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“I missed my chance to kill the monster that was my father,” came the simple reply. “Tru took that chance from me when he killed my old man. But this time it was Tru’s turn. He’s just as much of a monster as that bastard Leonard Driscoll ever was, so I went for it. I took my chance and I tried my damnedest to kill our monster, Miss Eden. For the both of us.”
Seven.
Wait.
“Tru… Wait, Leopold. You think Tru killed your father?”
“I know he did. He told me so.”
I couldn’t breathe. There was no air left in the greenhouse and again the floor threatened to vanish out from under my feet. “No, that’s not true. I… I shot your father when he lunged for me.”
Leopold’s smile was surprisingly gentle. “And weren’t you the bravest little angel to do such a thing. Thing is, you shotatmy father, but you didn’t kill anybody that night. Don’t be ridiculous.”
“But…” My mind whirled with chaos, and I could barely put a sentence together. “I remember, I closed my eyes and pulled the trigger, and it was so loud and terrible I didn’t even hear the door open behind me, and suddenly my father was just there…” And he’d carried me out to the mailbox, told me to hold on.
Then there had been another shot that rang out.
Anothershot.
Hadn’t I just dreamed that, though? All these years, I’d assumed my shock had just muddled my memory, but…
I rememberedanothershot.
While I stood outside holding onto a stupid mailbox post.
“You were a tiny girl when Tru found you—mute, shaking, unable to move after watching your mama die at my old man’s hands. That’s what Tru told me,” Leopold said, sadly shaking his dark head. “You’d grazed my old man and I have no doubt you stunned the sonofabitch, but you didn’t kill him.” He took a hesitant half-step toward me, shifting the shovel to one hand. “I’m sorry if that takes a point of pride away from you, Miss Eden. If it helps any, it means so much to me that you tried to kill that rabid bastard. Maybe that means you understand all the better why I tried to kill your daddy now. They’re both monsters, preying on their own children like they have every right to ruin our lives. People like that… they need to be erased from this earth. Otherwise you and I can never live free.”
From far away I thought I caught the faint sound of sirens. “My father told me I had to keep quiet about what happened, because I was a murderer and people wouldn’t understand. He told me I killed Leonard Driscoll. He told me he’d saved me from prison because he was the one who went back and made it look like a murder-suicide, when it was really—”
“Do you hear that?” Leopold’s head swiveled toward the sound coming from the property’s parking lot. Then his gaze snapped back to me, his teeth bared in a vicious snarl. “You called the cops?”
“What? No, I came here to talk to Cobee, I didn’t even know about y—”
Several things happened at once. The door behind me burst open and there was a flurry of movement up the aisle where we stood. Leopold threw the shovel he held in the direction of that movement, making me cringe back while he leapt over Cobee. A powerful arm wrapped around my middle and a razor-sharp point of something bit into my neck half a second before the hydroponic tank next to our heads suddenly exploded.
“What thefuck.” Water splashed down on us, cold and smelling vaguely like a fish tank, but that hardly registered as I found my back plastered to Leopold’s front. “They’reshootingat us?”
“Stop.” The surge of motion coming at us from the aisle coalesced into a wall of such overpowering masculinity it was a wonder the greenhouse didn’t explode with it. Luke had crashed to a halt with Nix right behind him, guns out in a way that telegraphed they both knew what to do with them. The arm around my middle tightened and the sharp point at my neck dug in, making me hiss in pain. A fraction of a second later, the sticky, warm slide of blood dripped down my throat. “Just stop and think about what you’re doing, Leopold. You don’t want to hurt Eden with that box cutter. Hell, you’d never want to scar that lovely, perfect skin, because unlike your father, you appreciate beauty and purity, don’t you? That’s why you appreciate Eden. She’s as innocent as a heaven-sent angel, and you know it. To hurt her now would make you no better than that knuckle-dragging piece of shit who sired you, am I right?”
Box cutter. So that’s what that was.
Thank you, baby.
Now I knew just how completely screwed I was. But, if I could somehow get a little distance between us…
A growl I felt as well as heard emanated from Leopold’s chest. “I’m not my fucking father, asshole. Don’t you dare compare us.”
“I wouldn’t, and I’m hoping Eden won’t either after this. But, I don’t know, man. Since you’re making her bleed the way your father made her mother bleed, it might be difficult for her to see the difference between the two of you.”
The pressure of the sharp razor point at my neck lessened at once.
Thank God.
“I know who you are,” Leopold told Luke, the growl still there in every syllable. “I’ve seen you with Miss Eden. You think you’re her boyfriend, but you’re not. You can’t be, because you don’t understand her like I do. My old man hurt me, and her old man hurt her. We’re the same in a way you’ll never understand.”
“I understand that I don’t have to hold a blade to her neck to keep her with me, but I could be wrong.” Holding out both hands for a moment, Luke slowly tucked his gun behind his back, then again showed empty hands, palms up. “Tell you what, let’s test her. Let Eden go, and we’ll see which man she chooses—you, or me. Nothing simpler than that.”
Leopold’s breathing became audible. “Your friend over there will shoot me the moment I let her go. Or maybe your sniper out back.”
