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Then the words he’d said processed, and my knees almost gave way.
“What… what did you do?” I hissed, taking a step closer to him.
Even with a gun in his hand, he still took a step back as I advanced, glancing over his shoulder and moving back toward the stairwell we’d both exited just moments before. “She should have just done what I told her. Then I wouldn’t have had to…” he paused, his breathing growing heavier and heavier. “It was the only way to calm her down!”
I cringed at the boom of his voice in the enclosed space.
I took another step, forcing him back again. “What. Did. You. Do?”
This fire inside me was alight, ready to burn this whole fucking building down if he wasn’t lying. If he’d fucking killed Shay.
“It’s your fault,” he suddenly spat, jabbing his gun forward. He was rattled and losing control. Vince didn’t get his father’s cool, calm, and collected genes. Frank never lost his shit, faltered, or got overwhelmed, which almost made him more fucking scary. “You could have kept her in line. You could have told her to mind her own business!”
I rolled my neck, trying to fight the tension settling in. I needed to keep loose and not think about what he was saying. Shay was fine. She must be fine. “And you could have just left those women the fuck alone and lived your miserable little life without dragging them down with you.”
“I needed them,” he answered, shifting from one foot to the other. “I needed them so I could show Dad I wasn’t the fuckup he made out like I was. I was going to prove it. to him and everyone else. Then your bitch fucked it up!”
“Call her that again,” I warned, practically spitting venom. “You fucked it up and got in bed with the wrong people, didn’t you?”
He jerked as if I’d already shot him, and I took the opportunity to inch forward again, making him stumble back. He reached back, searching for the door handle, now only a foot behind him.
That door had a lock on the stairwell side.
If he got in and managed to lock it, he’d be far gone before I managed to get out the exit they brought cars through.
So I slowed down. I took a breath.
“Wait.” I ground my teeth together, trying to think of a way to keep him talking and distracted. “Tell me what happened. I need to know what happened.”
He froze, sweat dripping down the side of his face. “I just wanted her to calm down,” he muttered, swiping a hand through his damp hair and making it stick up.
“And…”
“And the pills—”
“You gave her pills!” I roared, launching forward, no longer giving a damn about fucking anything other than getting my hands around Vince’s throat.
He panicked, his eyes shooting open wide before he pulled the trigger.
Once.
Twice.
Three times before I ploughed into his body, slamming him back against the door.
Stunned, his gun hit the concrete, clattering across it as I stepped back and swung my elbow into his jaw. He dropped like a sack of bricks, groaning loudly and rolling onto his back.
I made quick work of gathering his gun, tucking both his and mine into the back of my jeans and pulling my shirt over them before walking back to where he was still trying to drag his body to the stairwell door.
I swung my leg back before driving my boot into his ribs, the force lifting him off the ground.
“You gave her fucking pills,” I spat, kicking him with my heel so he turned onto his back. He was writhing, twisting, and cursing under his breath, the pain consuming him.
I know Shay would not have taken anything willingly.
So, if he managed to get any kind of pills into her, it would have been by force.
“You fucking bastard.” Fury built higher at the thought of what must have been going through her head after fighting for so many years to keep clean.
