It was then he noted the sunshine pouring through the windows. If the cops breached the property, they’d easily be able to put a red dot on him.
“Get up.” He nudged the wife’s foot. “Close all the curtains.”
The woman opened her mouth, as if she considered protesting, but shut it again.
Smart choice…
Ryan kept his eyes on her as she worked around the room. The sun wasn’t missed due to the light blasting down from the grotesque chandeliers overhead.
“Now, back on the couch. Go.” He gestured with his gun, drawing the woman back to her offspring.
What is taking so long?The FBI agent must be stalling in getting the reporters here. She was going to get them, though, right? She sounded trustworthy.
So did Aunt Teresa! You can’t trust anyone! The agent just says the things she knows you want to hear.
He pivoted, changing direction, facing the back of Edward’s head. It was tilted forward, and the man was panting with one of his hands laid over his wound.
Ryan walked around to look at him. Edward’s face was devoid of color, pale. While Ryan was no doctor, it was clear Edward wasn’t doing well.
“Gah!” he roared. This was all crumbling apart and fast. He didn’t mean to shoot anyone. It was that damn security guard’s fault, the way he’d rushed him. If he’d just stayed put…
The sounds of the boy struggling to breathe became louder. Unlike his father, he was turning slightly blue.
“Please,” the woman pleaded, while squeezing her son’s shoulder. “He needs help.”
“What’s going on? What’s happening with him?”
“What do you think?” the teen sassed.
“Don’t get smart with me.” Ryan closed the distance between them and put the gun in her face. She recoiled, and the mother shot Ryan a scathing look.
“He’s having an asthma attack and needs his inhaler,” the mother told him.
“He got through it before.”
“It’s worse this time.”
Ryan’s head swam. The gun going off was an accident, and he’d let the security guard patch Edward up, a mercy he’d extended. And now the boy was going to… “Where is it… the inhaler?”
“In his bedroom. Please, let me get it for him. He’ll die without it. Please.”
At least the woman was talking to him calmly and with measured respect. She recognized he was the one in charge here. No one else. And she knew the drill from before when he let her get the first-aid kit from the bathroom. “Fine. Go. But if you run off or try anything, know that I will kill your entire family. Do you understand?”
“I do.” The woman hopped up from the couch, and her footsteps pounded on the staircase as she climbed them to the second floor.
The remaining members of the Hanson family were staring at him. Even the boy, between desperate gasps for oxygen.
“None of you have the right to look at me like that. You kids should know that your father is a fraud. His father before him was a fraud too.”
“How dare you?” Edward hissed through clenched teeth.
Ryan rushed at him, putting their noses mere inches apart. As he looked at Edward, he wondered how in hell they could share the same blood. Edward here in his castle, surrounded by opulence, while Ryan lived in a squalid apartment and set traps for cockroaches under his kitchen sink. He worked hard, flinging drinks at the pub, barely scraping enough money together for rent.
“Leave him alone,” the girl cried out.
“I’ll leave when I’m good and ready, and it won’t be until everyone knows the truth, and I get what’s mine.”
Edward’s eyes rolled back. “Money… No surprise there. Well, you’re not… getting a single red… cent,” he said between gasps for breath.
