Chapter 58
fifty-eight
By the time it truly gets dark, I’ve been in and out of consciousness for a while.
I can barely speak, but Esme explains that my body is likely in shock and trying to save me from the agony I feel every time I move. When I manage to keep my eyes open, we compare notes in hushed whispers, combing through what little we remember about how we got here.
She had been leaving work, coming off a night shift at her hospital in Queens.
When she paused beside her car to search for her keys, a gloved hand covered her face with a chloroform-soaked rag.
She stayed conscious just long enough to see Pierce’s face and realized he planned to stuff her into her own car and drive off with her in the trunk.
She remembers thinking that he could drive her anywhere, move her to another vehicle, and dump hers. Or use her car to further his own agenda under the radar. As the widowed wife of a cop, she knew the possibilities were endless.
Unlike me, Esme knew right away why Pierce had taken her. She is Marco’s only living parent… and Marco killed Pierce’s only living parent. She assumed he wanted to settle the score.
It all made perfect sense to her… until I showed up.
In my brief moments of lucidity, I’m confused by Pierce’s choice, too. After all, he admitted that I was nothing more to Marco than a mark. He claims his boss doesn’t really care for me. Why would he use me to hurt him?
The warehouse is nearly pitch black by the time we hear the crunch of gravel under tires. Esme’s head snaps up, her gray-black ponytail sliding to the side of her head as she cocks her head to listen.
Is it him? What if it isn’t? Maybe someone would hear us and come help. We should scream.
I throw my head back, ignoring the protest my chest makes as I inhale deeply, and screech as loud as I can. Esme all but tackles me to the floor. “No, no, no, no,” she chants. “Mierda!”
The door of the cavernous room swings open, revealing a dark figure carrying one electric lantern. The light twists his features from the vaguely familiar man I recognize into someone much more sinister.
He flashes an unhinged smile. “I see you didn’t warn her what happens if either of you screams,” he chuckles, stepping inside and slamming the heavy metal door shut.
Oh Lord, she did warn me. She even showed me her broken arm.
“She did not know,” Esme lies. “I forgot to tell her. Please, she is already very injured.”
“Hmm.” He tilts his head, sending a strange shadow slithering up the nearest wall. “Who do I punish? You for forgetting to teach her the rules? Or her for breaking them? Maybe both.”
His boots stomp directly toward us. I gasp, moving to rear back. Of course, pain explodes through my body all over again as I flop onto my front. Pierce takes advantage, charging forward and punting me in the side. I can’t contain the shriek that flies out of me.
He keeps going, kicking mercilessly until I finally manage to bite down on my screams and fall into silent sobs.
It takes every single ounce of my concentration to stay quiet.
I squeeze my eyes shut and try to stop breathing, hoping I might just pass out again.
I hear a soft grunt before Esme’s body slumps beside mine.
“Now,” Pierce says, “if you two are about done? I have some questions for you.”
Esme doesn’t move. I try my best to reach for her, but my entire torso screams, and I whimper. Pierce steps between us and drops into a crouch, his hand sealing around my jaw in an iron grip. He jerks my head to the side and waits for my eyes to focus on his face.
I see Esme’s point about his young features; even twisted into a snarl, he doesn’t look much older than a teenager. When he speaks, though, his words are those of a very bitter man.
“Such a pitiful excuse for a whore,” he grumbles, eyeing me with distaste.
“I couldn’t fucking believe it when you popped up on my radar.
He made investigating you sound like a death sentence.
But then, when he finally ruled you out, he wouldn’t quit seeing you.
He even moved you into his fucking apartment.
” His enlarged pupils swing to my pelvis. “You have a golden pussy or something?”
His focus snaps back to my face as his thumb brushes roughly over my lips. “Or maybe it’s this mouth. It is a pretty one, I’ll give you that.”
Some wild burst of fury darkens my vision. On impulse, I open my lips and take a snap at his fingers, hoping to bite one off. If I’m going to die, I want to make sure I take a chunk out of my murderer. I figure Tris will be proud of that, at least.
Pierce barely gets his thumb away, hissing, “Fat bitch.” He examines the damage, the place where blood trickles down to the sleeve of his black dress shirt. “I was leaning toward killing his mother first, but now I think maybe I’ll take you out instead.”
I spit blood at his feet, along with all the saliva that floods my mouth when my stomach clenches at his threat. My mind races, trying to figure out what to do with what he said.
“D-did y-you s-s-seriously take us b-both because y-you—” I pause, panting through pain to get out the rest of my insult, “—couldn’t decide who to kill first?”
It isn’t like me to taunt someone or voice my disdain. But, honestly, I seem to be at a point where things simply can’t get any worse. I’ve lost the man I love. My career will unravel in my absence, along with the Strykers’ wedding plans. And now, I am going to be killed by a psycho.
All because of a guy who possibly never wanted me in the first place.
“Shut your whore mouth,” Pierce growls. “Do you think any of this has been easy? Do you think you could have done better? I infiltrated his team and dismantled it from the inside out. I tried to cost him his job by letting that crazy bastard Daniel into the party. It didn’t work because Grayson is a pussy, but I still collected a nice little paycheck from that sicko Ted.
Killed him and made it look like Barnes did it.
Took the money and paid for this warehouse.
Got into your stupid apartment to my own tracker in your laptop.
Then, I managed to take you both without tipping him off.
Even though that asshole Amir hasn’t let you out of his sight in weeks. ”
I think back, my mind foggy and halting. So many things make sense, now—like that day we came back to my place and found it wide open, with no evidence anyone had been there aside from Marco’s own team. Or how they had “missed” Daniel walking into Ella and Grayson’s engagement party.
My abdomen heaves with the urge to vomit. Still, I refuse to cower. I will get all the answers I can before he does whatever he intends to do to me.
“H-he’s smarter than you,” I add, the jeer losing its edge because of my breathlessness. “H-he knew there was still a threat.”
And he did everything he could to keep me safe.
Come to think of it, if he never truly wanted me, isn’t the fact that he opened his home to me even more gallant?
Or have I just lost a lot of blood?
I hate the haze settling over my mind almost as much as I hate the tears that gather in my eyes. But I hate Pierce most of all.
He fully focuses on me—and, behind him, I see Esme slink up from her slump on the floor, using her knees and her one good arm.
If I keep him distracted… keep him talking… can she get the gun holstered at his hip?
I let my eyes drop to the weapon for one split second, hoping she sees me and gets the hint. When she inches closer, I hurry to keep talking. “I-if I m-meant nothing t-to him, why t-t-take me?”
It’s the first question I can come up with, but it’s also a good one. If I’ve just been a mark all along, how does Pierce believe killing me might possibly hurt Marco as much as harming his mother?
Pierce leans forward slightly, frowning.
“Because he wouldn’t leave you the fuck alone.
I couldn’t figure out why until one night when he had me posted on Ella, and he called her to ask for help setting up a surprise for you.
” He snorts. “I didn’t see that one coming.
I mean, you should have seen the last girl he tagged. Goddamn. And then… you?”
His words don’t sting. They barely even hit me. Esme is almost close enough to stretch up…
Pierce goes on, “This week, I thought maybe he’d caught onto me and was trying to use you as a way to throw me off his precious mother. That’s why I took her first. But then, I saw you two together this morning—when he hadn’t even realized I had his bitch mom—and I knew I’d made a mistake.”
His smile somehow looks unhinged and cool all at once. I’m not sure which I should be more afraid of—the detachment or the mania.
Pierce barks a laugh. “Fuck. I can’t even imagine how good it will feel when he has to watch you die.”
I want to ask him how he is going to do that. There’s no way he thinks he’ll be able to overpower Marco and actually bring him here, right? Maybe he plans to record the whole thing.
Esme is only two steps behind him now, struggling to rise to her feet when she only has one arm… and an ankle that also looks mangled.
I blurt, “S-so you’ve decided, then? It’s going to be me first?”
I don’t want him to say yes. The baser, panicked part of me is praying he’ll decide I’m not worth killing. After all, if he plans to exact his revenge in the most logical way possible, killing Esme is perfect. The proverbial eye for an eye.
But then he will win.
He wants Marco to suffer. He wants his pain. To torment Marco the best way possible: not by hurting him, but by hurting someone he loves… and making sure he feels responsible for it, the way he feels responsible for what happened to his father.
I can’t allow that.
Plus, if Pierce is busy hurting me, that gives Esme more time to get his gun and escape, right?
The decision is so simple. Of course Marco will choose to keep his mother alive over me. Of course I will die, so Marco doesn’t suffer the loss of the only parent he has left.
Esme has a whole extended family who love her and depend on her. Like Marco’s grandmother. I doubt my family will even miss me until my mom needs someone to pick apart. She’ll probably get more clout from publicly mourning me than she ever got from claiming me while I was alive.
Tris is the only person who might wish I were still around. And I can’t sacrifice Esme’s life just to keep my bestie from having to find someone else to watch The Real Housewives of New Jersey with.
Pierce cocks his head at me. “You saying it shouldn’t be you?”
The look of petulant suspicion on his face reminds me, again, how old he probably is. Marco mentioned a boy and a girl waiting at the station the night he shot their father… even if Pierce was fifteen or sixteen at the time… he’d still barely be nineteen or twenty, now.
Behind him, Esme does everything she can to rise up and tackle him.
Her entire body shakes violently when she pushes onto one hand and one foot, though.
I watch out of my periphery as she tries to find balance but can’t hold her weight.
I realize the crunch I heard before was her lower leg… and now she can’t stand.
She won’t get the gun like this.
A calm sort of clarity settles over me. I know what I need to do.
I take every last nerve trembling in my body and force my voice up a few octaves, feigning panic. “Of course it shouldn’t be me! I—I—He doesn’t love me.”
The words are melodramatic in just the right way. Edged with enough fear to make them sound… false.
It’s the truth, carefully packaged as an all-too-obvious lie.
I have a feeling it will work. Clearly, in Pierce’s mind, Marco is the villain of this story.
It makes sense for a bad guy to fall for an equally bad woman.
One who would throw his widowed mother under a bus to save herself.
I just have to play into the narrative he’s already constructed for himself…
and maybe I’ll be able to save Marco’s mom.
“Kill her first!” I shriek, weakly flinging my hand out. I catch Esme’s eyes, wide with terror, through the gap between Pierce’s calves. When she sees my brief glance, recognition lights her gaze… She freezes and slumps back to the floor seconds before Pierce whips his head around.
“Obviously,” I cry, laying it on thick, “she’s more important to him!”
The reverse psychology starts working. I can see Pierce doubting his own logic. His eyes narrow at me. “But he talks to you all day, every day. He moved you into his apartment. And he told me he even asked you to stay there after the wedding.”
I can’t think about why he asked me to do that. None of it makes any sense to me, now that I know the truth about why we started dating. If we ever were dating…
I pretend that Pierce’s questions panic me. “Uh—um—he didn’t really mean that! Obviously. He was just… um… trying to get me to…”
It isn’t hard to pretend I have no clue as to the man’s motives; I really don’t. The only thing I know for sure, now, is that I have to save Esme.
And die trying.
“She’s the one you want!” I insist, panting as the full weight of what I am doing crashes into me. “I—I’m not—” A whimper escapes me before I can help it. “I don’t want to die.”
The words ring true, because they are.
Those five words are the ones that seem to convince Pierce. A sharp, maniacal gleam glazes his eyes while he chucks another look over his shoulder at Esme—lying stoically on the floor—and then back at me.
“Oh,” he chuckles. “This is perfect. Well, guess what? You’re first.”
He shrugs one shoulder, and a slim backpack falls to the ground. He bends over to pull out a camera.
Oh God.
“We’ll have to make this quick. I have to be on a plane to Russia by dawn.
The family my dad worked for hooked me up with a new identity.
It’s the least they could do, since they got him fucking killed.
So by the time they scrub this warehouse, I’ll be in Moscow, and your ashes will be dust in the wind. ”
I try to swallow, but I can’t. The darkness has started to creep and smother. There’s no air touching my lungs.
Pierce keeps his entire focus locked on me, his eyes climbing over my limbs the way a butcher might assess a whole cow before hacking into it.
“But first, I’m going to make a little home movie to send to your self-righteous piece-of-shit son, Esmeralda. Only one of you can be the star, though. The other has to hold the camera. Then I’ll finish up and let my new friends torch both of your asses.”
Oh God. Oh shit.
He leans over and pats my hair. “You’ll scream real nice for me, won’t you, blondie? You’ll scream so sweet I won’t need to be dramatic when I carve Mami up, too, right?”