17. Fiona
Chapter 17
Fiona
I knocked on the front door of my sister’s house, guilt simmering in my chest for showing up so late, but honestly? I was relieved that Sawyer had suggested it. Staying in my crappy apartment by myself after it had been broken into wasn’t a situation where I’d be able to sleep. But here, with Maisie? I might be able to rest. Maybe not a full night of sleep, but at least a little shut-eye.
The door opened. “Fiona?” Maisie asked. Her hair was damp, her makeup faded around her eyes.
“Can I?—”
“Of course,” she said, not bothering to let me finish my sentence. She waved at Sawyer in the car, then pulled me inside and pointed at the nearest downstairs room. “Is this room okay again?” she yawned.
“Were you sleeping?”
“We were just,” she paused, “messing around. But I’m about to pass out. What’s going on, anyway?”
Footsteps creaked above us, and I glanced at the ceiling .
“Wilder,” Maisie explained. I figured it was him, but I was still on edge, and he creeped me out a little bit.
“I don’t know,” I said. “My studio was broken into. And I keep getting these weird messages, and?—”
“Wait,” she said, her eyes widening. “You’re being stalked, and you’re just now telling me?”
My chest tightened. Was I being stalked? It seemed so surreal.
“People leave weird threats at the library all the time. I’m not even joking. I thought it was nothing.”
Her jaw dropped. “You’re a librarian, and you’re getting death threats?”
“It comes with the territory? Public service and all?” I tried to joke.
Her eyes rounded even more. “Geez, Fiona. Maybe we should get you a gun,” she murmured.
“That’s not necessary.”
“Wilder,” Maisie called. She dragged me up the stairs. Wilder appeared in the hallway. “She’s going to sleep in the room next to us tonight.” Maisie’s focus shifted to me. “He hears everything. Smells it too. No one is going to hurt you. Not with Wilder around.”
I looked at him. “Thanks,” I said. He nodded.
“I’m glad you came to us,” Maisie said.
“Me too,” I said. But it still seemed strange. Why hadn’t Sawyer let me stay with him? Why was it better for me to be here while he was somewhere else?
Did he not want to be around me anymore?
I closed the guest room door, then laid in bed, staring at the ceiling. I had to be ready. Would Sawyer show up? Would he save me? Or was this Sawyer’s way of saving me?
You know I love you, right?
His words kept shuddering within me, keeping me awake. He might have been fascinated by me, sure, but he wasn’t in love with me. How could he say that when our relationship was based on his games?
Nothing about us was real.
So why did it seem like he was telling the truth?
A television laugh track echoed through the stairwell up to my bedroom. I quickly dressed and went downstairs. Maisie sat on the couch, reading a book, a cup of coffee on the table next to her, the television on in the background.
“Where’s Wilder?” I asked.
“Working,” she said. “How are you?”
“I’m—” I mean, was I fine? I didn’t know. “Where’s Sawyer?”
“If he’s here, he’s in the office inside of the Calving Barn. Don’t worry,” she smiled at me, “No one can get in here. Wilder has some insane security in this place. But what’s going on with Sawyer?”
I clenched my hands together. I hadn’t told her about us yet. He was her brother-in-law and my boss. My mouth gaped.
“It’s fine,” she shrugged, waving me off. “Whenever you’re comfortable, you can tell me.”
My phone buzzed with a text from Sawyer: Stay in their house.
I blinked, my temple twitching. What the hell had I gotten myself into that Sawyer was basically keeping me captive in Maisie’s house?
But I trusted Maisie. She might have been a mess at times, but she would never put anyone she loved in danger. If she thought I was safe here, then she was probably right .
Time passed slowly. By the time the evening came, someone banged loudly on the front door. Maisie and I startled. She peeked in the peephole, then opened the door.
“Where’s Fiona?” Sawyer barked. Maisie stood in front of the doorway, blocking him from coming inside.
“What do you want with my sister?” she asked.
I sucked in a breath, then smoothed my clothes.
“It’s all right,” I said, patting her shoulder. Even when we were teenagers, Maisie had always stood for me, even though she was younger than me. She was never afraid.
I tried to emulate her fearlessness right then, but inside, I was terrified.
Sawyer’s brows straightened, his eyes narrowing in on me, focusing with precision, as if he knew that whatever this was, I would never be ready for it.
He motioned to the UTV, and I got in the passenger side. It rumbled across the grass and dirt until we reached the Dairy Barn. A warmth built in my stomach, but I suppressed it, knowing that those memories weren’t important right now. There was nothing warm, or even cruel, about Sawyer right then. He was closed off. Cold.
Inside, there was a new projector screen hanging from the wall. A computer was on the metal table in the back. One chair sat in front of the projection screen: an audience of one.
“What is this?” I asked.
Sawyer pointed to the chair. I wrapped my arms around myself and took a seat. I held my breath. The screen lit up with an image of a man with his neck strapped to the wall by a metal locking device. A faceless person in black pressed a long nail to the man’s temple. A hammer came into view. One swift thrust and the nail shot an inch deep. The man’s face twisted in agony, but there was no audio: only the silence of his twisting mouth.
I turned away. Sawyer switched to the next video. A person drenched in liquid, their hands cuffed together. A match was thrown from the side. The flesh melted to black beneath the flickering flames.
I tried to make eye contact with him, but he played the next video, refusing to acknowledge me.
Why was he showing me these videos?
The next video had a man on his knees with the barrel of a gun resting on his forehead. I was almost relieved that it was nothing worse. A swift death. A pair of dice threw across the screen, falling to the floor. The man trembled as he bit his lip, tears falling down his cheeks. Then the gun shuddered, and the man fell to the side.
“What is this?” I whispered. Sawyer clicked on the next video. The images flashed on the screen, but I shook my head, refusing to watch anymore. “Why are you making me watch this?” I asked, my voice full of tears. I didn’t want to see people in agony.
Because I didn’t want to face what this meant.
Sawyer came forward, standing in front of me, the bright images from the projector rippling across him like he was part of the videos.
“This is my true power. My only legacy,” he said. “Our business is murder. Our clients describe these violent fantasies and we serve it to them with discreet elimination.”
Elimination. An emotionless word.
He had to be lying. There was no way this could be real.
But why would he have those videos?
Was he showing me everything about himself, even the ugly parts he didn’t want me to see? Why would he show them to me ?
Was this love?
“Each of these videos?” Sawyer said, bending down, our eyes at the same level, “All of these murderers were me, Fiona. Even the one you had on that file. I know you’ve seen it.” He chuckled, forcing a stoic expression, like none of this bothered him. “The scary part isn’t that I murdered that many people.” He stepped closer. “It’s the fact that I felt nothing. I don’t feel any remorse for what I’ve done, and I never will.”
My stomach twisted. He couldn’t be serious.
“My family has been entrenched in murder for generations.”
“But the farm?—”
“The farm is a cover. This is who I am. And I’m going to make this business more profitable, no matter how many people we have to kill to get there.”
“Then why did you buy the library?” I asked.
He paused, his eyes twitching. The library was a cash sinkhole, and he knew that.
But then I knew the answer.
Me.
“I’ve known you for a long time,” he said. “I’ve wanted to prove you wrong since the first time we spoke.”
He pulled me up by the hand, taking me over to the metal table. Two guns laid on the smooth surface, identical in shape and size.
“What are you doing?” I whispered.
“Choose a gun,” he ordered.
“I don’t want to.”
He squared his shoulders. “It’s based on chance. It’s either loaded or it’s empty.”
I couldn’t handle this. What was I going to do with a gun ?
He read my mind, answering the question: “Shoot yourself, or me.”
I closed my eyes, my breath catching in my throat. I didn’t want to shoot him. I didn’t want to shoot anyone. I couldn’t live with any more of that guilt. My little sister was enough.
“Do you still love me?” I asked.
He studied me, the emotion leaving his eyes like clouds covering a hazy sky.
“Love won’t save you from a bullet.”
My heart stilled. It was another game of chance, something I had to put my faith into and give up control over the outcome.
But how could I let go like this? Our lives were at stake. This wasn’t pure chance. I could prevent the outcome. I could refuse.
“I’m not going to do this,” I said.
“Then I will force you, Fiona,” he said. “This is my legacy. I’m not going to give it up.”
I knew, then, that he had come too far for this. He would never change. His dress shoes clicked on the cement.
“Sawyer,” I whispered. A tear slipped down my cheek.
He grabbed one of the guns, shooting it at the ceiling, chunks of wood tumbling to the floor. He pressed the gun into my hand. My knees were weak.
“Pull the trigger, Fiona,” he yelled. He raised the gun in my hand, forcing me to pull the hammer back. Then he aimed it at his chest. “Do it, and I’ll give you the library. You’ll own it.”
The library.
Everything I thought I wanted was right before me.
All I had to do was to pull the trigger.
Shoot him .
Trust that chance was on my side, and that there were no more bullets.
But I couldn’t live with myself like that.
“I can’t kill you, Sawyer,” I whispered. “I won’t.”
“You said you would die for your own library,” he murmured. “I’m giving you that chance. Show me you want the library more than you cherish your own life.”
I put the gun to my own temple, the metal warming against my skin. My body quivered. Sawyer pressed himself against me, steadying me.
“Do it, Fiona,” he bellowed. “Or I will force you.”
Someone was going to die. And I couldn’t kill him.
“Don’t do this,” I begged.
He growled so deeply that it vibrated through me, and I was afraid of him. Afraid of everything that he could do. He grabbed my throat, and in the chaos, the barrel jabbed into my temple. Tears slipped down my cheeks.
My voice was barely a whisper: “Please, Sawyer.”
He squeezed my neck, and I pulled the trigger, needles of adrenaline spiking through me as the gun clicked softly and I didn’t die.
His hard cock twitched against me. He swiped the other gun from the metal table, clearing the surface, then threw me down onto it, ripping down my pants until my ass was exposed. With my chest pressed to the table, he thrust into me from behind, his cock so deep that it dug into my cervix, making me shake. Tears ran down my cheeks, but it felt good to let it out. Good to know that I had done it. Good that I had finally lost, saying those two words. And I couldn’t take them back.
Our game was over.
“Please, Sawyer,” I said again, and again, until the words blurred into emotions and I could barely breathe. If I had chosen the other gun, would he have let me do it? If I had shot him, what would that have said about me?
Would I have hated myself?
His eyes burned into me, but no matter how hard he looked, he didn’t see me. He had withdrawn inside of himself, giving himself over to this fate. Was love capable of this destruction? Forcing you to face demons you were never ready to see?
Sawyer didn’t need or want me, and he never would. And yet he kept fucking me like this was all we were. Those guns gleamed on the floor. How many bullets were inside of each chamber? Even or odd. Fifty-fifty. A single chance. We were at the mercy of his twisted game.