19. Fiona
Chapter 19
Fiona
The front door swung open. Maisie’s eyes widened. “What the hell happened?”
I heaved a breath, trying to stop myself from hyperventilating. I couldn’t explain why I was crying. It irritated me. I had seen the videos he had shown me. I had been processing the encrypted video file for a while now, knowing that it was almost a guarantee that Sawyer was the killer in the video. I didn’t like that he was a murderer, an assassin for hire, but I could accept it.
But the look in Sawyer’s eyes? To see him for who he was. The lies. The manipulation. To see that he didn’t care about what I needed or wanted right then.
That’s what killed me.
“Sawyer,” I whispered. It was the only word I could sob out. My sister threw her arms around me, taking me inside. She quickly called Wilder, whispering something to him, then stowed her phone. On the couch, she tucked a giant blanket around me.
“What’s going on with Sawyer?” she asked. “Do I need to kick his ass?”
I choked out a laugh. Neither of us could take Sawyer. But then I stopped. Wilder had been there. He had brought the victim inside of the barn.
Maisie must have known everything, then.
The front door opened. Wilder entered, his gaze glossing over me and resting on Maisie. She nodded at him, and that’s when it truly hit me. She knew what Sawyer was capable of, and she hadn’t told me. She hadn’t even told me about her own husband. I backed away from her, my chest tightening.
“You knew they were like this,” I said. She didn’t say anything, and that broke my heart. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
She tilted her head, studying me. “Two things. First, would you have believed me?”
Every single time Sawyer had told me the truth, I hadn’t believed him. I had been convinced that he was joking. Stuff like that didn’t happen. None of it was real.
Would I have done the same with my sister?
I shook my head. “I know you wouldn’t joke about something like that.”
“All right. The second: would you have tried to convince me to leave my husband?” My mouth gaped open. I turned to Wilder, but his eyes were focused on Maisie. Would he ever force herself to put a gun to her own head?
“Answer me, sis. Would you have tried to save me?”
I opened my mouth to speak, but I couldn’t find the words. I had no idea what I would have done. Maisie had always been the rebel. I loved that about her and made it a point to accept her for who she was. But if I thought her life was in jeopardy, would I have tossed that aside, making her run away from a monster like Wilder?
Sawyer was a monster too.
“Listen,” Maisie said quietly. “It’s not that bad.”
I forced a laugh, my cheeks reddening with anger. “Not that bad?”
“It’s a job. Like any job. You do work, and you get paid for it. That’s the way you have to think about it.”
Dizziness filled my head. I leaned on the back of the couch, steadying myself. “I just watched Sawyer decapitate a man. Don’t tell me they’re not that bad.”
A thought crossed my mind that broke me even more: Maisie didn’t trust me.
And the worst part? I understood why. With the way I was reacting, if I was her, I would have kept it a secret too.
I was failing my own sister.
“I wish you would have told me,” I whispered, tears quaking through my voice again. Just like I wish I would have known this about Sawyer sooner.
But the biggest betrayal wasn’t the fact Sawyer was an assassin. It was how he looked at me in the barn, like I was another kill. Someone he could dismiss. A victim he could toss aside.
“And I wish you would have told me you had fallen in love with Sawyer,” Maisie said.
Fallen in love? I bowed my head. How could I be in love with someone like him?
But she was right about part of it. I had been keeping secrets from her too. I couldn’t control Maisie or Sawyer, but I could control myself. How many times had she kept secrets from me? Had I forced her into this situation?
Had I forced Sawyer to keep secrets from me too?
It wasn’t the actual violence that bothered me. It was the secrets. The games Sawyer played with me, knowing exactly what he was doing. How I was falling for him. That it would destroy me when I learned the truth.
But I wasn’t going to break for him like that.
I straightened my shoulders. This wasn’t an issue with her. I held out a hand.
“No more secrets,” I said. “Deal?”
“Deal.” She shook my hand. “By the way, I was a sex worker for a while.” My jaw dropped. “Did you know? Or did you not know? Because I definitely hinted at it.”
I smiled, forcing myself to laugh. My sister was, or had been, a sex worker? I couldn’t process that right then.
“As long as you’re happy, I don’t care,” I said.
She rubbed my back. “I am. Very happy,” she said.
Someone banged on the front door. Maisie put a hand in front of me. Wilder stepped forward.
It was Sawyer. I could feel it.
“No,” I said to both of them, wrapping the blanket around me. “Let me deal with him.”
Both of them waited behind me. I straightened my back and held my shoulders back. I could be strong. I could do this. I opened the door.
Sawyer, clad in a plain white shirt and jeans snug around his waist, stared back at me. It was so unlike him. Had he borrowed those clothes from another rancher? His eyes were bloodshot. His face blank.
Was this another game?
“What do you want?” I asked. He didn’t say anything, but his eyes never left mine, as if he was searching for the right words to say, trying to pin me in one of his traps again. But I wasn’t going to let him do that anymore. “You know what hurts the most? That you knew I didn’t believe you. And you didn’t try to convince me of the truth. Not until you shoved it in my face.”
“Why would I?” he asked. “Your whole life, you’ve never had a real worry. Unless I killed someone in front of you, you would have thought it was a joke.” He threw his hand down to the side. “We were playing a game, Fiona, a game you knew had risks.”
“Screw your game.”
“Do you know who that man was?” I crossed my arms over my chest, the blanket snug around me. Sawyer wiped his face. “That was the leader of Hatchcom Focus. Your stalker? That’s him, Fiona. And he won’t bother you anymore.”
If that was true, then they had been stalking me because of Sawyer. Using me as a pawn in a game of their own.
“That doesn’t give you an excuse,” I said.
“I will kill anyone who threatens you, Fiona. And trust me. He’s not the first I’ve come across.”
I bit my lip. How many people had he killed for me?
“You said you loved me,” I said. “But you almost let me die. I can’t love you, Sawyer. I can’t love someone who manipulates me.”
He laughed, the chuckle making me insane. “You say that like you would have loved me if I had been real with you this entire time.” He shook his head, and I knew he was right. I didn’t know if I could have accepted him that way; he was right to dismiss my statement. “I never lied to you. But you know what actually bothers you? That you failed to see who I was. There’s no one to blame for this but you.”
Tears welled in my eyes, but I didn’t let them fall. I was worth those tears, but Sawyer?
He wasn’t.
I turned to my sister. “Will you take me home? ”
Sawyer stepped forward. “Fiona, I?—”
Maisie blocked him from me. “Back off,” she said, narrowing her eyes at him. Wilder stood behind us, another layer of protection.
Sawyer didn’t move, but glared at me. Maisie pulled me by the arm, inching me toward the parked cars. I held it in, keeping everything inside of me. Maisie had already seen me cry. I didn’t want to do that to her again.
But it hurt, and the tears rolled down my cheeks. I held my breath, trying to be quiet.
The night flickered to the sides of us as we drove by. The shadowed gates. The stalks of grass. I had always thought it was strange that Maisie had traded her partying lifestyle for a quiet life on a farm, but now it made more sense. Wilder wasn’t just a rancher, and that other side of him matched Maisie.
But what about Sawyer and me? Did I match him too, in some strange way?
Was he right? Was I mad at myself for failing to see who Sawyer was?
As we pulled into the broken gates of my apartment complex, Maisie looked up at the building.
“You want me to stay with you for a while?” she asked.
“I’m fine,” I tried, sniffling. “It’s okay. I’m going to get some sleep.”
“But your apartment got broken into?—”
I had forgotten about that. “Sawyer said he just killed the person who did it. I’m ‘safe’ now,” I said, adding the air quotes.
“I can stay out of your way. Chill with my phone or something.”
Maisie had never seen how small my apartment was. There was no staying out of someone’s way in my place .
“I’ll be fine,” I said. “Thanks.”
I got out of the car, about to slam the door shut, when she stopped me.
“Fiona?” she said. I opened the door wide. “You know he loves you, right?”
Those words rolled around inside of me. They were so similar to Sawyer’s own confession that night on the lake. Maybe Sawyer did love me. But he was selfish. And I was tired of him playing games with me. I wasn’t going to let anyone take advantage of me like that anymore.
“Maybe,” I said. She gave me a hug and headed out. As I walked up the stairs to my apartment, my phone dinged.
I’m getting the itch to hang out, Erica typed. Maybe something like the other night?
I’m about to pass out, I responded.
You don’t want to chill? she sent.
Broken heart, I typed.
Dude. Let me get your mind off of whoever this asshole is. I swear I can fix it, she replied.
Did she realize it was Sawyer?
Why did I care so much about him, anyway?
Maybe I did want to hang out. Maybe I wanted him off of my mind.
Screw it. I deserved this. I could go out if I wanted to. Without him and while wearing my damned panties.
Where are we meeting, then? I asked, adding emojis for good measure.
Yay! I’ll text you my address.
An hour and a half later, I was at Erica’s house. It was nicer than I expected, closer to Lakeville than Pierce, with a decent commute to the library. It seemed strange that she would travel so far for a low-paying job .
“You know there’s a library in Lakeville too, right?” I asked. “Small, but nice. They have a good used bookstore.”
She smirked. “You want to kick me out of the New Host Library already? So that you can be the manager?” My heart dropped, thinking about Sawyer, about everything we had been through. I had said those two words, ‘please, Sawyer.’ That meant that the library would be transformed into whatever he wanted.
“Sweetie, what’s going on?” Erica asked, rubbing my arm. “What happened?”
I told her about Sawyer as best as I could without saying his name or, you know, the fact that he had murdered my apparent stalker in front of me, and I highlighted the part that pissed me off most: the games he played with my head and heart.
“Geez,” Erica whistled. For a moment, we were both silent. Then a gleam flickered in her eye. “You know what could cure this?”
What was she getting at?
“A strong drink,” she said.
I didn’t need alcohol. Not when my head was like this.
“Water, please,” I said.
“Come on. You had fun at the nightclub, right?”
“Do you want me to have a puke fest in your bathroom?”
“Fair point,” she said. “Anyway, what happened to this guy? I’m making you a fancy soda water, by the way. I used to drink this mocktail for hangovers.”
“I broke it off. I feel like I lost him, or that I never knew him in the first place,” I said. She walked to the kitchen. Then quietly, I added, “Maybe it would have been better if we had never met.”
“It sounds like he was pretty manipulative from the get- go,” she said loudly. A few seconds later, she handed me a glass with clear bubbly liquid in it, a lime on the edge.
Maybe Sawyer was right. Maybe he had been real all along. I just didn’t believe him.
I took a sip, lime hitting my taste buds. “This is good,” I said. “Thanks.”
She winked. “See, Fi. I know what you like. Trust me. You’ll thank me for it later.”
I tossed it back, hoping it would help with my stomach and my overall mood. Then I stared at the ceiling fan as it spun around.
“It sucks to lose someone you love,” Erica said. Her voice seemed far away, even though she was right next to me. A relaxing tingling sensation spread through my arms and legs. I tried to count the fan blades, but they smudged together in one circular blade.
“My husband died recently. But I’m still here,” she said.
“I didn’t know you had a husband,” I said.
“I don’t anymore. He was killed.”
The room spun faster, my vision blurring with it. Stars appeared in my peripherals.
He was killed?
“What’s happening?” I asked.
“Whoa. Are you okay, Fi?” she asked. “You don’t look so good.”
I clutched my hands together, my fingers wrapping around the empty glass.
Had Erica drugged me?
“What did you put in this?” I slurred.
“Come on, Fi,” she said as I closed my eyes, “Don’t you trust me?”