by Keri Lake
“I was. Until my alarm system notified me that someone was in my house, and I watched you break into my safe.”
“I didn’t break into anything. You gave me access.”
“I did. Though, admittedly I didn’t give you credit for having the smarts to figure out what it belonged to. I also didn’t expect you’d come back home any time soon.” His fat lips stretched into a smile I’d have blown off his face, if not for Dane’s barrel pointed at my skull. “You must’ve felt nostalgic sitting in that office again.”
Though he spoke to her, his eyes remained on me, no doubt waiting for me to take the first shot.
“Fuck. You.” The venom in Sera’s voice told me something had happened in that office, only solidifying my plan to put a bullet in his brain.
“Step out onto the scaffolding behind you, my dear.”
“What?” Sera grabbed the edge, her eyes wide .
A spasm of pain struck my skull as I ground my teeth.
“Step out. Onto the scaffolding. Now.”
In the seconds she waited, he took a shot, kicking up the gravel beside her, and she hopped to the side with a scream.
My muscles flinched, finger tapping the trigger. Kill him, my head taunted. Kill him, and end it.
Her whole body trembled as she slid along the railing of the building, and the moment she looked over the edge, her fingers curled around the top of it. “Please. Don’t do this.”
“Let her go. I know where you’ll find the ledger. Let her go, and I’ll tell you whatever you want to know.”
“That’s … romantic. But no. I’ve got plans for both of you.”
Another shot just missed her leg, pinging as it ricocheted off the concrete behind her.
She startled again, and I lurched forward, stopping at the sound of Dane racking the chamber of his gun. “Shit!”
“I wouldn’t do that,” he said.
Tightening her robe, Sera lifted a shaking leg over the edge of the wall and, on wobbly legs, climbed onto the scaffold, gripping tight to the metal frame attaching it to the building. The whimper she let out told me she’d begun to panic.
Kutscher swung his gun toward me. “Now put down your gun, or I will surely put a bullet in her chest, and she will fall—what? Almost twenty stories to her death?” The way he spoke the command so easily told me Sera meant as much to him as a wad of fucking gum stuck to his shoe.
“You’re a heartless bastard. You’ve always been a heartless bastard,” she gritted out as she sobbed. “That’s why you threw Shawn away, right? Handed him over to some sick piece of shit that you defended in court!”
I had no idea what she was talking about, but it failed to peel his stare from me.
“Shawn. You mean … the one who cut your face and tried to kill you? Now why would you hold even a small measure of sympathy for him?” He glanced toward her and back. “Oh, that’s right. You have no self-worth. It’s why you ended up with Romeo over here.” He waved his gun toward me. “Who I’ll ask to put down the gun one more time, before he makes me do something impulsive.”
With two weapons trained on me, I lowered mine, my mind scrambling for a solution.
“Now walk.” Kutscher jerked his gun, motioning me toward the north side of the building.
Dane swiped up my gun as I passed him, holding both barrels pointed at me like some gimp cowboy as he hobbled along.
We came to a stop beside an empty oxygen and acetylene cage. My gaze trailed to the top, where the crane’s hook had already been attached to the lifting eye, and their plan crystalized before me. The only building in the city with a tower crane—the reason Dane had chosen to meet there.
A pop from behind ripped through my bicep with a burn, and I looked down to where Dane had shot me in the arm. The pain felt like the white hot flashes of slag I’d endured when welding.
“That’s for shooting me in the arm, fucker.”
“Dane, if you would …” Kutscher tossed something through the air, and it landed beside Dane, who kept his eyes and gun on me as he lifted it from the ground.
I only caught a glimpse of the key, before he swiped it up and nudged me into the cage. Once I was inside, he slid the lock in place on the outside, trapping me within.
Dane took off toward the roof access, stumbling along with his gimp leg and missing fingertip.
Minutes ticked off in silence. Karl paced in front of me, while my mind raced to figure out how to Houdini myself out of the fucking cage.
His pacing stopped, and he looked around, almost casually. “I know you probably had some elaborate scheme to kill me. In some way, I’m almost curious to know how you planned to do it.”
“Cage. A hole. And a drill bit.”
Arms crossed behind his back, he nodded. “Creative. I’m feeling a little shown up by this .” He looked up to the crane and back. “Not quite as theatrical. Though, I did make a point to add a little tension. Literally. The cable on this thing is quite frayed. I’m not sure exactly how much weight it’ll support before it snaps. Of course, I did have Dane thin it out a bit more, too.”
“Why? Why did you do it? Why kill Eli?”
He snorted a laugh, and paced again, coming to a stop in front of me. “Why, indeed. Perhaps the first question you should ask is why he continued to accompany his mother to my home? Strange, don’t you think?”
The implication of his words kept my jaw locked in rage. “Sera is the only reason.”
“Yes, of course. Sera. And do you see my dilemma? Why would I allow a dirty street rat anywhere near my daughter? An insolent little prick like him.”
“Don’t act like you did this for her,” I gritted out. “You don’t give a shit about her. You never did.”
He stared back at me, a feigned troubled expression on his face. “You’re right. I never did. You want to know the real reason I killed Eli?” A crack sounded, seconds before his body slumped to the ground, revealing Sera standing behind him with a shovel propped into the air.
“Happy Fucking Father’s Day, assho—”
Before she could finish her moment of celebration, the cage lurched on a creak and rattled as it lifted up off the ground.
Eyes wide, Sera rushed forward, her fingers brushing the bottom of it as it lifted skyward. My body felt light, flying up about fifty feet higher than the building, and it jerked horizontally, until I was dangling over Lafayette.
It came to a stop there, hovering over the traffic about three hundred feet below.
From inside the crane’s control cab, Dane waved, before he stepped out onto the ladder. He dangled the key I’d seen earlier and tossed it.
My heart caught in my throat, as I watched it land on the jib’s catwalk.
“Fuck!” I shook the cage and felt it lurch again, the screeching sound of the frayed cable telling me it could break any moment.
“No!” Clutching the edge of the building, Sera stared across from me. The worry etched in her face matched the grim thoughts in my head.
37
Sera
Heart slamming against my ribs, I stared out over the almost two-hundred-foot drop that separated me from Ty.
“Where is that ledger, Sera?”
I spun around, to find my father rubbing the back of his neck, gun aimed right at me, and pulled my robe to cover as much of myself as I could. “I’m not saying a word until you set him back on this fucking roof!”
“Perhaps I haven’t been … persuasive enough with you. What happened to the trust between us, hmmm?”
“There never was any trust between us.” I tore the necklace from my throat with one wrench of my hand. You destroyed my trust, just like you destroyed my innocence.” I threw the necklace at him, watching it fall to the ground beside him. “And Dane? He works for you now?”
“He’s hopeful. Something of an internship, I guess you’d call it.”
“You had him watch me. Stalk me. You knew I’d never suspect anything, because he’d done it before.”
“Da
ne was certainly an easy choice.”
“You killed Eli.” My voice wobbled with the beckoning tears. “Jo knew, and you destroyed her life to cover it up.”
He shrugged, his lips still stretched into his psychotic smile, but he said nothing.
“You deserve to burn in fucking hell.”
“And perhaps I will. Unless you want to burn alongside me, I suggest you tell me where that ledger is.”
The roof access door flew open, and Dane clutched his bloody hand, hobbling over to where we stood. The deep wheezes and crackles of his chest sounded as if he’d collapse right there. His forehead shined with a layer of sweat, his T-shirt clinging to him, pits stained with moisture.
“It’s done …” He seemed to struggle to get the words out between each pant of breath. “I’m ready … to collect … what you promised me.”
I frowned, my eyes flitting between Dane and Karl and the door, as I pondered whether, or not, I could slip past them.
“I lured him here … as you asked. Put him in the cage. Sera’s mine.”
“I belong to no one, you fucking—”
The crack of gunfire interrupted me, and Dane fell back onto the gravel, a black hole in his head marking the path of the bullet.
A scream broke from my chest, and I backed myself to the edge of the wall, every muscle in my body quaking with fear.
“I’ll give you one more opportunity to tell me where to find that fucking ledger, and then I’ll pile your body beside his.”
The trill chime of a cellphone broke the silence between us. Keeping his eyes and the gun on me, my father lifted his phone to his ear, without bothering to see who’d called.
I couldn’t make out the voice speaking through the receiver, but Karl’s face screwed up to a heavy frown.
“Who is this?” he asked, tugging the phone away for only a second, and examining the number. “Who are you?”
The tremor in his voice told me, whoever it was, the phone call wasn’t welcome.
Color drained from his skin, leaving a pallid shade of alarm, as he lowered the phone, letting it drop to the concrete beside him. “Sera …” As he spoke, a flicker of his eyebrow suggested hurt. “What have you done?” In all the years I’d lived with my father, I’d never once seen his eyes fill with the kind of terror staring back at me right then. “What have you done?” Hands shaking, he racked the chamber of his gun, and my body stiffened, tears blurring his form.
“They’re coming for you,” I deadpanned, in spite of the fear wrapping itself around my words. “The hackers. The vigilantes. The ones who despise your kind. They know what you did, and they’re coming to make you pay. See, you might have connections in high places. But I have connections in very low places. Very dark places.”
A single shot rang out.
My muscles jumped beneath my skin as the sound echoed inside my ears, and I stared into the dead expression of my father’s eyes, watching him fall to his knees and smack his face against the gravelly pavement.
Three deep breaths did nothing to calm the frantic thrumming of my heart, as I searched myself for a bullet, certain he’d shot me and not himself.
Only one shot.
He’d shot himself.
It didn’t make sense, but as the rivulet of blood seeped down his temple and onto the gravel, it sank in.
He was gone. Out of my life.
My jaw tightened with each hard breath I took, a combination of panic and relief toying with my blood pressure.
“Fuck!” Ty’s curse swung my attention to him, and I swiped up Karl’s fallen phone and scrambled for the roof door.
The phone screen lit the dark stairwell, shaving off a small bit of the fear breathing across the back of my neck. Hands shaking, I stared down at the ‘Unknown’ number popped up on the screen and quickly deleted it.
A slip of my foot nearly sent me tumbling down the crumbled stairwell. My hand flew out to the wall, catching my fall, and I continued on, concentrating on the placement of my fingers as I dialed 9-1-1. The moment I set the phone back to my ear, the stairwell blackened, and I pulled it away to flip on the flashlight app.
“Nine-one-one, what’s your emergency?” the operator on the other end answered.
“I … I need some help … um …” I couldn’t tell them about Ty. Putting him on their radar might just be throwing him into the mouth of the beast, if they happened to deepen their investigations. He could be dead before they arrived, anyway. The average police response time in the city was thirty minutes on a good day. No, saving Ty would have to be up to me. “There were … uh, some gunshots … and I think my father might be dead!”
“Okay, stay on the phone with me, okay? Where are you now?”
“I’m at the Free Press building. On West Lafayette.” The small bit of light from the phone propped at my chin provided only a faint haze in the obscure surroundings, just enough for me to not kill myself by tripping over something along the way.
“The building? On Lafayette?”
“That’s correct.”
“Okay, and you think your father might’ve been shot there?” the dispatcher continued.
“Um. We’re … my ex-boyfriend kidnapped me. They were … fighting. And I heard gunshots, so I ran.” The maddening part of talking to her was knowing every word I said would be recorded. That, when the police called me in for questioning, as they invariably would, they would have already studied every word of my call.
“Are you injured?”
Sinking deeper into the dark stairwell, I breathed hard through my nose, and took agile steps, avoiding the crumbling bits of concrete. Good thing I’d thrown on boots, or my feet would’ve been torn up by the broken glass and splintered wood lying about. “No. I’m okay.”
“Is your father still conscious? Is he breathing, at all?”
Who the hell knew? I hadn’t bothered to check, but he looked pretty dead.
“I ran as soon as I heard the gunshots. I don’t know, for sure.”
The rest of the conversation felt robotic, just providing small details, while praying the cable connected to Ty’s cage would hold just a little longer. Rounding the stairwell some fourteen-odd floors felt as if it’d taken a lifetime. When I finally reached the bottom, I shoved the phone into my robe’s pocket, and completely out of breath, I raced across the construction site toward the crane. My throat burned. The air had thickened. Only sheer adrenaline kept me going.
Hand over hand, I climbed the ladder in the center of the tower, grateful for the occasional landing which broke up each level. My robe fluttered around my knees, but I didn’t bother with it, mostly because I couldn’t bring myself to tear my gaze from the rungs in front of me.
Don’t look down, Sera. For chrissakes, don’t look down.
Floodlights from nearby buildings provided enough illumination to carry out my crazy mission and remind me how stupid I was for doing it. I told myself the workers climbed the ladder every day, and if they could do it for something as mundane as a job, I could do it to save Ty from falling to his death. Granted, their underwear probably wasn’t hanging out during their climbs, but who the hell cared?
Hair whipped around my face, creating an annoyance as I focused my attention on the placement of my hands. Fire licked my palms with every pull up the rungs, but I ignored it. I ignored the ache in my hand, and the throb in my jaw from grinding my teeth. I also ignored the way the ladder rocked and rattled, assuring me that I was no longer standing on solid ground.
Ten minutes must’ve passed before I reached the crane’s cab, over two-hundred feet in the air, though I didn’t look down to confirm that. Only the shadowy edge of the adjacent Free Press building sitting slightly below me gave any indication of the tower’s height. My palms had stiffened from the climb and the unrelenting fear of slipping. I threw back the cab’s door, taking note of the empty ignition on the control panel, and searched for a key. Fucking hell, I hoped Dane didn’t have it on him.
The city’s streetlight
s and nearby lit buildings shone through the cab’s window as nothing but a speckled blur, and I zoned them out for the task at hand.
“It’s not in there!” Ty called out from the opposite end of the crane’s arm. “Sera, get out of here!”
“Where’s the key, Ty?” I yelled back.
“On the catwalk! About halfway between us.”
Dizziness swept over me as acids climbed my throat.
“Sera, it’s okay! Just go!” The whipping wind added an irritating buffer to his voice, but the anger in his shouts was unmistakable.
“I’m not letting you die! I won’t.”
“I won’t let you die for me, either.”
“Well, too fucking bad! You don’t get to decide that!”
Knees shaking, I pushed out onto the jib, eyeing the narrow catwalk that separated me from a two-hundred foot drop into the blackness below. The twinkling lights and moving cars along Lafayette offered just enough indication of height to send a cold shudder through my chest.
“Fucking hell. Fucking hell!”
I gripped tight to the steel bar beside me and pulled myself to the first step. Wind lashed my face, stealing my breath, and I hauled forward another step. And another. Keeping my focus on Ty, who stood clutching the wall of the cage, watching my every move.
My robe flew up, exposing my underwear, as a gust of cold air blasted across my already prickled skin.
I took another step. And another.
My foot slipped, and I clutched the bar. “Ah, shit!”
“Sera!” Ty called out, helpless to do anything.
The ground below me sent a wave of dizziness to my head, and the world spun around me while I clutched the pole, the trembles weakening my muscles.
“Sh-sh-shit!” Everything around me wouldn’t stop spinning, and I feared opening my eyes again.
“Sera, you can do this! The key is right in front of you! Bend your knees slowly!”
Even halfway closer than before, Ty’s hollering seemed distant. Or maybe it was the pressure in my skull closing off my eardrums.
I shook my head, keeping my eyes clinched shut. “I can’t. I can’t do this.”