Page 141 of Reaper and Ruin

We were not the same.

Francine repeated the message, and I heard it in both places, from her, standing somewhere above our heads, and through speakers I was sure Levi, X, and Whip could hear from outside.

“Come through my door and you’ll dance with the dead,

The floor’s full of teeth and they’re hungry for red.

Stay where you stand if you value your skin,

One wrong little step and I win, I win.”

“What does that mean?” Nyah asked in a whisper.

“It means she knew this would happen. She knew they’d come. And she wants them dead.” My shouts for help turned into warnings. “Don’t come in here! This place is trapped!”

But it was too late for them to hear me. Somewhere above me, something exploded, the crack like a hundred tiny bullets whizzing through the air and finding a resting place somewhere vital

Whip’s scream of pain echoed back to me, and my blood ran cold.

I clutched Nyah’s arm, probably hurting her with my fingernails digging into her skin, but I couldn’t breathe.

Thumps of footsteps on the steps confused me, shouts and swearing, and above it all, more howls of pain.

And that robotic voice, that warning that played on a loop, threatening and ominous.

I knew what came next. How long would it be before a countdown started?

“Francine!” I screamed. “Francine!”

The hatch above our heads slid open. “What!” she snapped. “Quit yelling. They can’t get to you. The entire house is surrounded by traps. Ones that clearly work as intended if your man’s hollering was anything to go by.”

Her eyes were wild, unfocused.

Nyah clutched the sharpened piece of plastic, but what the hell were we going to do with that when she was nowhere near us? In the same vein, I held the bottle of bleach.

Francine’s gaze strayed to it, and a cruel smile twisted her mouth. She gave a bitter laugh. “What are you going to do with that, Violet? Spray me in the face?” She snorted a derisive laugh. “Terrible plan, but I like the gumption. This is exactly why welet you go, that night in the warehouse.” She shook her head. “Travis didn’t want to. He said we should just kill you then and there, but a deal is a deal, right? And I liked your spark. You remind me of myself.”

Despite the fact I’d been grappling with the same idea, hearing it on her lips cemented it wasn’t true. “I’m nothing like you,” I snarled back. “You used your business to feed young women to predators. How many women did you do it to, Francine? It was more than just me and Nyah and Elizabeth, wasn’t it? How many women did you help Paul Jeddersen murder? How many did you help Travis murder? How much blood is on your hands?”

Francine sat on the edge of the hatch, legs dangling down into the hole, though still far enough above our heads that we couldn’t touch her. “I can’t remember all their names.”

“But you remember their faces, don’t you? Because you watched Paul Jeddersen kill them on that nanny cam.”

More shots pierced the air, more screams. My heart thudded against my chest.

My guys were out there, fighting a war I couldn’t see to get to me. And there was literally nothing I could do about it.

Nothing other than keep Francine talking. And keep Nyah and myself alive.

Francine’s eyes narrowed, and she shifted, waving her hand around, as if my question had agitated her.

She had the gun in her hand again, but it clearly wasn’t the one being used to shoot at my men.

“I remember every single one of their faces,” Francine admitted. “And I remember the way he touched them like he loved them. Remember the way he made me keep their bodies so he could look at them whenever he wanted to.”

“Oh God. I’m going to be sick,” Nyah whispered.

I couldn’t blame her. My stomach twisted into painful knots. “How could you?”