Chapter 25
25
Christa
T hat’s the last of the boxes, packed and ready to be moved into the Hawthorne mansion.
“You were supposed to be my fresh start in Portland,” I mutter to the spacious, sunny living room.
My phone pings. It’s a message from Nathan. He’ll be here in about half an hour.
Good, your sister is already on her way over to help , I text him back.
It feels nice. It’s another fresh start, I suppose. Hopefully, the next one will have a more permanent feel to it once the Mancini threat has been eradicated. I’m still thinking about what I’ll do and how I’ll do it. The legal option is for me to come forward about what happened at Perry-Sage while demanding protective custody from the FBI.
But I would need something solid to incentivize them on the matter.
Dirt on the remaining Mancinis would be a great start. I would have to hack into their offices, unless Spike can help me pull a proxy attack. I could use his systems and mirror every signal through the Hawthorne servers. It might work. It’s also insanely illegal, so that might attract the FBI’s attention in a wholly different manner.
There’s a knock on the door.
Smiling, I open it to welcome Teagan, but my whole body freezes at the sight of a man with a familiar face. I’ve seen it in photos the Hawthorne brothers showed me.
“Vince Mancini,” I gasp and immediately take a couple of steps back.
“Ah, I see you know who I am.” He chuckles but remains in the hallway, holding a pretty pink box in his hands. “I brought you this, Miss Campbell. I figured it was about time I introduced myself.”
“What are you doing here? I’m calling the cops!” I show him the phone in my hand for good measure.
But he laughs again. “And when they arrive, you can tell them all about how you hacked into the Perry-Sage databases and wiped yourself from their records. I believe that amounts to obstruction of justice, at the very least.”
“What do you want?” I snap, shaking like a leaf. My eyes keep darting around, looking for a sharp object to use. There’s nothing except for a pair of scissors on the coffee table, which are out of my reach.
“I’m not here to hurt you,” Vince says. “Not yet, anyway.”
“Why are you here then?” I ask. “The Hawthornes are on their way. If they find you here—”
“You think I’m afraid of them?” He laughs in sheer mockery. “Don’t be ridiculous, Miss Campbell. If I wanted you dead, you’d be six feet under by now. Your head would be on the steps of the Hawthorne building.”
“I left Perry-Sage. I stayed out of everybody’s way.”
He points an angry finger at me. The first crack in his mask. “You were supposed to go down with the ship. And you certainly weren’t supposed to attack my family the way you did. Some of us took it personally.”
“They got what they had coming for everything they did.”
“You didn’t mind playing along when you were making a pretty penny off your math genius; isn’t that right, Miss Campbell?”
“I didn’t know what kind of monsters I was dealing with. Not until your people shot someone in front of me simply because he wanted to leave.”
“We don’t leave loose ends.”
“I just wanted to do a good job, but not at the cost of innocent lives.”
“No one is ever completely innocent.”
“I walked away. I haven’t said a word to anyone, and I won’t. Just leave me in peace.”
His eyes pop out in surprise. He’d laugh, if he weren’t so furiously offended. “Are you fucking serious right now?”
“All you had to do was move on with your life.”
“It’s not that simple.”
“It can be. Just walk away and leave me alone.”
“Or what?”
“Or else you’ll find out precisely why your buddies at Perry-Sage thought I was too valuable to let me end up like Brett and other employees your organization killed,” I say, though I don’t know where I’m getting all this nerve from. Maybe it’s the pregnancy hormones finally kicking into gear.
“I’m coming for you, Miss Campbell. And I’ll get you when you least expect it,” he says.
“Is that why you came here today? To reiterate that?”
“To remind you that it’s not over until you beg me to finish you off,” he sneers.
My blood runs cold as I realize he means every damn word. He’s not here to gloat, nor is he here to give me a good scare. No, he’s here to inspire terror, to make sure that when our paths cross again, I will meet a most horrible fate. This is personal for him, which means I need to start digging into his family more.
The tree has more branches than I thought.
“Here,” he says, tossing the box at me. It lands on the floor and slides across until it reaches my feet, startling me. “For your funeral. I want to make sure you look pretty.”
“HEY!” Teagan’s voice roars through the hallway.
Vince sees her and takes a couple of steps back. “Easy there, pretty lady. You don’t want to do something you’ll regret with that thing.”
Teagan slips into the apartment with her back to me, a taser in her shaky hand. “Get the fuck out of here,” she says. “I mean it!”
“Whoa, you girls sure pack a punch, eh?” Vince laughs but he also moves farther away from the door. “Relax. I said my piece.”
“Get out,” Teagan hisses.
He gives me a wink before he disappears from my sight.
It’s not until Teagan closes the door and turns around to check on me that the harsh reality hits, and it hits hard. I break down crying.
“Hey, hey,” Teagan mutters as she sets the taser down and rushes to my side. “It’s okay, Christa, I’m here. It’s okay.”
I feel her arms wrap around me, and I wish it was enough to make me feel better. But the fear and the hopelessness grow thicker and heavier with every breath I take. “He’s trying to torture me before he kills me.”
“Christa, you’re safe. I’m sorry I wasn’t here sooner.”
“What would you have done? Tase him?” I reply. “Now I’ve put you in danger, too!”
“I would’ve tased his balls off before he even considered making a move,” Teagan replies. “You are forgetting that I grew up around Hawthorne men. I don’t mess around, not when it comes to my friends.”
“I’m so sorry you got dragged into this.”
“Enough, Christa. Like my brothers often say, we really are in this together. Did he do anything to you? Do you feel okay?”
“I think I’m okay,” I tell Teagan. “Just scared and angry.”
“Good. Now get yourself together, woman. You are not alone. When someone messes with you, they mess with the entire Hawthorne family. You should know that by now.”
I nod my head and take a deep breath. She’s right. I do need to get myself together. I have a life to live and a baby to keep safe. I will not live like a victim any longer.