Black Listed

by Shelly Bell

  “It feels different somehow,” she said as he slowly began to move inside of her. “What’s it like for you?”

  “Like being enveloped by a warm, wet cloud.” On that, he slammed fully inside her. “It’s too good. I’m not going to last long.”

  She grasped him at the nape of his neck and pulled his face down to her. “Then you better make it count.”

  He made love to her then, slow and steady, his gaze locked with hers as his cock thrust in and out of her and his hips pressed tiny circles against her clit. Their limbs entwined in a passionate embrace, they were no longer two, but one.

  And when she came in a torrent of pleasure, her pussy milking the come from his pulsing cock, she knew she’d do whatever it took to keep Sawyer safe.

  So when his eyes closed and his breathing slowed, she took her cell into the bathroom and made a phone call to ensure that happened.

  “Pick me up at the hotel,” she said when the person on the other end answered. “I’m giving you the black list.”

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  LISA LEFT A lightly snoring Sawyer in bed and waited in front of the hotel for her brother. Hopefully, she’d return before he even knew she was gone. If not, he was going to spank her ass so hard, she wouldn’t be able to sit for a week.

  She agreed that she had to get rid of that black list, but there was no way she was going to hand it over to Mitch.

  She’d considered waking Sawyer and having him go with her to her office, but honestly, she didn’t want him and Asa around each other. One or the other or both were likely to say something that could mess up her plan. And she couldn’t allow that to happen. Not if she wanted to move on with her life.

  Yes, there was always that risk that someone would recognize her or the authorities would catch up with her, but with Sawyer by her side, she’d live each day to the fullest, without regret. Thinking about having his baby, she covered her lower belly with her hand.

  Ten minutes later, she headed to her office, sitting in her brother’s rental car and drinking the iced coffee he’d brought her.

  “Are you sure you want to give me the journal?” Asa asked, drumming his fingers on the steering wheel. “If you gave it to the Feds, Mr. Moneybags could probably use his millions to get you a reduced sentence in exchange for throwing the rest of us under the bus.”

  She ignored Asa’s criticism of her husband. They were both under a lot of stress now that they knew Mitch was responsible for the threats and was after the black list. It was just as important to Asa that the journal not fall into their brother’s hands.

  “I wouldn’t do that to you. Not when you’ve worked so hard to build a better life and become a better man. Thea and your children need you.”

  He slid her a glance and smiled. “That’s what I love about you, Annie. You always take good care of me. Except, of course, when you left.”

  The accusation in his voice stung. “I regret leaving you behind, but I don’t regret leaving. I did what I had to do to keep my husband safe, and I’ll continue doing whatever I have to. I love him, Asa. Just like you’d do anything for Thea, I’d do anything for Sawyer. I won’t let Mitch hurt him.”

  He parked in the empty lot across from her office and unsnapped his seat belt. When he turned his gaze onto her, she was surprised to see the anger in it. “It’s always about Sawyer. What did he do for you that I didn’t? I was the one who held you when you had nightmares. I’m the one who bandaged you after one of Dad’s beatings. I would have done anything for you.” He took her hand and kissed the top of it. “I love you, Annie.”

  She smiled at him. “I love you too, Asa.”

  He shook his head, squeezing her hand a little too tightly. “No, Annie. You don’t understand. I’m in love with you. I want to spend the rest of my life with you.”

  Her world started spinning.

  She must have misunderstood.

  Asa couldn’t be in love with her.

  He was her brother.

  Asa continued, not noticing her abject horror. “Before you say no, just think about it. You and me together on the road, traveling wherever we want, pulling off the kind of con that would even make Dad proud. You’d never have to worry about anything ever again. I’d take care of you, and you’d take care of me. Like we used to.”

  The spinning increased, making her feel as if she was in a rowboat on a tumultuous sea. She wiped her sweaty forehead and unfastened her seat belt. “Asa, you’re my brother. I love you, but not like that. I love Sawyer. And you love Thea.”

  He rolled his eyes. “There’s no Thea.”

  Her breath stalled in her chest. “What?”

  He chuckled, shaking his head in disbelief. “You really have been out of the game too long. Couldn’t even tell when your own brother was pulling a con on you.”

  She couldn’t focus anymore, her head feeling heavy on her shoulders. The dizziness wasn’t normal. She looked down at the coffee, realizing he’d drugged her. “I don’t understand. Why would you lie?”

  He shrugged. “You understand how the game goes. Got to get the mark to trust you before you can make your move. What better way to get you to trust me than to let you think I’d changed my ways?”

  Her tongue felt thick, and her stomach churned. “So there’s no farm? No Thea?”

  “Oh, there is. I fleeced her parents good.” Laughing, he slapped his knee. “Get it? Fleeced? Like sheep?” His eyes grew hooded, a sleepy look in them. “She was a sweet thing. Real trusting. All I had to do was convince her I loved her, and she gave me everything I needed to steal her parents’ nest egg. Really was stupid of them to put all their eggs in one basket.” He laughed at his dumb joke. “I’m killing it today!”

  He was crazy. How could she have been so blind? Sawyer had seen straight through Asa’s act. He’d tried to warn her. And she’d dismissed it.

  She put her hand on the door handle, not surprised to discover it locked. But when she pressed the button to unlock it, nothing happened. Her hand clenched into a fist.

  How could she have forgotten that her brothers and her father all knew their way around cars? If they were different men, they would have ended up as mechanics or engineers, rather than criminals. “You’re not as funny as you think. Now let me out of this car.”

  “Sorry, Annie. Can’t do that. Someone’s meeting us here. Oh, and give me your phone. I don’t need you calling your lover boy to come get you.”

  She reluctantly handed over her cell and shivered with revulsion, his nickname for her tainted by his abnormal affection for her. “Someone’s meeting us here? You’re working with Mitch?”

  His expression grew cold, a darkness she would’ve never expected radiating from him. “I was before he changed our plan. Mitch will never touch you again. I made sure of it.”

  “What did you do?” she asked, her speech now slurred.

  “He wanted to teach you a lesson, and I couldn’t let him hurt you. So I put a few bullets into him. If you don’t believe me, you can see for yourself. I left the proof in your office.”

  She hated Mitch, but she never would’ve wished him dead. She had just wanted him out of her life for good.

  All this time she’d believed she and Asa had been two peas in a pod. She’d lived with the guilt of having left him behind.

  What would’ve happened if she had never left or had taken him with her? Would he have snapped then, or had the years turned him into this person she didn’t recognize?

  Sawyer had told her she wasn’t her family. That she could make her own choices and live her life her own way.

  Had Asa chosen to continue his lying and cheating ways, or had it been written in stone?

  She would never know, and at this point, she no longer cared. She couldn’t save the brother she’d once considered her best friend. He was gone. Or he may not have ever really existed.

  Right then, her only consideration was getting out of this alive and returning to Sawyer. As her head hung to her chest and her e
yes fluttered shut, she fought against the drug, knowing she couldn’t afford to pass out.

  She inhaled a huge breath and lifted her head, lasering her stare onto Asa. “You killed your own brother?”

  He scratched the back of his neck, not an ounce of remorse on his face. “What did Dad always say? Eat or be eaten. It’s survival of the fittest, and only the strong survive.” He pointed his finger at her. “That’s you and me. We’re survivors. We always have been. And now that we’re back together, nothing can stop us.”

  If he believed that, he was crazier than she’d thought. Did he really think she would leave everything behind and become his lover? Her body shuddered from her disgust.

  “I don’t want to see Mitch’s body. I want to go back to Sawyer.”

  He ignored her, rambling. “We had this plan, see. Scare you into thinking one of your old marks was after you, so you’d come home with us, where we could keep you safe. But then Sawyer showed up and got in the way. So I had to get rid of him. I was ordered not to kill him, but it’s not like I had a lot of options. I never intended on you getting hurt. You weren’t supposed to get in that car with him.”

  Sawyer had been right. Hopefully, he’d get the opportunity to tell her so. “You trashed my condo and office and tampered with the car’s brakes.”

  At that, a flash of regret entered his eyes. “I did. But I did everything because I love you. I’ve waited for you to be old enough for me for years.” He licked his lips. “And now, look at you. You’ve turned into a beautiful woman, Annie.”

  If she never heard that name again, it would be too soon. She wasn’t Annie. “My name is Annaliese Hayes,” she said with a strength she didn’t feel. But she wasn’t going to be a victim. He thought he knew her. Thought she was a girl who wouldn’t fight back against her family. Fear years, she’d done everything they’d asked of her and had allowed herself to be used as their punching bag. Well, she wasn’t that person anymore. She would fight and fight hard.

  She wouldn’t make this easy for him. “I don’t think you love me. You don’t terrorize someone you love. Besides, you’re my brother.”

  “No, I’m not.” He tried grabbing her hand, but she shook him off, flattening herself against the passenger-side door in an effort to get as far away from him as possible. “It’s time you saw me in a different light. Once you do, I swear to you, I’ll make you forget you ever considered me your brother.”

  His gaze darted toward her office, his nostrils flaring. “Get out of the car. He’s waiting for us.” He pulled a gun from under his seat and unlocked the doors. “And even though I love you, if you try anything, I will shoot you.”

  She stumbled out of the car, the drugs still making everything spin despite her trying her damn hardest to fight against it. Her legs buckled underneath her weight, but before she hit the ground, Asa caught her, his arm around her back. His gun was sideways, trained on her in case she made a wrong move.

  At this point, her best bet was to play along with him and not run. Especially since she wouldn’t get very far drugged like that.

  She allowed him to lead her to her office, hanging on him as he opened the door. “If you’re not working with Mitch, who are you working with?”

  He brought her inside and locked the door behind her.

  Mitch’s bullet-ridden body lay on the floor underneath her bookshelf, his chest and head bloody. She stared at him, waiting for him to show any sign of life, but he never blinked. His chest didn’t rise or fall. The blood didn’t flow from the bullet wounds.

  He was dead by his brother’s hand.

  And according to him, he’d done it for her.

  Her attention jumped to her desk. Someone was sitting in her chair, the back of it facing her, obscuring the person’s identity.

  The chair slowly spun around. “Good to see you, Annaliese.”

  She blinked, her eyes trying to make sense of what she saw.

  It had to be a mirage.

  Or a ghost.

  He couldn’t be here.

  He was supposed to be dead. Asa had said that he’d died.

  Of course he had. He’d conned her. Made her believe she was safe.

  After years of hearing and telling lies, she should’ve known better than to accept the death at face value.

  A single word escaped her mouth as she slid to her knees in shock.

  “Dad.”

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  HOW COULD SHE have been so trusting?

  Asa stood with his back up against the door, blocking the exit. “Okay, so I got her here,” he said to their father. “As you see, I made sure Mitch didn’t get the black list or her, so I’ve done my part.” He turned and waved the gun at her. “You give Dad back his black list, and we can leave together. That’s the plan.”

  Her father looked so much smaller, his muscles having wasted away and the extra weight he’d carried gone from his frame. He’d never been a tall or particularly big man, but now he was a shell of the man she’d known and feared. Somehow, he didn’t seem as intimidating. With all his wrinkles and his gray hair, he just looked old.

  But she wouldn’t make the mistake of believing the image he projected. That was one of his greatest skills. He was a chameleon who could change his skin as easily as a person could change his clothes. He’d always claimed she was just like him, comparing her to a chameleon and saying she had a reptilian sense of preservation about her.

  Pretending to be weak and frail would give him an advantage over her. She wouldn’t expect him to have the strength to overpower her. Underestimating him could get her killed.

  By the way Asa was speaking to him, she wondered if Asa believed their father’s act. She had a feeling that Asa’s plan and her father’s plan were not one and the same.

  She stared up at her dad. “I thought you were dead.”

  His smile made her skin crawl. “Aren’t you going to give your old man a kiss?”

  “No,” she said, standing with her arms crossed.

  “Where’s the black list, Annie?” Asa asked. “Just give it to him, and he’ll let us go. That’s all he wants. I searched everywhere for it.” When she didn’t answer, he began to shout. “Where’d you hide it? You said it was here.”

  Her father pushed back from the desk and stood, holding a gun by his side. He turned toward Asa. “Fool. I don’t give a shit about that black list. It’s useless to me now. Just like you’ve been useless your entire life. You thought you were so cunning, manipulating your mother into loving you best. You stole her from me, and now you want to steal her again.” He pointed his gun at Asa. “I’ve been waiting years to do this.”

  Her brother didn’t have time to react before the bullet pierced his brain right between his eyes.

  She screamed, her ears ringing.

  As he fell forward, the gun went off again, the bullet hitting him in the throat this time. But she doubted he’d felt it, the first bullet having been a kill shot. By the time he landed face first on the floor, he was dead.

  Still, that didn’t keep her from racing over to him. “Asa!”

  “Don’t touch that boy, you hear?” She froze to her spot, her father’s voice too powerful to resist. “He’s gone. Roasting in hell with his brother. He’ll never get his paws on you again. That I promise. I did all this to protect you. To be with you.”

  Protect her? When had he ever protected her?

  There was only one man who’d ever protected her, and she’d left him sleeping back in their hotel room.

  By now, he would’ve gotten up from his nap. He would’ve realized she was gone.

  Would he look for her? Or would he believe she’d run from him again? She had to believe he’d find her.

  What did her father want with her? Both his sons were dead at his feet. Was she about to join them?

  Her heart was racing, her ears were still ringing, and an unknown drug was making her sluggish, but she refused to give up, refused to give into the bone-chilling fear of her situati
on. Instead, she chose to trust that Sawyer would find her and she’d make it out of here alive.

  She ambled closer to her father, stopping on the other side of the desk from him and holding onto the edge in order to stay upright. “You and Mom were supposed to be the ones protecting me from the dangers of the world, rather than being the ones to throw me to the wolves. To teach me right from wrong, rather than to teach me to take whatever I wanted, consequences be damned. I was ten before I realized that stealing food from the grocery store was a crime. You warped me into someone who deserved nothing, because I didn’t learn how to appreciate the value of life. Tell me, did you ever love me? Or was I just a toy for you to train?”

  He scoffed, his face twisted into a sneer as if he smelled something rotten. “Love doesn’t pay the bills. Love doesn’t do shit for us in the world, girlie. I taught you that. I taught you to be strong. To be a survivor. Not to wither up and die when you didn’t get your way. Love? There’s no such thing. There’s lust combined with a survival instinct. You think you love Sawyer? If you had, you never would’ve taken his money and left him.”

  How dare he disparage her feelings for Sawyer. It only proved that he had no idea what love really meant.

  She slapped the desk with both hands. “You would’ve hurt him if I didn’t.”

  He pointed the gun at her face. “Hell, yes, I would’ve hurt him. I would’ve made him suffer before I killed him. He had no right to take you away from me. No right then and no right now. You belong to me.”

  “Just because I’m your daughter—”

  “You ain’t my daughter,” he said, coming around the desk to stand by her. “Not by blood, anyway. Doesn’t make you any less mine.”

  Her chest hurt as if he’d slammed a bowling ball into it. “You’re not my father? Mom—”

  “She wasn’t your mom, either.” He shrugged off the significance of his statement with a brief lift of his shoulders. “We wanted you. We took you.”

  She collapsed into the chair behind her. “Oh my God. You weren’t my parents? You kidnapped me?”