Total pages in book: 81
Estimated words: 78807 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 394(@200wpm)___ 315(@250wpm)___ 263(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 78807 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 394(@200wpm)___ 315(@250wpm)___ 263(@300wpm)
Tears streak down her face and she nods.
“You’re doing great, Robin. Once that’s finished, you’re going to console your mother. You’re going to bury your father. And you will never, ever get involved in politics again. If you do, I will find you, and I will do to you what I did to your father. Nod now, please.”
She nods, blinking as the tears keep falling.
“Wonderful. Do you want me to remove the gun from your mouth?”
She nods quickly.
“If you scream, you die. Are you ready to make the call?”
She groans, but nods.
“Lovely. Shane? Her phone?”
He produces it and I hand it over to her. She’s sobbing as she unlocks it, flips through her contacts, and finds the proper number.
I pull the gun back.
She gasps, breathing hard, crying for real now. I give her a moment to compose herself—really, it’s pathetic the way she’s sobbing, as if she didn’t fucking deserve this—and I stand back as she does as instructed.
I have to admit, despite her terror, Robin’s a wonderful actress. It makes me feel better for having fallen prey to her bullshit earlier. She charms the senator, spins a story about how important the vote was to her father, and leaves with a promise that he’ll reconsider his position. When it’s done, she slumps to the floor.
“Will you leave me alone now?” she asks, curling into the fetal position. “Please, Finn? Can you just leave me alone?”
I crouch down beside her.
“Here’s the problem. You forgot who we are. If only you could’ve made yourself remember. We aren’t the country club assholes you’ve spent your life running circles around.” I kick her in the chest, knocking her across the floor, then step over her prostrate body. “Now, you better hope I never hear your name ever again. Good luck with the funeral.”
Shane falls into line behind me and we leave.
Chapter 45
Dara
I spend the next few days delighting in showing Genna around town. We spend a few miserable hours at the only cafe with decent coffee (“Tastes like bitter horse piss, except that’s an insult to horses.”) and a few lovely lunches in the mall food court (“I’d rather slurp up my own puke than eat this microwaved offal.”) and more than one late-night movie at the three-screen cinema on the edge of town (“Popcorn’s not bad actually.”).
She hates it and I can’t get enough of driving her insane. But as the days pass, I keep thinking about Finn, about what he’s doing back in Boston, until one morning Genna turns up at the house and ushers me into the kitchen.
“Sit down. This is news. Big news.” She shoves her phone into my hands. “Good morning, Jeff.”
“Good morning, Genna.” Dad frowns at her as he stirs milk into his coffee. “Since when did you call me Jeff?”
“Since always,” she says, nudging me with her toe. “Read that.”
Dad shuffles out of the kitchen, muttering to himself.
I stare at the screen. It’s a news article about a mysterious automobile accident. Apparently, some high-end Jaguar exploded when the driver used the wrong fuel, killing both him and the owner—a man named Clive McLaren.
I look up, eyes going wide.
“Yep,” Genna says grinning so big it looks like her face might crack in half. “I know.”
“Finn?”
“Well, don’t say it out loud.” She leans closer, swatting at me, and grabs my shoulders. “But fuck, yes, of course it was Finn.”
My head’s reeling. “How? What? Why?”
She snatches her phone back, cackling. “I told you he was going on a quest for righteous revenge. That’s our boy. Always with the casual murder.”
I shush her, glancing back to where my father’s sitting in his customary spot staring at the TV. My shock turns to fear and suddenly I picture Finn behind bars. “Should we be worried? I mean, he’s going to be the prime suspect, right?”
“Here’s the thing about Finn and his family. They own the cops.”
I give her a look. “That’s not actually a thing.” I hesitate. “Is it?”
“Definitely a thing,” she says, nodding sagely. “You’d be shocked at how much of a thing it is.”
I stand and start pacing. I knew what Finn was—rich, connected, mafia—but he seemed more like a businessman than a killer.
Now, looking back, I can see how I misunderstood.
His family wraps itself in legitimacy. They have so much money, it must be easy to make it seem as though they’re regular old rich folks. Except Finn’s not regular, far from regular, and he tried to get me to understand it over and over.
Now, it’s so obvious, it makes me want to scream.
Finn’s a killer and always was.
That way he’d been behaving? That was him doing his best to seem normal.
This is the real Finn.
“What now?” I ask, forcing myself not to tremble.
Does this change how I feel?
“Now we keep on waiting.” Genna looks at her nails smugly. “But I suspect he’ll be here soon.”