Why did he give you money for Dalia?” Linc asked.
“Arun has a lover. A male lover. His father is against it and refuses to allow him to take over without a wife. One who comes from wealth and a family in the oil industry. One he can be proud of.”
“Luther, Mal,” Linc said, “the two of you can step outside. Watch the perimeter with the others. We will finish up in here.”
“I want to stay and hear him admit what he did,” I argued.
Linc sighed and shook his head. “We need this recorded, and we can’t have you storming into the scene, putting a gun to his head every time he says shit you can’t handle. Same goes for Mal.”
“Then I should go too,” Locke said. “If Luther hadn’t done it, I would have.”
Linc nodded. “All right. Then all three of you.”
I wanted to stay, but I also knew we needed him to talk, and his truths might be more than I could handle sanely.