Chapter Eighteen
Lexa cursed herself for not moving faster. For not getting fully turned around before someone grabbed her from behind. Hard. The person knocked her Glock out of her hand, locked an arm around her throat, and put a gun to her right temple.
“Fight me, and I blow your brains out,” the man snarled in a whisper with his mouth right against her ear.
Brady.
Oh, God. It was Brady.
She had to fight through the shock of that. Had to try to wrap her mind around it. But that was next to impossible. A man she’d known most of her life was now threatening to kill her.
Her mind began to whirl as she tried to piece together what was happening. And what had already happened that had brought them here, to this nightmare.
“Call out to Aiden,” Brady demanded, still whispering.
Lexa looked in the spot where she’d last seen Aiden. But he wasn’t there. And she couldn’t see Gillian either. Aiden had no doubt moved back behind cover with the woman. Good. Because if Brady had been the one to shoot Gillian, then he might try to finish her off.
“Why do you want me to call out to Aiden?” Lexa snapped.
“Because do it or you’re dead,” Brady replied. His voice was a hoarse tangle of nerves and something else. Fear. She could hear it. Feel it. “Make it fast before your backup arrives, or a whole lot of people are going to have to die.”
Every muscle in her body had already tightened, but that vised them even more. “You plan on killing Aiden and me. Why?” she repeated.
“Shout for Aiden to come to you,” Brady snarled, and this time there was raw anger mixed with the fear in that whisper.
So, Brady wanted her to help him kill Aiden. That was not going to happen.
“No,” Lexa replied.
She was well aware that she was dealing with a former Navy SEAL, someone who’d been trained to kill. He could snap her neck with the fierce chokehold he had on her. But Lexa hoped he realized if she was dead, then she couldn’t be used to lure out Aiden. He would lose his leverage.
Brady cursed, and Lexa could feel him stoop down even lower behind her than he already was. Using her as a shield. Aiden had been right to call him a coward though at the time he’d said that, he likely hadn’t known the coward was Brady.
“Do it,” Brady demanded, jamming the gun so hard against her temple that Lexa nearly yelped in pain. “Call out for Aiden.”
She forced herself not to react. Not to make a sound. Because Aiden would no doubt try to save her.
That thought repeated in her head. No way would Aiden have gone this long without at least glancing out at her. So, where was he? She was dead sure he wasn’t just laying low to protect himself.
No.
He was coming for her.
And she needed to help him. To make sure Aiden got to Brady before Brady could kill them.
“Chloe deserved to die,” she said. That wasn’t true, but she wanted the sound of her voice to cover any movement that Aiden might make.
“Damn right she did,” Brady spat out, the rage building now. He was moving, too, shifting his feet and dragging her right along with him while he tried to keep watch around them. “That fucking bitch. She was going to set me up for her murder.”
“Yes,” Lexa agreed. “And that’s why no one is grieving her death.”
“No one except her brother. I overheard Chloe talking with him a couple of days ago. She wanted Hudson to help her with this sick plan, but he refused.”
Days. Brady had known about Chloe’s plan all this time. Which means he could have gone to the cops to stop it. Apparently though, he’d decided to handle the situation himself. And look where that had gotten them.
“Hudson did something right for once by turning her down,” Brady added. “But that’s when I knew Chloe was going to pay and pay hard.”
Lexa thought she heard some movement behind them, and she quickly tried to cover it with her voice. “Someone else helped Chloe. The guy who built the IEDs and maybe helped her set those cook-off fires. He needs to be arrested. You need to help us find him.”
“Travis,” Brady spat out like venom. “Yeah, I learned about him, too, by planting bugs in Chloe’s car and house. He’s already paid. He’s dead.”
“You killed him after he set the IEDs here in town for you,” she said, though Lexa was almost sure that wasn’t true.
It wasn’t.
Brady huffed. “I wouldn’t have trusted that asshole to set them up. I had to have a distraction, and the IEDs gave me one. Minimum collateral damage. That’s what I want here.”
Minimum collateral damage . In other words, Brady intended to kill only those who knew he had murdered Chloe. But Aiden and she hadn’t known. Not until now.
“You thought Aiden and I saw you at the manor,” she muttered.
“You did see me. Or at least Aiden did. I’m sure of it. And the only reason he didn’t arrest me was because he’s my friend. He didn’t want to believe I’d set that fire. But I hadn’t intended that fire to kill the two of you. That was all for Chloe, but I guess she’d gotten out right before Aiden and you arrived.”
It was little comfort to her to know they hadn’t been the targets. Because Brady’s careless actions, combined with Chloe’s, could have gotten a lot of people killed. Heck, it had killed Orville.
“And Chloe’s car?” she asked.
“Not my doing. Chloe’s,” he insisted. “Or rather Travis’. I’m sure she had him set that up for her.”
There was sound behind them. Brady suddenly pivoted around, keeping her anchored in front of him. Keeping the gun to her head.
Aiden.
He was there, only about ten feet away behind a tree.
“Brady, you don’t want to do this,” Aiden said, and in the distance, Lexa heard the howl of police sirens.
“The hell, I don’t. I’m saving myself here,” Brady argued. “Is Gillian dead?” he tacked onto that.
“No. She’s alive and talking,” Aiden replied. Lexa had no idea if that was the truth. “She told me what you did to her.”
“She shouldn’t have played detective,” Brady ranted, the rage back in his voice. He tightened his arm around her throat, and Lexa had to fight for air. “And she got it all wrong. She called me to say that she was certain my dad had killed Chloe. My dad! He had nothing to do with this shit.”
“Ease up on your chokehold,” Aiden warned him. “If Lexa passes out, she’ll drop down, and you’ll be an easy kill. Then, you’ll never get the chance to finish off Gillian or me.”
Brady cursed. But he did pull back his arm a little. “Gillian’s batshit. So, whatever she told you was batshit, too. She said she was going to prove my dad was guilty so that the cops would leave me alone. And so that she and I could be together. I don’t want to be with that clingy bitch.”
“So, you decided that you had to silence her for good,” Aiden finished for him. “You broke into her house to try to make it look like a botched robbery, but she got away.”
“Not for long,” Brady growled, making a quick glance at the street where that cruiser would soon be arriving. “I have to finish this. No one else needs to die.”
“No one except Lexa, Gillian, and me.” Aiden’s voice wasn’t filled with hot rage but rather an icy fury that coated his words and his face. “If you had just believed I was innocent, we wouldn’t be here.”
“I did believe it,” Aiden said.
“Right,” Brady answered with a ton of sarcasm. When we talked on the phone, I said, Please tell me that you don’t believe I had a part in Chloe’s plan . You hesitated. And that’s when I was certain that you knew what I’d done.”
Without warning, Brady shifted his gun away from Lexa’s head and took aim at Aiden. He fired, the shot slamming into the tree.
Lexa didn’t waste a second. Without his gun on her, she rammed her elbow into Brady’s gut, and then pivoting, she punched him in the throat. He howled and staggered back.
But he also lifted his gun.
Pointing it at her.
The blast came, thundering through the air, and Lexa braced herself for the pain. For the sensation of being shot. That didn’t happen.
Because Brady hadn’t fired the shot.
Aiden had.
And it’d hit Brady right between the eyes.
Brady’s face registered just a split-second of shock and then…nothing. His eyes went blank, there was a rattle of breath as it left his now lifeless body. Then, Brady dropped to the ground.
Dead.