Chapter 45 – Aster
ASTER
His body drops to the floor with a thud, blood leaking from his head. Fifteen bullets left. Seconds later, the door bursts open. Three guards stumble in, their attention dropping to Jude before their wide eyes meet mine, my barrel already pointed their way.
One reaches for his gun. I pull the trigger, firing a shot close enough to graze his hand, and he shrieks. Fourteen bullets left. “No one else move, or the next shot won’t miss,” I instruct.
They begrudgingly put their hands in the air.
“Any of you know where a pink-haired little spitfire is? She’s about yay high,” I say, gesturing with my free hand. “Probably cussed you out on the way in.” The one I shot is useless, crying like a little bitch. The other two share a look. “Where is she?!”
“You can shoot them,” an all too familiar voice says. Years of dark memories flood to the surface. “But they won’t tell you shit.”
My hand trembles on the weapon, and I struggle to show my strength.
The men step apart, and my father walks through the door.
The sight hits me like a truck as his eyes meet mine.
Eyes that are but a mirror, the same emerald color as my own.
It’s been years since I’ve seen his face.
“Leave us,” he tells the guards, waving a hand, and my eyes bounce between them.
“Are you sure—” a guard starts, and my father cuts him off with a flick of his wrist.
“I think I can handle being alone with my own son.”
The guards exit, the door shutting behind them, leaving us in the silent room. Only the crackles of the fireplace fill the silence.
“Son?” my father says, and I grit my teeth, grip readjusting on the pistol. The pistol that I still have pointed his way. Pull the trigger. I shake away the thought. What would happen to Annabelle? Would she forgive me? “Think you can put that down so we can have a conversation?”
The words are eerily close to Jude’s. Jude. My eyes drop to his body. Blood pools around his head, eyes open and void of life.
Swallowing hard, I holster the gun. My head spins.
I knew the Westerfords were into weapons.
I suppose I could have assumed, drawn the connection, that they would be involved with my father.
I just didn’t want to believe he could have infiltrated my one safe space away from his bullshit. That his reach could truly go so far.
“What are you doing here?” I finally force out. It’s a stupid question. I know the answer. But I still want to hear him say it.
“Well, I was in town and thought I’d check in on one of my business ventures,” he says, and there it is. The final blow to the false reality I’ve been holding. No matter how far I go, I’ll never outrun him.
“Well”—I gesture to the corpse—“looks like you’ll have to conduct some interviews while you’re here.”
He folds his arms, a flicker of disappointment in his eyes. The same look he had before punishing Ollie and me when we were kids. “This is your mess.” His disgusted gaze trails Jude before returning to mine. “Yours to clean up.”
I huff a laugh. “You’re fucking delusional.”
“Were the instructions not clear enough, Aster?” His eyes narrow. “You work for us. Killing this little rat here doesn’t change that.”
My lips part. “You…” My heart is in my throat. Chest aching. “You were part of this? Of everything?”
“Well, not everything,” he says, pacing the carpet.
“The skeleton art, that’s all their crazy idea.
Turns out the only thing worth more than a hit is a hit with a gruesome trophy.
And I’m always eager for any excuse to increase profits.
But I may or may not have assisted in the supply of bodies. ” He grins. “You too.”
I shake my head. “I don’t understand.” Anger thrums through my veins. “I’m not working for you. I told you after Oliver was killed, and I’m telling you now. I’m done doing your bidding.”
He laughs. A deep, throaty laugh that has me wanting to willow inside myself and hide in the closet like I did as a child. “Aster.” His voice is calm and cool in a way that only heightens my anxiety. “You’ve been working for me for years.”
I shake my head. “No.”
“Yes.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
His smile is sinister. “Jackson,” he says, and my heart stops. “He works for me.”
My head continues to shake. “We… we only went after criminals.” Was he killing for my father too? Did Jackson assign me the bodies he didn’t have time for?
“Maybe. Maybe not.”
My entire world spins. Down is up. Right is left. And the past years of my life, the lives I’ve taken, have all been for what? For him?
I’ve dropped 109 bodies. How many were undeserved?
I was naive to trust Jackson. Did I really think that just because we grew up together, because he knew Oliver, he was trustworthy? He seemed so angry when Ollie died. There must be an explanation. How could he do this?
I thought it was the perfect partnership. He worked for the department and would have the best leads. I would take them out. He claimed to have a benefactor who compensated my efforts from time to time. I never questioned it.
Regret courses through me.
“I see your wheels spinning, boy,” he tells me, and the way he still treats me as if I’m a child when I’m a thirty-four-year-old man infuriates me. “But there’s no escaping this one.”
“Why are you doing this?” I ask, voice but a whisper.
“Did you really think I was just going to let you run off and do whatever the hell you wanted? Our family has power you can’t imagine.
More money than some countries! And there’s no way I’d ever let you run rampant, killing my contacts and associates.
That would really get in the way of my business. ”
I grit my teeth. “Who was Frederick Vetrel to you?”
He waves a hand. “Local distributor. Easily replaceable.” He smiles. “But I was intrigued to see the video of his kill. You went off on your own for that one.” I’ve been reckless. Love has made me reckless. “I can only imagine it was to save your little bitch.”
My veins turn to lava, panic rising. He knows about Lily.
Of course he knows about her. Because anything that I could ever possibly have that’s good in my life, he would want to taint or take or destroy.
I’ve felt like I had a black cloud following me around all these years, and it turns out I was right.
It was my fucking father.
“You’ve been manipulating me,” I say to him, eyes brimming with moisture I force back. “Just like you did to Oliver.”
He scoffs. “Oliver never had what it took.” He steps closer to me, and I retreat, incapable of allowing the distance between us to lessen. “I expected great things from you.” He smiles half-heartedly. “Guess Annabelle is my only choice.”
Alarm sirens blare. “Leave her be. She’s happy in California.”
Another laugh that brings flame to fury. “She hasn’t lived in California in two years.”
“You’re lying.”
“She works for Hephaestus.”
I shake my head.
“Did you really think she just flew out here without telling me?”
“She would never work for you if she knew what you did.”
His smile is patronizing. “What makes you think she doesn’t?”
My heart stops. “She wouldn’t… she couldn’t…”
Years of phone calls flood my mind. All the half-answered questions. Her insistence that I give my dad another chance. Why wouldn’t she have mentioned it? I suppose I never did either… but I was protecting her.
Panic courses through me. She can’t be a part of this. I distanced myself to keep her safe, and all it did was let Dad get his claws in her completely unbeknownst to me.
“I know it’s hard for you to understand. Hell, I was surprised too. But one of my children does actually care about our family’s legacy.”
“Your legacy is a poison on this planet! How the hell you haven’t been locked up or gunned down is beyond me.”
His eyes flicker with disdain, nostrils flaring. “You want to do the honors?”
My jaw grits. “I’ve thought about it every damn day of my life.”
“Boys, boys,” Annabelle says, pulling our attention towards the door. What is she doing here? “Can we calm down with the murdering our own talk?”
“Annie, I told you to wait in the car.”
“Belle?” I scoff, my chest tightening. “How could you? After everything he did? Now you’re helping him?!”
“We have a lot to catch up on, big bro,” she says, patting my shoulder far too calmly.
“He killed Oliver.” I gesture towards my father. “And you’re just okay with that?”
“I didn’t kill anyone,” he says, as if the technicality makes a difference. “And you always seem to forget the pesky little detail that it was your fault.” Belle’s eyes flick to mine, then towards our father. I’m struggling to make sense of her part in all this. “You sent those docs to the FBI.”
I rear back, choking out, “You knew it was me?” I suppress tears threatening to break through. I refuse to look weak in front of him. “But you took Ollie out anyways? Why?”
His eyes turn sympathetic. “It was a necessary evil.”
“Really?” Annabelle deadpans. “Killing Oliver, your own flesh and blood, was a necessary evil?” Is she on my side? I am so goddamn confused.
“Annie, you know this business requires some tough calls. You’ve made your fair share of them.”
My eyes find my sister beside me, and in a blink, I don’t recognize her at all. She has a stoicism about her I didn’t notice earlier. There are small scars on her arms that were hidden by her blouse this morning. What has he gotten you into, baby sister?
“A tough call is deciding to tell the Westerfords to piss off cause they want to keep another five percent,” she counters. “Not killing your own blood.”
“You two are exhausting together,” he says, pressing his fingers against his temples. “Do I need to worry about you, Annabelle? Does this change anything?”
Her jaw ticks, a forced smile on her face. “No, Dad.”
“Change what?” I glance between them. “What the hell is going on?”
“Well, as you mentioned,” my father says, “I’m in the market for some new management in Cleosville.” His eyes drop to the floor. “And thanks to your trigger-happy finger, it looks like there are two positions to fill. So welcome back, son.”
“I’m not working for you,” I say, scoffing in disbelief.
“Would you like me to make your pretty little girlfriend disappear for real?” he asks, and rage bubbles inside, the weapon on my hip begging to reconnect with my hand like a magnet. “Because I do have that power.”
“Dad,” Annabelle says, her tone sharp. “We don’t need him. I’ll take over for Jude.” Excuse the fuck out of me, she’ll do what?
“That still leaves us short with Vetrel gone,” he reminds her.
“Okay, well, it will be my first responsibility to figure that shit out.” She glances at me, and I wish we could speak with our eyes like when we were kids. Now it’s as if we hardly know each other. “Aster doesn’t trust us anyways. It’s for the best.”
“So, what?” I ask Annabelle, a sickening feeling in my gut. “You’re moving to Cleosville? Just like that?”
She shrugs. “Looks like it.”
“I’m not going to let you keep doing all this shady shit,” I snap.
“Don’t you have bigger issues at the moment?” She cocks a brow, and my mind wanders back to the reason I came here in the first place. Lily.
“Where is she?” I grit out.
My father tsks. “If you’re doing nothing for me, why should I give you that information?”
“What if we tell him as an offer of good faith?” Annabelle cuts in.
“As if Aster’s earned that,” he replies.
“I’ll tell you where your girlfriend is, and you’ll agree to stay out of our way,” she suggests, and I’m still in disbelief. I truly don’t know her at all. The woman I’ve been speaking to has been nothing but a memory of the girl she used to be.
My eyes fall to Jude’s corpse. “And what about him?” I ask.
“As you may be aware, there are a multitude of ways to dispose of a body on the premises. That shouldn’t be too hard.”
“And Isla?” I ask. “Won’t she wonder where he is?”
“Just leave that to us.” My father smirks. “I have a feeling she will be perfectly content with the arrangement.”
This is ridiculous.
I guess it’s true. You cut off the head of a snake and two more grow back. I just never thought the serpents would have eyes that match mine.
And for the security of ensuring my own head isn’t chopped next, I force out the word, “Okay.”