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“Why didn’t you just kill me?”
Justin understands my gibberish and replies with a sick smile. “You’re worth a lot more to me alive than you are dead. But that night, when you screamedhisname out, I lost it. You lied to me, pretended that you liked me, and I felt that rejection all over again just because I fell for your fucking lies.
“That night, if you came to me, I was willing to give you one more chance to explain. But then, you made it quite clear that liars never change. I had to leave before I killed you both. And like I said, you’re no good to me dead. But in a warped way, that night showed me how my original plan had veered off course.
“Greed was fueling me, but I wanted to bring it back to basics, and the only thing motivating me from that night forward was my revenge. I called your father, told him what happened, and now, now this is the part that gets really good.”
Greed and revenge—as simple as that sounds, that was the motivation fueling Justin’s rampage. The two most primitive human emotions have turned an already unstable individual into a raging psychopath.
But I don’t understand why he would help my dad when he knows Phil is the drug lord. He’s the one who supplied the drugs that killed his father.
“I was just the messenger!”
“You’re a clever whore. You’re thinking how could I tolerate working with your father, who is an obvious drug addict, and Phil, who is the lowest form of scum known to humankind?”
I nod.
“Because, as we know, money talks. Not only are your dad and Phil willing to pay a shitload of cash for you, but so are the police. There is a reward of a quarter million dollars on your head. You’re worth a lot of money, Mia Mouse. Growing up where we were so poor that I had to wear hand-me-downs that were basically rags, you surely can understand how that money is motivation to do what I’m doing.”
I gasp, and my brain tries to process everything.
“So do you want to hear my ingenious plan?” Justin asks, his eyes lighting up as he sits casually in the chair before me.
I nod again.
He looks at his silver wristwatch and smiles.“Your father will be here very soon to finally claim his prize.”
My throat closes over, and a guttural sound gets trapped in my esophagus.
“But that’s not even the best part,” Justin says happily, rocking back in his chair. “I know Phil is a sick bastard and that he’s the supplier of all the drugs. So I’m going to make each one of you who had a hand in my father’s death pay, and pay dearly.
“When they collect you, I will get the rest of my money and happily let them drag you out of here without thinking twice. However, once they are gone, ananonymoustip will be made to the police with your whereabouts, and I will get that reward too. It’s poetic, really. I get money for my revenge, and I also bring down the three people who destroyed my life. Phil for manufacturing those filthy drugs, your dad for creating you, and of course you, for destroying my life,” Justin states, ticking his hit list off on his fingers.
Shit, his plan will work. The state I’m in, the police will question Phil and my dad, and Justin knows I will rat them out because that was my original plan all along. That wasmyrevenge—to bring those fuckers down for what they did to Hank.
The police will take one look at me and believe me. I’m their perfect witness, happy to confess to everything they did, hoping to clear my name.
And Quinn’s.
And to avenge Hank.
Justin is a psychopath, and the saddest part is that I created him.
Justin could just shoot me, my father, and Phil and still get the reward by reporting it to the cops, saying he stumbled across us. But where’s the fun in that? He knows the torment I will suffer, being put on trial and found guilty for my past and watching the people I love suffer with me.
That prospect is far worse than being dead.
Watching the hurt and regret pass over Tristan’s, Tabitha’s, and Quinn’s faces when I’m deemed a criminal would kill me. I would much rather be dead than hurt them in that way.
And Justin knows that.
Killing me would be too easy. Living with regret is the hard part.
And the same applies to my father and Phil.
Once the police start digging around, they will discover just who Phil is, and I have no doubt Phil will take my dad down with him, tying him to Hank’s murder.
There is no loyalty.
