Page 56

KLAUS

I take the white Porsche tonight.

Alaric just called, saying that he needed to see me right away. Usually, I wouldn’t think anything of it, but he requested that I come to his house instead of the club.

I don’t know what this is about, but he didn’t sound like himself on the phone.

I think about her as I drive.

She’s on the back of my mind no matter what I do. She comes with me no matter where I go. I don’t know how to get rid of these feelings.

People say everything heals with time, but I don’t know if that will ever be the case for me.

I arrive at Alaric’s gated mansion and park out front. It’s a sleek, modern building made almost entirely of glass.

He’s already waiting at the end of the driveway, holding a drink in his hand. He hands it to me.

“You’re going to need it,” he says.

“What did you do now?” I ask.

“Why do you always assume I did something?” he asks.

“Because you have that guilty puppy look on your face,” I say. “And you’re being extra nice to me. Coming from you, it’s all very suspicious behavior.”

“Can’t a guy just show some love to his best friend?” Alaric says, his eyes all innocent.

I raise an eyebrow at him.

“Fine, I did something,” he says. “But it was a very long time ago, so you can’t judge me for it. It doesn’t count.”

“I’ll be the one to decide that,” I say.

He dabs a handkerchief over his forehead.

“You’re sweating,” I say. “How bad is it?”

“It’s very, very bad, but you have to understand that I have my reasons,” he says.

“Naturally,” I say.

“Oh my God, I already know you’re going to be so mad at me. I think I’m going to throw up,” Alaric says.

I sigh at his dramatics. “Can we at least go inside? It’s freezing out here.”

I move past him, but he blocks my path.

“Okay, so there’s good news, and there’s bad news,” he says. What would you like to know first?

“The bad news,” I say.

“I’ll start with the good news,” he says. “Approximately forty-eight hours ago, I got a call from the Resistance’s Europe division. It was to tell me that they found your brother-in-law. They had his exact location and needed my word before making a move.”

He pauses for effect.

My heart thuds in my chest, working overtime now.

“You lost him?” I ask.

“Why do you always assume I’m so incompetent? It’s offensive,” he says. “For your information, I found him. He’s in my basement as we speak.”

I push past him, heading toward the house. But Alaric catches up quickly and stands in my way again. He presses his palms against my chest to hold me back.

“Will you just listen to me for a second?” he says.

There’s only one thought left in my head. I need to see Richard with my own eyes. I want to feel the sweet satisfaction of vengeance flowing through my veins.

“Why are you standing in my way?” I ask.

“Because if I let you inside, I know you’re going to cut his face up like some psycho serial killer,” he says.

“He deserves worse,” I say.

“And I agree, but?—”

Alaric is a strong man, but he’s no match against me tonight. I have too much adrenaline coursing through my veins. I push past him once again and head toward the entrance.

Alaric doesn’t physically stop me this time. Instead, he uses the stupid security app on his phone to lock the front door.

“Open the fucking door before I break it down, Alaric,” I say.

“Please don’t,” he says. “Look, just hear me out for a second. It’s better that you hear this from me.”

I stare at him, letting him know I am not in the mood for his games.

He exhales slowly.

“There’s something I’ve been hiding from you,” he says. “I should have told you a long time ago, but I put it off for too long, and then it just became awkward to even bring up.”

I narrow my eyes at him.

“It’s about the car accident,” he says. “I knew more about it than I led you to believe.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” I ask.

“I was there that night.” He clears his throat. “I was there because I was the one who orchestrated the whole thing.”

I continue staring at him. I really don’t have time for one of his jokes tonight.

But he doesn’t say anything. There’s no punchline. He continues staring at me with apologetic eyes.

“I thought it would be a clean hit,” he says. “I didn’t know then that the aftermath would get so messy.”

“You’re actually serious,” I say.

“I had a good reason,” he says.

“I can’t wait to hear it.” I look at him with incredulous eyes.

It’s one thing to be deceived by a woman I met a few months ago. It’s another thing entirely to be blindsided by someone you’ve known your entire life.

“Sera came to me a week before the car accident,” he says.

“She confessed that she wanted to leave Richard. She said that the relationship was getting more and more toxic with every day that passed. I offered to step in, but she said that she wanted to deal with it on her own. A few days go by, and I see her at a restaurant with bruises that even makeup couldn’t hide.

That’s when I realized just how toxic the relationship was. ”

Every bone in my body hurts.

The thought of my little sister in that situation twists my insides.

“The night of the car accident, Sera came to me again. It was really bad, Klaus. She needed stitches. She broke down in front of me and told me that she couldn’t keep living like this. That’s when I decided to kill him. It wasn’t something I planned. It was an act of pure rage.”

I’m at a loss for words. I stand frozen on his doorstep as the chill of his words passes through me.

“I can’t believe you kept this from me the whole time,” I say.

“I thought he was alone in that car,” Alaric says. “I thought that getting rid of him would solve the problem, but I only ended up complicating everything.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” I ask. “Why were you hiding this from me the whole time?”

“I never wanted to hide anything from you,” he says. “I was going to tell you, but you were dealing with your own stuff back then. Your nightmares and insomnia were worse than ever, and I didn’t want to burden you.”

I’m too heartbroken about Sera to be angry with Alaric.

My relationship with my sister had changed after I returned from Afghanistan.

There were things I couldn’t bring myself to open up about, and it changed the dynamic between us.

We weren’t as close as we used to be, but I thought it was implied that she could come to me for anything she needed.

I thought she knew that I would drop everything to be there for her.

But she went to my best friend instead.

Alaric had always been like a second brother to her, but it still hurts that she went to him instead of me.

“Is there anything else I need to know?” I ask.

He shakes his head. His eyes are twin pools of sorrow as he watches me.

“Let me inside,” I say, turning to face the door once again.

Alaric does what I ask him to. When the doors click open, I head straight toward the basement. Alaric follows in silence.

All the lights are turned off except for one. It shines down on Richard, casting a spotlight on the man responsible for turning my life into a living hell.

I can see him, but he can’t see me.

His head is slumped, his chin tucked into his chest. As if he can feel a shift in the air, he raises his head. He blinks into the dark, trying to see through it.

I don’t announce my presence. Instead, I stand in the dark, watching mybrother-in-law.

He looks well.

He abandoned his family and escaped his responsibilities as a husband and father, but he looks well.

I’m going to kill this worthless piece of shit.

“No, you’re not,” Alaric whispers. “We need him alive, remember?”

I didn’t realize I said the thought out loud.

Richard’s eyes are frantic as they search the dark.

“Who is it?” he calls out. “I can hear you.”

“On second thought, he’s been annoying me all evening,” Alaric says. “He’s all yours.”

With a grim smile in my direction, Alaric leaves the basement. I walk closer toward the light. I notice that Alaric helpfully set out a little tray of torture devices for me.

I’m going to take my time with this bastard.

I spot the vial of truth serum among the supplies. It’s an injection that acts akin to a lie detector test. Once it’s given to a person, they enter a sedated reality where they can only tell the truth and nothing else. But I won’t be needing that tonight. I’m going to do it the hard way.

“Klaus,” he says, swallowing.

He looks afraid of me, as he should be.

I select a long, gleaming knife and a steel rod from the tray.

I sit on a stool across from him and start sharpening the knife.

“How are the kids?” he sputters. “I missed them every day.”

“Is that true?” I ask.

“Not a day went by without me thinking about them,” he says.

“Is that why you spent the past year vacationing your way through Europe?” I ask.

“I barely survived,” he says. “I was injured for months.”

“You look fine to me,” I say. “And there’s no reason for you to butter me up, Richard. You’ve made your decisions, and I’ve made mine. You’re not getting out of this alive.”

“You don’t even know what happened,” he says. “Alaric tried to kill me.”

“I know that,” I say, pretending I knew this information the whole time.

“I saw him behind the wheel,” he says. “He passed out after the collision. I escaped seconds before the car exploded.”

I grit my teeth. “But you left someone behind, didn’t you?”

“It all happened so fast,” he says.

“I bet.”

He’s quiet for a moment, watching me play with the knife.

“Your friend is lying to you,” he says. “He probably told you a part of the truth, but he didn’t tell you everything.”

My heart stutters in my chest.

Before tonight, I used to trust Alaric blindly. He never kept anything from me. He never gave me a reason to doubt him.

But after what he confessed earlier, I’m not sure if my blind trust still stands.

Richard uses that opportunity to set the stage. “He’s been in love with Sera the whole time.”

I grip the knife and plunge it into his thigh. He screams in agony, howling like an animal.