He shook Avery so hard that her teeth rattled, and her head swam. His face came into view.
Avery gasped. “Dan?”
“Damn right, it’s me. I was there all along, but you were too stupid to see. Think you’re a hotshot federal agent? You couldn’t even see the answer right in front of your face. No, you saw a man carrying coffee, not a man who could squeeze the life out of women who looked just like my dear wife—the woman who dared to leave me and take my children with her.”
“You’re a monster,” Avery said.
“I’ll show you a monster. I made a promise to my Sarah. Until death do us part. She broke that promise. Now, I’m here to see it through. She chose this path for herself and for her children when she left. She knew what would happen to them. She’d watch them die.”
He dragged her across the floor and turned her to face what appeared to be a woman, tied to a chair. Only she was nothing more than skin and bones, her eyes sunken in her bruised face.
When Avery was thrown in front of her, the woman barely flinched, her eyes glassy, distant. Almost dead inside.
Though her hair hung in limp strands, gray at the temples and peppered with gray mixed with darker strands, Avery recognized her features. High cheekbones, dark eyes, strong chin. Though older and malnourished, with evidence of abuse written in bruises and cuts across her skin, there was no mistaking that this woman was an older version of Avery and Bree.
“Sarah,” Avery breathed.
The woman’s dull eyes focused on Avery. Tears welled and slipped down her cheeks. “My sweet baby,” she whispered. “I’m sorry.”
Rage built inside Avery.
This man had terrorized this woman, reducing her to a shadow of herself, and had killed three other women to make this one watch and suffer.
“You’ll be first,” Dan said. “Sarah, pay close attention. You did this by choosing to leave me. You sentenced your babies to death. Now, you will watch them die, like you watched the others die.”
“No,” Sarah whispered.
The pain in her face triggered something primal inside Avery.
Though Dan had her arms trapped against her sides, she still had control of her feet. With all the anger and determination she could muster, she stomped down hard on the top of his foot.
“God damn bitch!” he yelled, spun her around and punched her in the belly.
The force of his heavy blow made Avery double over, the pain taking her breath away.
She remained bent at the waist, her stomach roiling, the contents threatening to rise.
How could this man be her father? He was an animal—a sick bastard who took pleasure in hurting others. Her mother had done the best she could to keep him away from her babies. Had she stayed with him and raised her girls under his vicious abuse, they might have died sooner rather than now.
Dan grabbed her hair and yanked her head back. “Prepare to die.” With a powerful yank of her hair, he flung her to the ground and straddled her, holding her arms at her sides.
“Do you know what it’s like when you can’t draw a breath, when you can’t pull air into your lungs to scream? Every time you inhale, nothing enters your lungs!”
“Fuck you,” she said and spat in his face.
“Bitch,” he cried and clamped his hands around her neck. “You think you’re smarter than me? How does that feel? Smarter?” His grip tightened, cutting off her air.
Avery clawed at his arms, desperately trying to pry his fingers from her throat. Her lungs burned with the need to fill them. Her heart raged. She couldn’t die without a fight. He’d turn on Bree and then on the mother she’d never known. The mother who had abandoned her and her twin to keep her horrible husband from hurting them. She’d sacrificed so much to keep her babies safe. Her mother had loved them enough to know the only way to save them was to give them up.
Avery would be damned if she let them die on her watch. Even as she thought to fight, gray haze clouded her vision as she went limp, darkness reaching out to consume her.
“Let her go!” a female voice sounded a second before Dan’s body shuddered with an impact and fell forward on top of Avery.
Bree had landed on Dan’s back, wrapped her legs around him and refused to let go.
Avery sucked in as much air as she could get. Dan’s big body crushed her chest, making it hard to breathe and fill her starving lungs.
A shadow flitted behind Bree. Suddenly, a dark-clad man hooked a plastic bag over Bree’s head and yanked her backward.
