Redeemed (The Dark Redemption Series Book 2) (10 page)

Panic fills me when I realize that I haven’t heard any response from Jim.

Fuck.

I’m torn, not knowing whether I should storm into the bedroom to catch the man off guard or try to sneak up and find a shot to take without him seeing me. The problem is, he could have a gun to Paula’s head and pull it before I line up my shot.

“Come on, let’s go get the purse,” the man says, making the decision for me, so I try to find somewhere to hide. I dive soundlessly behind the kitchen island, getting out of view just as his voice enters the room. “Hurry up!”

“I-I can’t move any faster,” Paula replies in a sob, and my chest caves in. She doesn’t need this shit, and it’s all my fault for bringing them into my mess.

Peeking around the wooden barrier, I try and take aim, but even as good of a shot as I am, it’s too risky with her and the man’s close proximity, and I’m not familiar enough with the accuracy of this piece of shit pawn shop gun. I should’ve grabbed my Vanquish sniper rifle from my bike, and am seriously regretting not having it now. But it’s not exactly something I could carry around in my back pocket.

From the glow of a lamp, I can tell that the man’s holding a gun against Paula’s temple and has his arm around her chest. If I could get some separation between them, I might be able to get a shot. Despite wanting to charge at him, all I can do is wait and hope for the best. Maybe he’ll take her purse and leave without hurting her. It’s the best I can pray for right now.

I hear the closet door near the entry way open, and then Paula says, “Here. Take the whole thing. It’s all in there. Just…please go.”

“Maybe I’ll stick around, see if your husband wants to lie to me or tell me where the fuck Brede is when he wakes up. And if he doesn’t talk, I may have to kill him.”

Shit. He must’ve knocked Jim unconscious, probably by pistol-whipping him.

“We haven’t seen him,” Paula tries to lie to protect me again, ripping me apart.

“Well, what do we have here?” the man asks, suddenly sounding upbeat which can’t be good. “That van wasn’t out front when I got here, now was it?”

Goddamn…motherfuck…son of a
bitch
!

I know better than to leave a vehicle in plain sight, but I was panicking, assuming the worst and needing to hurry up and get inside. It was a stupid fucking oversight, and it might end up killing all of us.

“Come on out, and I’ll let her go!” the gunman shouts. “Hands up and weapon down or I will blow her head off right now.”

Fuck.

What choice do I have? I can’t let him hurt Paula, who’s already sick and dying. This is the last damn thing she and Jim need.

I also know that as soon as I leave my cover, I’m as good as dead. My life over and done in a matter of seconds. I’ll never see my brother or dad again. There’s no future with Blair.

Rubbing my fingertips over my front jean pocket, I feel the crinkle of the foil pill wrapper, the one that symbolizes Blair’s choice to start a family with me. I made her a promise that I wasn’t going anywhere, that I wouldn’t leave her. 

But what kind of future could I have if I have to live with the guilt knowing I’m the reason something awful happened to the good, innocent people who were there for me when no one else was? Besides, if I hide like a coward, he’ll kill her and then likely shoot me fatally before I take him down anyway. This is a fucking no-win situation if there ever was one. I hate it so damn much, but I deserve nothing less. God’s finally decided to punish me for taking so many lives. What better way than to give me a sweet taste of heaven with Blair before ripping it away? Aden will get Dad out of prison and take care of her for me, maybe even give her a better life than I ever could. She’ll eventually help him overcome the demons of his past so they can be happy together. Knowing everything will be okay for those I love, there’s only one thing left for me to do.

Sliding my gun across the floor so he can see it, I slowly stand up behind the kitchen island with my hands in the air above my head.

“I’ll be damned,” the man says. “Oh, how the mighty
Azrael
has fallen.”

“Here I am, so let her go back into the bedroom. I just pulled up, she didn’t know I was even in town,” I tell him. Assessing my surroundings, there’s only one thing going for me right now, and that’s the dim lighting. Hopefully, this asshole won’t try to shoot me across the room in front of Paula. The poor woman is already trembling; and if she sees him do that, she’ll probably have a heart attack. If he lets her get safely back to the bedroom, maybe he’ll miss his shot, and I can lunge for the gun…

“Fine. Once you’re dead, I’ll let her go, take the purse and leave.”

“No,” I say when Paula sobs. “Please. Not in front of her.”

“Don’t do this, Brede,” Paula pleads with me, and I can’t even look at her I’m so ashamed of myself. She and Jim have been nothing but kind and loving to me, and
this
is how I repay them.

“I’m so damn sorry I dragged you into this,” I tell her while keeping my eyes on the tall, lanky man and his gun.

He considers my appeal for a moment before he finally exhales and pushes Paula so hard that she stumbles forward. “She’s got five seconds to get to the bedroom,” he says before he starts counting. “Five…four…three…”

Boom! Boom! Boom!

Gunfire erupts, and it takes me a confused moment to figure out where it’s coming from.

Over to my left, Jim’s holding his rifle, pointing it at the gunman, who’s rapidly firing back.

Goddamn it!

“Paula, get down!” I shout as I take cover behind the island. There’s nothing I can do now but get caught in the middle of the gunfire. Everything’s gone to fucking hell!

Oh God.

As soon as I hear Paula’s scream of anguish, I know Jim’s been shot. Easing forward on my elbows, I grab my gun and pray for the best when I finally rise to try and make sense of the scene.

No, no, no.

Jim….he’s lying flat on his back, staring motionless at the ceiling, the smell of gunpowder and the coppery scent of blood heavy in the air. A few feet away, Paula is face down on the carpet, her unmoving, outstretched arm reaching toward her husband.

My eyes shut tight, praying that this is all just a horrible nightmare. That I’ll wake up in bed with Blair and none of this will be real. But when I blink my moisture-filled eyes open again, I see the same godawful scene.

They’re gone.

The two people who loved me when I didn’t have any family or friends. When I constantly screwed up and said hateful things to them, they still cared for me. And now they’re dead because of me.

Getting to my feet takes my shaking legs two tries. As soon as I’m up, I grab the kitchen phone and dial 9-1-1. My ears are still ringing from the shots or from shock, I dunno which, but I can’t hear anything and it feels like everything is happening in slow motion. I say the address into the phone several times, asking for two ambulances for shooting victims, hoping someone heard me before I drop the phone.

I’m afraid to turn around, to see it was all real, but I need to know if they can be saved…

I go to Jim first, and seeing the multiple wounds is too much. There’s no point in feeling for a pulse in him or Paula as I kneel down next to her frail, lifeless body. Rage bubbles up inside me and erupts like a volcano. While I want to hate myself, right now I hate the bastard who shot them a little more.

Desperately needing something to distract me from the pain, something to avenge the truth that’s lying on the floor, I take off out the front door and climb into the van that I left at the curb and flip on the headlights. The asshole only has a few minutes head start, and if I had to guess by the trail of blood on the sidewalk and pavement, Jim hit him at least once, injuring him, so hopefully I can find him before he gets back to his vehicle or steals another one.

I floor the gas pedal down the street, the dark blood trail leading the way until I catch up to the son of a bitch. Looking over his shoulder, he sees me and tries to move faster up on the curb on the right through one of the neighbor’s yards, dragging his lame, injured leg behind him.

Jerking the wheel in his direction, I bounce the van up onto the yard, chasing after him until I mow his ass down from behind with the front fender. As soon as I hit him, I throw the gear shift into park and get out, hoping he’s still alive because I want to hurt him a little more.

Sure enough, I find him groaning as he tries to crawl away, toward his gun that was knocked out of his hand. I walk around and pick up the gun, pocketing it before I grab the back of his shirt and drag him out from underneath the van.

My fist hauls back and then nails him in the face over and over again until there’s nothing but bloody flesh. Knowing he’s good and unconscious for now, I drag him through the grass and lift the trunk to throw him inside. Soon he’s gonna be number fifty-two, but first I want answers. Digging through his pockets, I find his cellphone that thankfully is still in working condition.

Hearing the familiar shriek of sirens in the distance, the real world slams back into focus, reminding me of the nightmare I left behind. Smothering down those painful emotions and pretending it didn’t happen is easier than trying to deal with the truth, so I shut and lock the cargo area and then climb inside the van to drive away.

Blair

“He should’ve been back by now. Or called,” I tell Aden as I pace in front of the television he’s pretending to watch in the hotel living room. “Can we please go now?”

It’s seven a.m. and Brede’s been gone for eight hours. Eight. Fucking. Hours. “Something’s wrong,” I say. Again. Looking down at Roger’s phone that’s about to die, I check to see if there are any new messages. None. And we’re gonna need a phone charger soon.

“Brede said to stay,” Aden replies coolly. “So sit your ass down and stay.”

“I’m not a dog!” I exclaim indignantly. Aden is in just as shitty a mood as I am, based on the way he’s been mumbling to himself and chomping on his fingernails. “Okay. Fine. I’ll stay here if you’ll go to the house and check on everyone.”

“No.”

“Fuck this,” I mutter before I start for the door. I only get halfway there before my feet come off the floor, and then Aden’s hauling me back to the sofa where he throws me down and practically sits on top of me.

“You know I’m just as worried, but here you’re safe, which is what Brede wanted.”

“What if
he’s
not safe?” I ask, trying to squirm free of his grip.

“We don’t have a car, so we would have to steal one in broad daylight again, which is risky. I’m low on money, so that rules out a cab or an Uber. So, we’ll sit and wait.”

“Dammit!”

“You sure do swear a lot for a girl who didn’t talk a few days ago,” Aden mutters, finally letting go of my arms and putting some space between us.

“I’ve got years of curses built up,” I tell him. “And I think this situation calls for a few swear words.”

“If I take you out, and something happens to you, Brede would lose his shit,” he tells me.

“Ugh!” I groan before jumping up and walking back toward the curtain to peek out the window. The street below looks calm and quiet, nothing like the complete and utter turmoil I currently feel inside.

“Stop worrying, Brede can take care of himself. He’s a murderer, or did you forget that unpleasant little tidbit about him?” Aden asks.

“He only kills horrible people,” I tell him. Rejoining him on the sofa, I fold one of my legs underneath me so that I can sit facing him straight on. “You know, men who hurt and kill innocent people? Bad guys.” Aden stares blankly at me. “What? You really think he’s a heartless killer?”

“He was gonna kill you,” he points out, sounding skeptical of his brother’s morality.  

“That’s because he needed the money for Paula. Besides, he couldn’t go through with it.”

“Look, he’s my brother, and I’ll love him through thick and thin, no matter what kind of monster he is. God knows, I’m one too.”

“No, you’re not. Neither of you is a monster. You’re good and decent men, just like your father.”

“Now
that
we can agree on,” Aden replies with a nod. “Our dad is as honest and decent as they come, and look where that got him.”

  “We’re gonna get him out,” I promise.

“I know we are. So while we’re waiting on Brede, let’s be productive,” Aden suggests. “Wanna do your interview?”

“What? Like right now?” I ask him.

“Sure, I’ll record you on my phone.”

“Okay,” I reply before I take a deep breath to try and relax. There’s no way to avoid the shitty memories this will dredge up, but it needs to be done. Hopefully I’ll feel less guilty afterward, laying it all out there, officially.

Aden pulls out his phone and taps a few buttons before he asks, “Ready?”

“Yeah,” I tell him with a nod, smoothing my hair behind each ear.

“All right. Start by saying your name, and then tell me everything that happened from the beginning.”

“My name is Blair Elizabeth Lockhart. My mother was Valerie Lockhart, and my father is Trevor Lockhart.” Aden nods when I pause, so I continue on. “On the day she was killed, my mother had been out with Ben Rawls on his motorcycle,” I smile at the memory of seeing them so happy together in that brief moment. “They loved each other. After Ben had dropped her off, my mother told me that she was going to pack our things because it would be the last night we spent there at the house with my father. She said we were moving in with Ben and that I would have two brothers.” Aden smiles sadly at that and then gestures with his hand for me to keep going. “Later that night when my mother was making dinner, my father came home. He was always angry at her, but that night he was upset because dinner wasn’t ready. He wanted to know what she had been doing all day. I…I stupidly mentioned that my mom got to ride on a motorcycle. I had no idea the consequences of those words at the time, and I regret saying them. That’s what set everything else into motion.” I pause to take a deep breath and try to blink away the tears. “My father called her a slut. She told him we were leaving, and he got even more upset and slapped her. He told her she wasn’t going to leave him. My father then grabbed a knife, one of the big ones from the block on the kitchen counter and chased her before holding it to my mother’s neck. She…she pleaded with him, begged him not to hurt her. I think she was telling him she was pregnant. He said he knew it wasn’t his, and then he…he plunged the knife into her stomach. But he didn’t stop there.” In my mind, I can still hear her screaming in terror, and I try to shake it off so that I can keep going. “He stabbed her with the knife over and over again until she collapsed to the floor in a pool of blood, her eyes still open.”

“She was dead?” Aden asked.

I nod as tears race down both my cheeks. “I kept hearing screams, so I thought she wasn’t…but they were my screams until my father shook me and yelled at me to shut up. He had her blood all over his shirt and hands. To make me stop screaming, he slapped me and put the bloody knife to my throat, threatening to hurt me with it like he hurt her. Once I stopped, he told me to take my dress off that had blood on it, and to hide it in my dollhouse. So, I ran to my room and changed, hiding it as he told me. Then I hid in the closet, terrified of what he was gonna do.”

“And the blue dress we found the other day in your dollhouse was the same one?” he asks.

“Yes.”

“What happened from there?” Aden prompts.

“A few minutes later, he opened the closet door dressed in a clean suit. He told me the police were coming and that I had to tell them it was Ben and to not say a word about anything else that happened. That I should say Ben attacked her after an argument before he came home from work and found her lying there.”

“So, is that what you did?”

“No, I was too scared to talk to the policemen. They took me to see a woman they said was a doctor, and she kept asking me questions. I was crying and too upset to say anything. She asked me if I could write it down so I wrote one word, Ben’s name, but I couldn’t write anymore.”

“So you never actually told them what happened, the truth or the lie?” Aden asks.

“No. I never said another word after that. I stopped eating and drinking. I never slept either because of the nightmares. They put me in the hospital, and I remember having an IV in my arm. After that, I started sleeping all the time. And before I knew it, years had passed. My father never visited, not that I wanted to see him. But no one came to see me. Only doctors and nurses. Eventually, they stopped talking to me, trying to get me to communicate with them.”

“And you’ve been locked away in a mental institute since you were eight?”

“Yes. They thought I was suicidal because I wouldn’t eat, so even after I turned eighteen, they refused to release me because I couldn’t verbally tell them that I wouldn’t try to kill myself.”

Aden presses a button on his phone and then sets it down before reaching out and folding me in his arms when I fall apart. I want to hug him back, but I can’t because he can’t stand to be touched. So I keep my hands in my lap, and that makes me cry even harder.

“I’m sorry,” I tell him through the tears that fall steadily onto his t-shirt covered chest.

“It’s not your fault,” he says, his hand stroking over the back of my hair. “The three of us were all victims of our parents’ decisions. They decided to have an affair. And no, your mother didn’t deserve to die for it, and my dad didn’t deserve a life prison sentence, but all of that rests solely on your father’s shoulders. Not yours.”

I think I’m finally starting to realize that and let go of some of the guilt, especially after remembering more of the conversation and what happened the day everything went to hell. The words my mother said about being pregnant. Sure, my words may have instigated everything, but she had planned on telling my father she was leaving him. It would’ve likely had the same outcome, only she would’ve probably waited until I went to bed to break the news to him. Either way, my father would have been angry. He was
always
angry. Despite how my mother broke the news to him, he would’ve probably killed her before letting her leave him. And because of that single decision on his part, I was locked away for ten years, Aden was abused by his foster parents, and Brede became a trained killer probably because he thought his father was a murderer. But now, the three of us can begin to live our lives, knowing the truth. And hopefully, Ben Rawls will be released from prison soon and reunited with his sons to start making up for lost time.

“I’m sorry for how I treated you,” Aden says. “Yes, I was angry at you, but that anger should’ve been directed at your father. It’s just…there are lots of victims that refuse to say the words needed to convict the bad guys. In the case against my foster father, I told them everything he did, but my foster brother and sister held back. I get that they were afraid or ashamed to admit what happened to them, but because of their silence, they protected him, even though it was inadvertently to protect themselves. He’ll be released from prison in just a few years.”

“God, that’s horrible, Aden,” I tell him. “It’s not easy to open up, and we have a long road ahead when it comes time for me to do it in court, but I’m strong enough to do that now, thanks to you and Brede…”

“You don’t have to be nice and throw me in there,” he says as he pulls back and releases me from his embrace. “It’s Brede who’s saved you and cares about you. I was angry at you and just using you.”

“I deserve it for what you went through. But don’t give up, Aden. You should be cared for and loved, and now your family is going to be reunited. It won’t be easy, but you can overcome all the horrible things done to you. Keep putting away bad guys. That helps, right?” I ask him.

“Yes, but I don’t know if I can ever let anyone touch me again. Not for the reason you may think,” he says when I open my mouth to counter that statement. “I know you wouldn’t hurt me. That’s not the real problem. Honestly, I just don’t feel like I’m worthy of your touch or anyone else’s. I’m disgusting, Blair.”

“No, you’re not. Those things, whatever they did were not your fault just like my father’s actions weren’t mine,” I say.

“You don’t understand,” he replies with a shake of his head. “When I was finally able to run away, it wasn’t easy, and I didn’t have anything but the clothes I was wearing.”

“I didn’t either,” I remind him.

“Well, I’m not proud of the things I did those first few weeks.”

“Hell, Aden. Neither am I. I went into an old woman’s house and stole money from her purse and took her car. Do you know how horrible I felt about that?” I ask.

He frowns at me before he responds. “That’s nothing compared to what I did, baby girl.”

“Oh,” I mutter. “But we both just did what we had to do to survive. There’s nothing wrong with that.”

“Yeah, there is. The things I did…those are the decisions
I
made. No one made them for me.”

“It can’t be that bad,” I tell him, wishing I could reach for his hand or stroke his arm to comfort him.

“Oh, but it is. And if you knew, you would regret ever letting me touch you.”

“No, I wouldn’t,” I tell him. “I liked how you touched me, how you restrained me. That was hot, Aden.”

“It won’t happen again,” he says.

“You mean, you don’t want to…be with me?” I ask in confusion.

“Not anymore. I took what I wanted from you the other night. And that morning in the hotel room, when you were on your knees? That helped remind me of everything I’ve tried to forget.”

“So you just wanted my virginity?” I ask, my cheeks warming with embarrassment that I gave that to him instead of Brede. And now he’s telling me that’s the only reason he ever touched me. To take, not to give.

“I’m sorry, Blair. I really am. But I’m also fucked up in the head more than you know.” He scrubs his palm over his face. “I wanted to take you before Brede because I was angry at you and envious of him, and virgins are a fetish to me. That’s all I want, to be the person who a girl never forgets. She won’t be able to forget her first time, just like I’ll never forget mine.”

“Wow,” I mutter as his harsh words filter into my head.

“I wish I wanted more from you. And the thought of your lips around my cock does get me hard, but I can’t…I don’t want anything like that from you again.”

My stomach flips at the realization that I mean absolutely nothing to him. Right now, I could be pregnant with
his
baby, not Brede’s because I thought he cared about me, that he wanted more with me. I was so wrong. And while part of me is relieved that he doesn’t want a physical relationship with me…the other part of me is devastated.