Chapter 52
Sebastian
The Near Miss
“Sebastian, I’m scared.”
The words from Evie’s perfect lips sent my world spiraling. I stared at her as the world around me crumbled into darkness. Evie, the one who had told me time and time again she was ready to die for her revenge, was scared. I reached for her hand and squeezed.
“It’s okay. We need to hide.” I stood and looked around for a place to put her. She was short. We could make this work.
“Who is it you think?” she whispered as we crept into Charles’s bedroom.
“It’s probably a looter who’s been scoping the house. Shh…” I put a finger to my lips and urged her toward the bed. I lifted the bedding that hung over the side of the mattress. “Get under here.”
“Under the bed?” she asked me, incredulous.
“You got any better ideas?” I hissed as I went to the door, shutting and locking it. “They don’t know the code, obviously. They broke in. Get under the bed and hide.”
“What about you?” she asked as she dropped down and scooted under the large pink bed.
I reached into my back pocket and pulled out my knife. I popped it open and reached for the door handle. “New plan. Lock this behind me.” Quietly, I slid out of the room.
“Seb—” Her angry whisper was cut off as I shut the door.
I waited until I heard the click of the lock behind me.
I went to the edge of the stairs and listened.
“Where do you think they’d be?” a man said. He was speaking at a normal volume, implying he wasn’t afraid of being caught.
“With how many he’s got, I wouldn’t be surprised if they’re all over. Charles wouldn’t be stupid enough to put them all in one place.”
My blood chilled. I recognized that voice—Elliott Bradley.
This was serious—Elliott had come out himself.
He was looking for the notebooks.
The notebooks that were currently locked inside the room Evie was in.
I gripped my knife and looked up and down the hall for somewhere to go. I couldn’t let them get to Charles’s bedroom.
“Open every cabinet and drawer. Check under pillows, cushions, everything. I don’t give a fuck. We need those books. I’m afraid Charles grew a heart and told her about them,” Elliott said.
Soon, the sounds of glass breaking, wood splintering, things crashing to the floor, and fabrics being ripped drifted up the stairs as he and his partner began trashing Charles’s home, looking for something they weren’t going to find.
“Are we even sure they’re here?” the other man asked. “What if he put them in a safety deposit box or something?”
“He might have,” Elliott agreed. “But we need to check here first. I guarantee we’re not the only ones looking for them.”
Elliott was smart—which made him more dangerous than anyone with a knife.
“Yeah, well, with the paparazzi up their asses, they can’t go anywhere without being tailed.”
I tried to place the voice of the other man. He spoke to Elliott like an equal, a friend. Was that Arthur Englund, the other remaining person on Evie’s list? I was convinced, as I continued to listen to them, that it had to be.
“He called me the night before he died. I told you that, right? He wanted to negotiate a deal for a new Simon Says. I’d made a joke about Shaw putting him up to it, then he laughed and told me not to worry about who he was talking to. Mike always did do business with his dick.”
“You think Shaw did something?” Elliott asked.
They were talking about Mike Thornton. I gulped. Did someone know my secret?
“I doubt it was on purpose. Mike was always popping those Viagras like candy. If anything, Shaw just watched him die and ran scared. He’s too chickenshit to actually kill someone.”
I took mild offense at Arthur’s assessment. Not only had Thornton’s death been intentional; I’d also killed Thornton’s son and helped with two other murders.
“I don’t know how she wrapped Shaw into this. We’re about to lose our biggest investment,” he groaned. I’d never met the man, but I knew he was one of our studio executives, and they were all about the bottom line.
“You really don’t know?” Elliott snickered. “Like mother, like daughter. I think you underestimate the power of pussy, friend. Shaw got fucked just like the rest of us. What happens, happens.”
Were they implying that Evie had manipulated me with sex? Or her mind? Either way, it couldn’t be further from the truth. As I rolled my eyes at their crude words, I continued to listen.
“Well, when this is over, the movie is out, and the promotion has wrapped, we’ll deal with him. Sebastian Shaw will trip down some stairs or something.”
My blood chilled.
They were planning my murder.
I wanted to go down and fight them right here, right now.
But I was one man with one knife. They were two, and who knew what weapons they had.
Elliott seemed like the handgun type. Instead, I stood at the top of the stairs, waiting for them to come up.
I leaned on the banister, almost bored but still listening.
“What do you think happened to Charles?” Arthur asked.
“Well, what have we seen so far? Heart attack, slit throat, and electrocution. Your guess is as good as mine,” Elliott said.
“What about Mike’s son?”
“I knew the boy. I’m not sold that it wasn’t an outside job. He had a smart mouth. Plus, I know the game. Lita’s daughter is on a mission.”
“Do we know he’s dead, for sure?”
“Would Charles ignore us this long? They got him. I just don’t know how yet. His body will turn up. These things always do. Are we done down here? Let’s start on the upstairs.”
Afraid they’d catch me listening, I ran back to the master bedroom. I typed in the code, hurried inside, and locked the door. The lock wouldn’t stop them if they really wanted to get in.
“Evie!” I hissed. “We need to get out of here.” I went to the bed and crouched down.
The space underneath was clear of anything.
Fuck. Where had she gone? I called out to her again, but she didn’t respond.
I hurried to the closet, pulling back clothes and pushing boxes out of the way. “We have to go!”
Coming up empty, I turned back to the room, and my eyes zeroed in on the open window on the other side. Fuck. She’d jumped. We were on the third floor. I went to the window and stuck my head out.
“Evie!”
“Shh! Come on!” Her voice was so close to my face I nearly pissed myself.
I turned. She was just a foot away from me, standing on a ledge.
“Be careful, but I think we can get down this way.”
There was a loud thump against the door. I turned and heard their muffled, frustrated voices on the other side.
“Sebastian, come on.” Evie sidled away to let me climb out the window.
I gripped her arm and slid next to her just as the door burst open.
Evie let out a tiny cry, and I threw my arm out, slapping my hand across her mouth.
We shared a look, and she nodded. I knew it was an accident, but that little whimper could be what got us caught.
I dropped my hand and nudged her to move.
She was slow as she sidestepped. Clutching the wall, I tried not to look down.
I’d done stunts before, but I had a feeling that if I slipped, I might try to grab her for help and end up taking her with me.
“Finally, a different color,” Elliott muttered as the two men began destroying Charles’s bedroom. I prayed they didn’t notice the open window.
My upper arms burned from holding myself to the wall.
We turned the corner and climbed over a railing, landing on a balcony.
We fell over each other and breathed in relief when we saw a large oak tree not too far from it.
Scrambling, we hurried onto a thick branch and then climbed down to the ground.
As soon as her feet touched the ground, Evie bolted back around the house, toward where we’d exited. I followed quickly, only to stop short when she dove into a large bush, removing a backpack.
“What is that?” I hissed as she slung it over her back and put her arms through the straps.
“I couldn’t leave the notebooks, so when I heard people coming, I stuffed them in a bag I found in the closet and threw them out the window,” she explained, adjusting the straps and hauling forward.
With a sigh, I stopped her and took the bag.
I grabbed it, and the bag hit the ground.
I wasn’t prepared for the weight of all the notebooks.
“Jesus, Evie,” I said, lifting it and tossing it over my shoulder.
“I had to get them all!” she exclaimed as I took her hand, and we ran to my car.
Thankfully, I’d had the foresight to park it a distance away and under another oak tree, so it was hidden in the dark.
I shoved the bag into the back and started the car, zooming off down the drive.
As we reached the gates, we found them destroyed.
Someone, presumably Arthur, had taken industrial strength bolt cutters to the bars, hacking them to pieces, creating a large hole for a car to drive through.
It looked like the Kool-Aid Man had ripped through the metal.
“Who were they?” Evie asked as we drove through.
I cringed, praying the twisted bars didn’t scrape the sides of my car. Once we were safe, I slowed down and answered.
“The monsters you’ve been looking for. They’re on to us.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means this isn’t just us tracking them down anymore.” I gripped the wheel tighter, getting angrier the more I thought about it. “We’re being hunted now too. And it’s going to come down to who’s faster.”
“Faster at what?”
I turned my head to look at Evie. Her eyes were large and full of worry. Something had changed in that house. She’d spent so long putting on a brave face, acting as if she didn’t care if she died. But now, it was clear she did. She was scared, and so was I.
Elliott Bradley knew we were coming for him, and he wasn’t going to let us just run up and catch him unaware. There was a reason he was powerful. Lita Reyes wasn’t the first person he’d gotten rid of, and we certainly wouldn’t be the last. I looked back at the road and turned toward home.
“Drawing their gun.”