Chapter 26
“When am I going to get to see my sister?” Taryn pressed as she stood before Boyd, fast losing patience. Especially knowing that Jace and his friends were likely in place and waiting to make a move. It was all Taryn could do to stay calm and not tell Boyd how she really felt.
After a beat of silence, Boyd grinned at her. “Right on time, as usual. Something should be said for how punctual you are, Taryn.”
Taryn’s gaze swung to Brick for a heartbeat. Boyd’s bodyguard and personal bulldog held her gaze, and she wondered just what Brick had reported. Taryn returned her attention to Boyd. “I told you I’d be here with the money.”
Boyd chuckled. “So you did. Why don’t you show it to me?”
“We had a deal. Where’s my sister?”
Boyd quirked a brow. “You talk to me as if we’re equals, when that’s far from the truth. I’m in charge. You do what I say, when I say it. I thought you understood that.”
“I understand it fine. I’ve done everything you’ve requested and more. The only thing I asked of you was to see my sister.”
“You’ve seen her,” he said without hesitation.
Taryn looked at the concrete as she drew in a steadying breath. “That was six months ago. Before that, it was nine months. And I’ve only seen her through a window. I’d like to talk to her, see her as close as you and I are now.”
“And why would I do that?”
It was difficult for her to remain levelheaded when she hated someone so much.
It didn’t help that Boyd seemed to know exactly what to say to ratchet up her anger even more.
“Because we had a deal. Because I held up my end of the bargain and brought five hundred thousand dollars as promised. Because I’ve made you a ton of money. ”
He gave her a look of surprise. “I’m not sure I like your attitude.”
“What do you expect?” she asked, throwing up her hands before they slapped back down against her legs. “You killed my father and brother, and you took Payton away. She’s all I have left. I’m only asking to talk to her before we move forward with the deal.”
“Bring me the money,” Boyd demanded.
Taryn briefly thought about refusing. But she knew it wouldn’t get her anywhere. Once more, Boyd had put her in a position of helplessness. But he didn’t know about Jace and the others.
Still, Taryn needed Payton. She wasn’t stupid. She knew that Jace would go through with the plan whether Payton was there or not. He wouldn’t leave her behind. Taryn loved him for that. But she couldn’t leave without her sister.
Taryn turned on her heel and walked to the car. She opened the back seat and pulled out the black bag. It was heavy as she carried it to Boyd and tossed it at his feet.
“Open it,” he ordered her.
She froze, fury filling her to the point she thought she might explode. Her time of bowing to Boyd’s every whim was almost over. She just had to remain calm a little longer. All she needed was Payton.
When she didn’t immediately move, Boyd repeated, “Open it.”
Taryn bit her tongue to keep from smarting off. She then walked to the bag and bent to unzip it. When it was open, she straightened and looked at him, waiting for his next order.
Boyd’s lips curved into a cocky smile that made her want to knee him in the balls. He didn’t even look at the money inside the bag. “I still can’t believe you came back. You had a chance to escape, but you didn’t. That means you like working for me.”
“I fucking hate you. I’ve done everything I had to in order to stay alive and keep my sister alive. I’m here for her.”
Boyd started chuckling. “Oh, the irony.”
Taryn frowned and glanced at Brick, but the bodyguard’s gaze was on something behind her. “What’s that supposed to mean?” Taryn asked Boyd.
“This is going to be priceless,” Boyd replied.
Taryn was growing more and more confused by the second. The approaching sound of high heels on concrete got her attention. Taryn found her gaze drawn to Brick once more. His black brows were drawn together in a slight frown. But it was Boyd’s arrogant smirk that made her blood run cold.
Taryn wanted to turn around and see who it was, but she made herself remain still.
The closer the footsteps came, the wider Boyd’s smile got.
If Taryn hadn’t looked at Brick, she wouldn’t have seen his face go blank as if he were wiping all expression from his visage.
She didn’t get a chance to think about that for long as she saw movement out of the corner of her eye.
She turned her head to see who it was. At the sight of her beautiful sister, Taryn’s heart leapt.
She took in Payton’s body-hugging bright blue dress, the large diamonds in her ears and on her fingers, and her blue heels.
The smile Taryn had slipped when Payton didn’t even look her way as she walked to Boyd and put her arm around him.
Taryn’s gaze moved from Payton to Boyd and back to her sister.
“She hasn’t figured it out, sweetheart,” Boyd told Payton.
Payton rolled her large brown eyes that were so like their mother’s. “Taryn always did think she was the smartest person in the room. It’s nice to finally put her in her place.”
Taryn couldn’t breathe. The world spun uncontrollably around her. She wasn’t sure which way was up and which was down. This had to be some kind of nightmare. She’d wake up any moment. She’d wake up.
Wake up!
Taryn squeezed her eyes closed and then reopened them. Still, Payton stood beside Boyd, her arm around his waist. Maybe this was some trick Payton pulled to fool Boyd into letting his guard down. Yes. That had to be it. “Tell me what’s going on.”
“Just like Taryn. Always demanding,” Payton stated in a voice filled with hatred.
Boyd couldn’t contain his glee as he smiled at Taryn. “I’ve been waiting for this moment for years. I thought you would’ve figured it out by now, but you couldn’t get it out of your head that you were supposed to save your sister. You should’ve thought about yourself. I even gave you a chance.”
“I told you she’d come back with the money,” Payton said with a laugh that was as cold as the Arctic. “We should’ve demanded more.”
Taryn’s blood ran like ice as uncertainty and rage filled her. The woman standing before her looked like her sister, but Payton would never act like this. Would she? “Payton. Wh—what are you doing?”
“I had to get free of you,” her sister spat, resentment and ire contorting her features. “You were so fucking controlling, always telling me what I could and couldn’t do.”
“I-I was taking care of you.”
“You weren’t Mom!”
Taryn jerked as if slapped. She didn’t recognize the woman in front of her. This wasn’t her sweet younger sister, who stayed up to watch scary movies with her, shopped with her, and baked sweets. This woman was selfish. She was . . . malicious.
Boyd turned his head to Payton and gazed at her as if she were his everything. “It was Payton’s idea. Everything you’ve endured. She has the most brilliant mind I’ve ever encountered. There has never been anyone as well matched to me as her.”
Payton smiled lovingly up at Boyd and touched his cheek before kissing him.
Taryn swallowed the bile that rose in her throat as her brain comprehended what Boyd had just shared. “What?”
Payton snapped her gaze back to Taryn, hatred burning in her eyes so brightly that Taryn was surprised she didn’t fry to a crisp.
“You wouldn’t shut up about moving in with you.
I told you over and over that I wanted to be on my own, but you wouldn’t listen.
I didn’t need you. Dad and Ben didn’t need you.
But you had to control everyone. Why do you think Ben started doing drugs with Dad?
Because you were constantly on his case. ”
“To do something with his life and not get caught up in the never-ending shit that was Dad’s life,” Taryn retorted, as she became enraged. “You call that controlling. I call it looking out for my brother. I wanted him to be happy, to have a life.”
“And look what you did to him.”
Taryn snorted as she raked her gaze over Payton.
She thought of all the years she had been enslaved to Boyd for her sister’s sake.
And the entire time, Payton had been living it up, enjoying life.
All while Taryn prayed that she got through each day without being killed and thinking of ways to free her and Payton.
So many wasted years. “You want to put his death on me? That’s rich.
I’m not the one who has to carry that weight.
You are. That’s not on me. He followed Dad down the drug-addiction path.
” Then it hit Taryn. All of it. And she understood what loathing and disgust truly were.
“Boyd said all of this was your fault. I always wondered how Dad and Ben could afford the cocaine. It came from you, didn’t it? ”
Payton smiled in response.
Taryn was caught between wanting to cry and scream. “You got Ben and Dad started selling for Boyd. You knew they wouldn’t be able to help themselves, and you made sure they didn’t tell me. Then you got Boyd to come in and take all of us.”
“About time you pieced it together,” Boyd told her.
But that didn’t make Taryn feel any better. She didn’t take her eyes off Payton, nor did she think about Brick or the other armed men near her. “All you had to do was leave. Why did you have to pull all of us into this . . .”—she looked around as her animosity grew—“this fucking hellhole!”
“Because it amused me,” Payton replied with a smile.
Taryn swallowed, realizing then that Payton had been lying to everyone for years.
The sweet sister act had been just that, an act.
Taryn fought back tears as she thought about her father, who had been lost when her mother died.
Of Ben, who had tried to be the dutiful son and brother but was so easily swayed.
Taryn couldn’t believe that she had been blind to it all.
“You’re the one who got Dad hooked on drugs after Mom died. You pushed him down that path.”