Twisted Love (The Twisted Duet #2)

Chapter 1

Aidan

“Who?” The question clips out through the empty warehouse.

“Move,” Jack says, indicating with his gun to the back of the warehouse.

“I’m not going anywhere with you.”

“If you want to get gunned down, then stay here. If not, move.” He is already moving across the warehouse floor, low to the ground.

Another burst tears through the shelving above me and makes the decision for me.

“Fuck’s sake,” I snap, shoving up from the floor and sprinting low after him.

Pain slices through my side with every step. Warm blood sticks my shirt to my skin. I ignore it. There is no room for anything except survival, and the fact that I am moving through a warehouse with the man I have wanted dead for years.

Jack cuts between two rows of racking and heads for the rear wall. I keep my gun trained in his direction even while I follow, because I’m not stupid enough to trust him just because someone else has decided to open fire on both of us.

The shooting starts again. Shorter bursts this time. Controlled. Not wild panic. Whoever is out there knows what they’re doing.

A round punches through a metal panel near my head. I duck harder, teeth bared.

“At the back?” I bite out.

“There’s a service corridor,” Jack says. “Keep up.”

“I’d rather die.”

“No, you wouldn’t. Not while she’s still breathing.”

Rage hits so hard it nearly throws me off my stride. He says it to make me move faster. To keep me focused on Annabelle instead of putting a bullet in the back of his skull.

It works.

Jack reaches the rear wall and slams his palm against what looks like a dead section of panelling. A narrow door jerks inward.

He ducks through first. I nearly put a round through his spine on instinct, but another burst rips through the racking behind me, and chews sparks from the concrete. I dive through the opening after him and kick the door shut with my heel.

Darkness drops around us.

Not complete. A strip light flickers weakly overhead, buzzing in a long, dying pulse that paints the corridor in yellow. It is narrow, lined with old pipes and flaking paint, just wide enough for two men who want each other dead.

Jack turns his gun on me at once.

I level mine right back.

For one beat, we just stand there, both breathing hard, both deciding whether this is the moment.

Then a heavy impact slams into the other side of the door.

Once. Twice.

“Move,” Jack says.

“Go to hell.”

Another impact rattles the frame.

“I didn’t kill Christa,” he says, almost as a warning, turning to stride down the corridor.

“Like fuck, you didn’t.” I chase after him.

“I didn’t.”

“Then who? Hmm? Give me a fucking name, or I assume it’s you and you die.” I don’t believe him. I don’t trust him.

“Not here,” he says. “Where are your brothers?”

“Not here,” I say.

“Take me to them, and I’ll tell you everything.”

“Are you out of your fucking mind?”

He stops, turns and presses his gun to my forehead. “I dislike repeating myself, Aidan. Take me to your brothers.”

“No.”

“You’re protecting her.”

“Obviously.”

He hisses and lowers the gun. He turns and walks on, kicking open a door at the end, gun raised again as he peers out. “Clear,” he murmurs. “But stay low.”

I grimace at him and do as he says anyway. Something is holding me back from killing him. I don’t know what it is. Instinct, over the fact that he is my dad.

Silently, I follow him to an old camper van. “Quick,” he says and climbs into the driver’s side. I take shotgun, and he flips the visor down to snatch the keys that drop. He starts up the engine, and I wince.

It’s loud, rattling.

“Jesus,” I mutter as Jack floors it, and it coughs and splutters, jolting forward.

“Stay down,” Jack orders and bounces over a pothole that jars the graze on my side.

Gunshot follows us, and I duck instinctually as Jack drives like a fucking maniac out of the lot, off the Industrial estate and into traffic with the blare of horns as he cuts up a mini and a white van simultaneously.

Recovering, I press my hand to my side and the gun to his temple. “Start. Talking.”

“You’re bleeding.”

“No shit. I’ve had worse. Don’t deflect.”

Jack keeps his eyes on the road, hands steady on the wheel despite the state of the van and the gun pressed to his head.

“It wasn’t me,” he says. “I loved her. More than anything.”

My blood cools. “Who?”

“Christa.”

I laugh once, harsh and humourless. “You think that buys you anything with me?”

“No. I think time does.”

“Try harder.”

He takes a turn too fast, and the van fishtails before catching again. I grit my teeth and push the barrel harder into his temple.

“Talk, or I redecorate the windscreen.”

“It was Maeve.”

The words hit harder than the bullet.

For a second, I think I misheard him over the engine rattle and traffic outside. “What?”

“Your mother,” he says, jaw tight. “She killed Christa.”

I stare at the side of his face, waiting for the punchline, waiting for the twist, waiting for the lie to show itself. “You are a sick cunt.”

“I know exactly what I am.”

“No.” My voice drops. Colder. Sharper. “You don’t get to throw that out there like it means anything. You killed Maeve.”

He scoffs. “No. No, I didn’t. She faked her death and framed me for it. I wanted a divorce. A long time before I met Christa. She refused. She threatened to kill me and then the three of you.”

Silence fills the air. “Excuse me?” I don’t think I’m hearing this right.

“I am not the man you all seem to think I am, Aidan. It’s your mother. I found out years ago what she was. A complete psycho with mother issues. I had no evidence to turn her in.”

“You’re fucking lying. We followed you. We saw you.”

“What did you see, Aidan? Did you see me kill someone?”

I blink. No. We saw the aftermath. The blood, the body pieces strewn about. “You’re going to have to do a hell of a lot better than this.”

“Take me to your brothers.”

“Not a fucking chance are you going anywhere near Annabelle.”

Jack’s mouth hardens. “Then stop wasting time and listen.”

“I’d rather gut you.”

“That urge is exactly why you keep missing what’s in front of you.”

I want to pull the trigger. I really do. My finger tightens. The van rattles over another rough patch of road, and the movement knocks pain through my side hard enough to make my vision flare for a second. I hate that my body picks now to remind me I’m bleeding.

Jack notices.

“You lose too much blood, you pass out.”

“Concern from you is fucking revolting.”

“It isn’t concern. It’s practicality.”

He swings the van into a side street, then another, taking us away from the centre of town. His voice stays level, almost bored, and that makes me want to smash his face into the steering wheel.

I press the gun harder into his head. “Start with Maeve.”

He exhales through his nose. “Your mother has been constructing this for years.”

I stay quiet because if I speak right now, I’ll only say something that ends with me firing. I need more first. I hate that I need more.

Jack glances in the mirror, checks the road, then speaks again.

“When I met Maeve, she was charming. Elegant. Fragile. Devoted. The kind of woman people trust because she knows exactly when to lower her voice and widen her eyes. She studied people the way some people study scripture. Weakness. Desire. Shame. She knew how to become whatever was needed.”

I grit my teeth. “You’re describing manipulation like it makes her a serial killer.”

“I’m describing a woman who enjoyed control more than oxygen.

” His hands stay steady on the wheel. “At first, it was small things. Little lies. Staff dismissed for imaginary theft. Friends cut out of our lives because she decided they were disloyal. Then people went missing. Women who flirted with me had accidents. Women she disliked had their reputations ruined.”

My side throbs. I press harder and feel blood tacky under my palm. “And you never thought to leave.”

“I tried.” His eyes flick to me for a second. “That is when she threatened you and your brothers. Even if I left with you, she made it clear she would never stop looking.”

I want to call bullshit. I want to ram the gun into his teeth until he chokes on every word. But there is a rhythm to this that doesn’t sound rehearsed. That is what pisses me off most. He sounds like a man talking about weather, not murder.

“So, you stayed and what. Watched her carve women up?”

His jaw ticks. “No. She made sure I would be implicated if I ever went to the authorities about it. That would leave you unprotected. I stayed and kept quiet because I had to.”

A bark of laughter tears out of me. “That sentence alone is enough to put you in the ground.”

“I know.” He takes another turn, slower this time, and the van coughs in protest. “I thought if I stayed close, paid her more attention, devoted my life to her every need, I could keep casualties down. I thought I could gather enough to bury her before she tried to bury me. I underestimated her.”

I stare at him, everything I thought I ever knew about this man, ripped to shreds in under ten seconds. “She was controlling you.”

“Blackmailing, controlling, whatever you want to call it.”

“And Christa?”

“I met her, a random meeting in a park. I fell for her immediately. She knew I was married and tried to stay away, but we couldn’t. We snuck around, and Maeve eventually found out.”

“So, she killed her.”

“Yes.”

“Fuck,” I growl. “Fuck you and your fucking dick!”

“Don’t think I haven’t already beaten myself up about it every day for four fucking years,” he growls back. “I have spent the last four years, trying to bury Maeve in as much dirt as I can to make sure she never gets released.”

“So, you left her.”

“You and your brothers were adults, leading your own lives. Being the men I wanted you to grow up to be. Strong. Ambitious. In control. Your mother couldn’t touch you.”

“So why didn’t she implicate you when you left if that was her threat all along?”

“Because by then,” he says, “I already had mine on her.”

I go still for half a beat, gun pressed hard enough into his skull to leave a mark. “What the fuck does that mean?”

“It means I learned from her.” His voice is flat. “I documented everything I could. Names. Locations. Dumpsites. Accounts. Transactions. Men she paid. Men she fucked over. Doctors she manipulated. Cops she nudged. I built insurance.”

My side burns. Sweat runs down my back. I ignore it and keep my aim steady. “And yet somehow you still ended up looking exactly like a serial killer.”

“I let that happen.”

That almost gets him shot.

My finger tightens properly this time. “Careful.”

“I’m being honest.”

“You’re being a deluded cunt.”

His jaw sets. “If I exposed Maeve outright without enough to keep her inside forever, she’d have walked.

She was too careful. Too polished. Too convincing.

But if the world believed I was the monster, and she was the grieving wife who finally escaped me, she’d relax.

She’d stop looking over her shoulder. She’d think she won. ”

I stare at him in disgust. “So, you sacrificed every dead woman to your little long game.”

“No. I failed them, and now I have enough to make it right. Maeve is going after Annabelle, and I’m going to put her down before she gets any closer.”

“Fuck,” I mutter again and lower the gun, letting my arm drop heavily as all of this sinks in. “Fuck.”