by King, Asha
Elsewhere... Sawyer. And Gina and Brennen. Shit, it was the middle of the night, but she still had to warn everyone as soon as she got to a phone.
She crashed through the field outside the woods again, picking up the pace as soon as she hit relatively flat ground. All she needed was to hit a dip in the ground and twist her ankle but luck was with her as she flew toward the SUV.
The waiting vehicle was dark, just the silver light of the moon gleaming on the hood—Jeffrey must’ve turned off the engine instead of idling when her call didn’t come. Bryar pushed through the last of the tall dead grass, leapt over the ditch, and scrambled up the gravel shoulder to the passenger door.
“We need to get back to the house and call 911,” she began as she jerked the door open.
The interior light flashed on, casting a glow over Jeffrey’s corpse.
Bryar froze, her hand clamping over her mouth to cover a gasp. He was sitting in the driver’s seat still, as she’d left him, and might’ve looked alive at first glance as his eyes were still open and back was still straight. But a gaping dark hole cut through his forehead and blood splattered across the seats behind him.
Her gaze traveled from the hole in his head to the windshield, where the glass was cracked and had a similar hole. Someone out there shot him, then.
Her brain clicked off right about then, adrenaline dumping all thoughts from her brain and pushing her on autopilot. She moved without fully acknowledging the body, that it had once been a man, a person with a family, someone just doing his job—someone she’d spoken to not twenty minutes ago. She ignored that, ignored him, ducking down in the seat and fumbling around for a phone. His cell had to be on him but it wasn’t in the nearest pocket of his sport coat, which meant she had to go digging through the interior pockets next.
She tried to keep her head low, aware that someone could still be out there, as she knelt on the passenger seat. Eventually her fumbling with his coat produced a lump in one of the pockets—that had to be the phone. She pulled at the coat, frustration rising as she couldn’t locate the opening to the pocket.
The body suddenly tipped over and Bryar yelped, her heart leaping to her throat as she flew back. Jeffrey toppled against the steering wheel, hitting the horn which blew through the silence with a long steady noise that made Bryar wince.
She scrambled back, out of the vehicle, managed to kick the door shut so she was left in darkness again. With the horn blaring, it was impossible to hear anything else, and if someone wasn’t still out there watching, they would be soon with that noise.
And she still didn’t have the cell phone.
Bryar took just a few precious seconds to glance around, gain her bearings, and then she took off through the field again, this time turning right instead of going straight. She’d cut through the woods, go through the beach, and head for Sawyer’s—it was at least as close as the nearest neighbor and she wouldn’t have to waste time explaining anything. The beach house had a phone, had security, and was her safest bet.
The woods slowed her travel as she navigated in the dark, and oddly the farther she got from the SUV, the more she seemed to jump at every little sound. The horn faded in the distance leaving her with just the silence, fallen leaves crunching underfoot, and branches creaking in the wind. Soon the rough ground turned to sand, uneven and slipping beneath the treads of her sneakers. Sweat slicked her skin under her coat and her breaths panted. She was exhausted from running, adrenaline beginning to ebb, but she didn’t pause. If she did, she was afraid she wouldn’t get going again.
She stumbled along the beach, kicking up sand, not slowing until Sawyer’s rented beach house came in sight. She passed the boathouse and dock, the fence, ran straight around to the front gate. The space was empty now, all the people hanging there earlier in the night completely gone. Jesus, Mike was efficient. Either that or they convinced them Sawyer was gone, maybe, when the SUV left with her?
Bryar skidded to a halt by the intercom and hammered her finger down on the call button. She turned her face to the camera, waved. Buzzed again. The lights were still on in the house but no one answered.
Shit. Shit SHIT.
She leaned heavily on the buzzer and then faced the camera fully, waving her arms frantically. “Sawyer!”
The gate swung open.
She stood frozen for a moment and stared at the front door far ahead. It didn’t open. Maybe they didn’t want to risk it?
Bryar glanced over her shoulder at the night behind her and then ran up the interlock driveway, the wide front steps, and then pushed open the front door.
“Hello?”
She stepped inside gingerly, the tap of her feet on the tile loud in the silence. Her gaze moved up the foyer, to the upper floor railing, down the steps. No sign of anyone.
“Sawyer? Val?” Her stomach twisted as she walked into the house, leaving the front door wide open behind her. Maybe they were out back. Or packing their things? She didn’t know and she didn’t like it.
But the phone. I still need to call for help.
Her steps gaining purpose, she moved swiftly for the kitchen and plucked the phone from the wall.
It was then she caught the faint sound of music, something coming from deeper in the beach house.
Bryar frowned and started through the kitchen, clutching the phone to her chest. “Sawyer?”
No response but the music grew louder. Piano, horns, strings—classical music, something she didn’t recognize.
She started slowly down the steps to the den, her legs stiff and heart violently beating as she descended. Ice clinked against glass, the distinct sound coming from the direction of the wet bar out of view.
Bryar reached the bottom of the steps and looked around, her gaze immediately drawn to the left.
The Chinese woman standing behind the bar was tall and slender—her slimness seemed to just increase her height, but where many women with her build would seem willowy, she seemed more...solid, somehow. It was the way her shoulders were squared, the straightness of her spine. She stood perfectly still, almost a statue, but it reminded Bryar of a snake about to strike. Her silky black hair was held in a twist on her head, not a stray piece escaping its binding. Her skin was pale and flawless, making her age indeterminable—she seemed old, something in her dark, hard eyes speaking of experience, even if she could have passed for younger. She wore a black pantsuit no doubt tailored to her, fitting her with precision.
In her left hand, she held a glass with her drink. In the right, a gun, which was pointed at Bryar. “I had a feeling you’d arrive eventually.”
“The Dragon,” Bryar breathed out.
Her thick red lips curved cruelly. “Hello, Talia.”
Chapter Twelve
Val and Scott should’ve been at the hotel by now—Sawyer hadn’t checked in, but they’d call when they were settled. It seemed best to split up for the time being—his sister and brother-in-law could meet up with them later—and one of Mike’s people had driven them off as soon as their bags were packed.
Mike pulled his car up behind Gina’s bakery with Sawyer in the passenger seat. The lights were on inside, a pair of other cars in the lot out back, and Mike turned to face him. “You can stay here.”
Sawyer glanced outside. There weren’t any people, but he’d rather come in and find out what was going on. “No, I’m coming.”
The call had come from Brennen fifteen minutes ago—Bryar’s frantic aunts trying to get a hold of Gina and insisting they check the bakery because they didn’t know where Bryar was. Mike took confidentiality seriously and, first of all, didn’t want to explain anything to Brennen over the phone, and second of all wanted to ensure they were, in fact, dealing with Bryar’s aunts and not someone pretending to be them. At this point, they couldn’t be too sure.
Sawyer climbed from the vehicle and followed Mike to the door, which wasn’t locked. In the kitchen waited the man Sawyer assumed was Brennen—he hadn’t actually met him yet, but he was the onl
y guy in the room—and two middle-aged women with bits and pieces of their features similar to Bryar. Both women stood defiant with their arms crossed, their gazes going from Brennen to Mike and Sawyer.
“She’s not hiding out here,” Brennen said, his eyes tired and hair rumpled. Presumably this had gotten him out of bed. “I swear, I don’t know where she is. Or what’s going on.”
“She was on her way home to get both of you,” Sawyer filled in.
“We’ve been out looking for an hour,” one of the aunts said—he wasn’t sure who was who. “Merry was waiting for her at home and she would’ve called if she’d shown up.”
“She was with me,” Sawyer said. “Mike can fill you in on the plan—I’ll call Jeffrey and tell him to bring Bryar here instead of the hotel first, so you can see her.” He stepped back outside and paused on the porch, pulled out his cell phone and dialed.
It rang several times and went to voicemail.
Sawyer frowned and tried again. Still, voicemail.
Jeffrey would answer. He knew what was going on, knew to have his phone at the ready. Sawyer tried once more only to get the same result.
He returned to the kitchen to find one of the aunts on the store’s phone, her brows pulled tight into a frown. She said nothing for several moments and then eventually hung up. “I’m just getting a busy signal at home.”
Sawyer met Mike’s dark eyes. “My driver’s not answering.”
“Oh God, Bryar,” whispered one of the aunt’s, her hand coming up to cover her mouth as her eyes grew wide.
Shit. Sawyer looked at Mike and gestured to Bryar’s aunts. “Get them to safety first. That’s what Bryar would want.”
Mike nodded. “I’ll send someone to the Rosings’ house.”
“I’ll run back to the beach house in case she’s there. Can I take someone’s car?”
Brennen tossed him a set of keys. “Mustang out back. Can someone tell me what’s going on?”
“Give him the summary and see if Gina’s heard from Bryar, just in case,” Sawyer said.
Mike nodded and gestured at Brennen. “Come on, I’ll drop you off after I get them out of here.”
“Who are you?” one of the women asked. “What’s going on—where’s Bryar?”
But Sawyer didn’t hear the rest of their questions, his stomach in knots as he bolted from the shop and ran for the Mustang. Something was wrong—terribly wrong—and all he knew was that he had to find Bryar.
Immediately.
****
Byar eyed the gun in the woman’s hand. Though she stood right by the stairs, there was no ducking back—she wasn’t faster than a bullet. That she hadn’t been shot so far seemed a positive thing, but she knew it probably meant something much, much worse awaited her.
“Please.” The Dragon’s voice was precise and polite. “Do sit down, Talia.”
Bryar bit back a comment about how that wasn’t her name and instead slowly stepped farther into the den, never taking her eyes from the gun. One section of the L-shaped sofa would put her back to the weapon, so instead she sat on the other half so she could at least watch what was going on.
The Dragon refilled her glass and then retrieved another from the bar, pouring gin into it as well. “Although seeing your aunts sealed the deal, I honestly knew it was you the moment I saw your picture. You’re the spitting image of your mother at your age, did you know that?”
Bryar said nothing.
The woman left the gun on the bar and lifted both glasses, walked around the sofa with high heels clicking smartly on hardwood, and sat a few feet from Bryar. She set one glass down on the coffee table in front of Bryar while she sipped from the other. “You have that look of knowledge now. They’ve told you, but...” She narrowed her eyes over the rim of her glass. “Just recently, I’d imagine.”
Bryar’s pulse pounded in her ears, her heart beating so hard she expected it to pop out of her chest. She should be pleading for her life, begging for the woman to see reason, maybe, but if this had been in the works for two decades, there seemed little talking out their feelings could accomplish.
Instead she tried a different tactic. “I’m sorry about your son.”
The Dragon froze, glass poised near her lips and frosty eyes dark and dangerous. Whatever nicely crafted calm she’d put in place faltered for a moment and beneath the cracks waited a monster with teeth ready to rip out Bryar’s throat.
The sight of it, just the brief flash, made Bryar shudder.
“Your parents’ operation was small, but efficient, you know,” the woman said at last. “They were careful. Precise in what they did. They had to be in order to survive among larger organizations such as mine. And when they set fire to one of my warehouses, they could plead innocence all they wanted, but there is no way the Perraults would have engaged in such a thing without knowing the staff on duty or the extent of the damage.”
Bryar’s gut went cold. “Your son was in there.”
“They burnt Joseph alive,” she said matter-of-factly, the ice in her voice sharp enough to cut. “You know, I received a call that night. My phone rang a few times, I answered, but it was cut off. When they eventually put out the fire, they found the phone off its hook, the plastic melted from the heat. He’d dialed 911 and then me. Me. He tried to call me but whatever his last words were, I didn’t get to hear them. Whatever he wished to tell me in his final moments were lost in the fire. He was fifteen.
“What did you do for your fifteenth birthday, Talia? Did you spend it with your family? How about when you were sixteen? Joseph never reached sixteen. He never graduated high school. He’ll never marry. I’ll never have grandchildren. Fifteen.”
No matter how she tried, Bryar couldn’t reconcile the thought—that anyone, let alone the people who birthed her, would be capable of such a thing. They aren’t bad people, her aunts had insisted. As deranged as the woman before her might be, could she really hold a grudge for twenty years over a mistake?
“In our line of business, there are casualties.” The Dragon finished her drink and set it on the table. “Acceptable losses. But when you mess with family, there are consequences.”
Consequences like revenge. No, there would be no reasoning with her. No begging for her life.
“And you think being ‘sorry’ will make a difference?” The woman said the word “sorry” like it was distasteful, something awful to be spat out.
“No,” Bryar managed. “But I am. It’s just...I didn’t do anything to you, to either of you. Killing me won’t bring him back.”
The Dragon let out a short bark of laughter, throwing her head back. “I love that phrase. ‘It won’t bring him back.’ Like it never occurred to me that your death wouldn’t fix things. Like I’m some sort of idiot who believes in magic and faith and that he’ll just pop back up the moment your heart stops beating.”
“I didn’t mean—”
“Your death won’t bring him back. It won’t ease my pain. It won’t do anything but hurt your parents and that, Talia, is reason enough for me. You suffer like he suffered. They suffer like I have suffered. Balance is restored.” She leaned forward, her lips in a cruel smile. “How do you feel about burning alive?”
The dam in Bryar broke then, sudden hot tears spilling from her eyes. Fear coursed through her, making her limbs tremble. The adrenaline from earlier was wearing off, leaving her crashing hard and swiftly unraveling.
Again the woman laughed. “Oh, don’t be silly. Stefan needs to find a proper corpse so there can be no doubt as to your identity—I won’t set you on fire.”
Bryar didn’t know if she should feel relief or not, but the terror in her was real and palpable. Fuck this, she thought, swiping back the tears under her eyes. She leaned forward and grasped the drink the woman had poured her—it all came from the same bottle, it wasn’t like she’d poisoned it—and took a long drink. Liquid courage in the form of gin. Maybe it would calm her down some.
The Dragon watched her in silence, a sma
ll smile on her lips.
“Someone’s bound to come back to the house soon,” Bryar began, hoping maybe she could buy herself some time. “People are expecting to get a hold of me. They’ll show up and they won’t be alone—Sawyer will...” She blinked, hard, and licked her lips as her mouth tingled oddly. “Saw...yer...will...” She coughed and wheezed. The tingles continued and her throat grew tight, voice hoarse.
Oh God.
Her wide, terrified eyes went to The Dragon, who smiled smugly in return.
“Peanut oil adds a nice flavor, doesn’t it?”
Oh God NO.
Bryar dropped the glass, which crashed on the hardwood. Ice spilled across the floor. Already her skin was itching, tongue felt thick and mouth swelled. She fumbled around her coat, felt around, but couldn’t find her EpiPen.
Her purse. It was on the back deck still.
“Precision and care when making a move, always,” The Dragon continued as she watched Bryar flail and struggle to her feet. “Medical records in a small town are so quick and easy to obtain.”
Panic had set in, forcing Bryar to move even as her head spun. Her throat was thick and swollen, words wouldn’t come. Tears flowed freely from her eyes. She scanned the room, couldn’t remember where the phone was. She had to get to her purse.
The woman stood and rounded the coffee table, watching Bryar. “It’s not burning to death, no. But the terror you must be feeling right now—that seems equal.” She glanced at the expensive silver watch on her wrist. “Your throat is likely starting to close now. I’d give you fifteen minutes or less.”
Bryar managed to get two feet before she tumbled over, landed on the couch. The Dragon’s voice was cutting in and out, too much for her to focus on. Her heart was going mad in her chest and panic clawed up and down her insides—she managed little gasping breaths that weren’t enough. She rolled onto her back, stared up at the ceiling, body no longer obeying her and head swimming.
