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“He was forced to—”
She cut me off in an abrupt angry tone. “I took care of him. He was mine. He is mine.”
Oh God. No. Ream. The girl. Ream told me Lenny had a child. A girl. She’d been a couple of years younger than him.
“So he told you about me? I see it on your face. Yes, I’m Lenny’s daughter Alexandria Molly Reynolds.” She tapped her foot on the floor, her thigh shaking with the movement. “Ream and his pathetic innocent sister left me all alone. I had no one. He promised to never leave me. But he lied. He left me in that disgusting house with Uncle Olaf.” Her voice got louder, the tone higher-pitched. “He ruined everything when he killed Gerard. Just because the guy was having some fun with Ream’s precious little angel.” She tsked, shaking her head back and forth. “I convinced Olaf to let him go, you know. He found out they were staying in some old lady’s shed and wanted to kill him, but I couldn’t let that happen, so I told him I saw Haven smash the statue down on Gerard and kill him. I don’t think he believed me but, Olaf liked me and I was good at making him … happy.” She shrugged. “It was Haven’s fault anyway. She should’ve kept her mouth shut. She had to pay for her mistake.”
My eyes widened as her words washed a cold fear over me.
“I was going to be his angel, not her.” Oh God, no. Alexa smiled. “Yes, of course it was me. She wouldn’t be so precious after the drugs and Gerard, would she? I’d be his angel. Me.” Haven. God, the poor girl already abandoned by her mother and then Alexa’s jealousy and wanting to destroy her. “I set it up for Gerard. I saw him watching her every time he came over. I knew he’d do anything to have her, and I gave him the drugs from Olaf’s stash to help him with her.” Her voice crackled and broke. “I was the one who looked out for Ream. I soothed him when he was sick. I waited for him at the top of the basement stairs every Sunday. That was me.”
I put my hand over my mouth and looked around frantically for something to throw up in. I managed to grab a plastic grocery bag from the floor, even with my wrists tied in front of me. Lance held out his handkerchief when I finished emptying the contents of my stomach and I shoved his hand away.
Alexa was laughing and took great pleasure in all of this.
“He didn’t sleep with your roommates or whoever the hell they were, did he? They were hired pieces of shit.” I didn’t have to ask because I already knew. Working at the bar to watch us, becoming our friend, Lance. The gallery. Oh God, the gallery.
I turned to Lance. “You don’t own two galleries in New York, do you?”
“No. I don’t know shit about art. Rented the gallery after the previous owner had an … untimely accident.” Oh God. They did it so Lance could get close to me so I’d stay away from Ream when he came back from tour. He’d had me hire Molly for my art show, he asked me to get Brett and Emily to invite their friends because Lance didn’t have any connections except maybe street druggies.
But Alexa’s plan to keep Ream and I apart didn’t work so she went further. She tried to have me raped. She scarred my face, hoping Ream would not want me. But none of it worked, so she set him up. Convinced him to come inside her house, pretending she was scared, then gave him a drink, drugged no doubt. In the morning, she texted me that Ream was there so I would catch him cheating. But he hadn’t been cheating had he?
Oh God, Ream. I felt like curling up in a ball and crying for us and at the same time screaming my head off and diving on top of Alexa and ripping her apart with my fingernails.
The car jerked to a stop. “Oh here we are. Ready for some fun, Kat.” Alexa bounced out of the car like she was going to an amusement park.
“Out. Now,” Lance ordered when I remained seated trying to calm my body for what I was about to do.
I stepped out of the car and instantly gagged on the scent of rotten garbage. We were parked in a driveway with a broken down picket fence on the right that led up to an old run down house. The windows were all boarded up with plywood and there were bars on the basement windows. Holy Christ. I had to get out of here. If I walked into that house I had a feeling I’d never walk out again. I’d rather be shot than live my final days in that place.
A guy, I assumed the driver, grabbed my arm and yanked me forward. I stumbled and went down on one knee. As soon as he leaned over to pull me up, I bolted upright and jerked my knee into his face at the same time. I felt the crunch of his nose hitting my knee cap. He swore and I ran.
I hadn’t run since the new symptom of my legs acting up, and I didn’t know how far I could make it, but I wasn’t going to be some chicken lured into a crazy-ass bitch’s haunted house of horrors.
My legs had other ideas and the exertion was too much. I fell face first into the pavement, and my legs had a total freak out. I screamed as a hand fisted my hair and yanked me upwards. I tried to gain my feet, but they wouldn’t support me, and I was off balance.
He pulled hard. “Get up.”
“I can’t you bastard.”
“Bitch, you’re going to fucking walk.” He kicked me in the ribs and it felt like one of the bones broke and punctured my lung as agony tore through me. “Get up.” He kicked me again and I tried tearing my hair from his grip, but it wouldn’t give. He hooved me in the stomach, and I hung in his grasp as I choked for air.
