Freed (Bad Boy Hitman Romance) (16 page)

“So, our secret.” He released my hand and stuck out his little finger and wiggled it at me. “Pinkie swear?”

I giggled, Daddy could be so silly sometimes. I hooked my pinkie finger with his, the woman in the shed already forgotten. “Pinkie swear.”

Chapter 16

Present

Rebecca

“You awake yet, Sleeping Beauty?”

“Kyle?” My head hurt,
ohmygod
, my head hurt so bad. I put my palms to my temples as I slowly opened my eyes. “My head hurts. Where am I?”

I looked around me.

“You passed out when we were talking in the living room.”

Slowly, I situated myself into an upright position.

Grabbing a glass of water from the night stand, Kyle passed it to me. Accepting the glass, I drank down the contents. “Do you have any aspirin?”

“I might. Do you remember what happened before you passed out?”

I did. I remembered everything, even things that were too insane to comprehend, but it all began to make sense to me. My entire life, and my entire being, all began to make sense.

“My father was a serial killer.”

He nodded. “Yes, he was.”

“I remember…” I wasn’t sure why I was confiding in Kyle, but he was there, and I needed to speak, perhaps to just make it all real.

“What?” He actually looked genuinely concerned. I didn’t allow myself to question it.

“All my life, I’ve been having nightmares periodically. They were dreams of me and my father and me walking in on him with one of his victims. I just thought they were nightmares, nothing more. But now, it hit me… It wasn’t. I remember it so vividly now, like it happened just yesterday.”

“Why do you think you repressed it?”

I shook my head, pushing back the stray strands of hair that fell into my face from the movement. “I’m not sure. But, I understand now.”

He frowned. “What do you understand?”

I looked up at him, and chewed at my lower lip in contemplation. “Why I’m different.”

Kyle seemed amused. “Why do you think you’re different?”

“Because I have the trait.” When he didn’t respond, I groaned out my frustration. “There’s been studies that show genetics play a huge part in psychopathy in people. It’s pretty clear my father was a psychopath. So that means…”

You’re superior… God has given you a gift…
I could hear my father’s voice in the back of my mind.

Getting up from the bed, Kyle began a slow clap. “Very good, Rebecca.”

I wasn’t sure how this new discovery made me feel about myself, or the fact Kyle was applauding the revelation. Was it all that bad? Did it have to be a bad thing? Just because I had a lack of feeling didn’t mean there was anything wrong with me. It was society that put the negative connotation on the term.

Looking up at Kyle, I scowled at him. “No need for applause, asshole. Don’t think I’ve forgotten the situation you’ve put me in.”

He stopped clapping. “Situation I’ve put you in. You should be thanking me. Without me, you would still be wondering about yourself.”

“You hardly had anything to do with it. It was a repressed memory that events triggered, that’s all. It doesn’t change a thing.”

“Oh baby, but it does.” He leaned into me, his lips grazing the side of my neck. “You’ll see.”

“What do you mean by that?”

He straightened but didn’t answer my question. Instead he said, “I’ve got supper ready. Come on out. I’ll get you Aspirin while I’m at it.”

“All right.” I slipped my legs off of the side of the bed and gingerly tested the floor. After a moment of testing, I decided I was fine to stand and follow him out. When I reached the kitchen, Kyle had some macaroni and cheese sitting at the breakfast counter, and a bottle of Aspirin by my plate and a glass of water.

“The supper of champions,” Kyle waved to the bowl of macaroni and grinned.

“Yummy.” Despite my sarcasm, I was actually looking forward to it. I was starved.

“Again, you’ve been kidnapped. You’re not having lunch with socialites at the Ritz.”

I looked around us. “You can say that again.” The cabin was quaint, and if we were here on a romantic getaway, I would actually kinda like it, but I wasn’t about to let him know that. “You know, for someone who’s supposed to be rich, you could have sprung for a better place to stash me.”

I sat down and grabbed my spoon. Not waiting for Kyle to sit down, I immediately spooned a heaping serving into my mouth.

“I wasn’t planning on being here with you long.”

“Well, to finish our previous conversation… Who killed my father?”

“Tanner. The story is that your father found out where Tanner had your sister located and went to kill her. From my understanding, your father had decided your sister was weak and a disgrace. She was going to be his next victim. Tanner stopped him.”

“Hmm.” That made sense. If I recalled correctly, the last time I saw my sister, she had a bandage on her chest. He must have marked her while she was alive but died before he could finish the job.

I wasn’t sure how I felt about the situation now. I never did really like my sister and her holier than thou attitude, but then again considering the circumstances…
 
Though she did take him from me. Regardless of what he was outside of the family, when it came to me, he was my father. He’d always favoured me, and now that I’d gotten back the memory of that day when I was four, I understood why. I was an extension of him.

“Now, you owe me some information.”

“Huh?” I was so lost in my thoughts I’d forgotten I was in the middle of a conversation with Kyle. Which gave me another dilemma… Now that I had gotten the information I wanted, what did I need to do to get out of this situation?

Of course escaping had been a priority, but I’d really wanted the truth, and now I had it. But why was he telling me this information? Or at least what seemed to be the true version. Wouldn’t he have been better off just fudging the truth so I’d hate my sister and be happy to give her up? No, I didn’t doubt Kyle’s sincerity, because he didn’t stand to benefit from this version of the story. Besides, I thought we both knew if he tried to lie, I’d see right through it. We were on equal footing now. The masks had been dropped, and there was nowhere to hide from ourselves.

“We had a deal. Now, where’s your sister?”

With a sigh, I dropped my spoon into my bowl and sat back in my chair. Our eyes locked. “What do you plan on doing with her once you find her?”

“I’m more interested in finding Tanner. Emily is just a happy bonus. The boss, however, wants them both.”

“Well, I don’t know where they are.”

He stopped eating and stared at me. “You don’t know where they are?”

I shook my head. “Not a clue.”

I thought he was going to explode on me. I saw his tempter flare up in his expression, but he cleared his throat and then nodded. “Fine. If that’s how you want to play it…”

A million thoughts rushed through my mind, second guessing going the honesty route. I could have attempted to lead him on, but he’d see through it. I had no doubt about that. He wasn’t just an average Joe Schmo off the street. Ironically enough, apparently, the truth is what he was refusing to believe.

“I’m not playing any games. They took off one night, and my mother and I haven’t heard a word from them since. Given the new information, I would assume they knew you were coming after them, and they hauled ass.”

“Seems hard to believe.”

“My sister sent my mother an unaddressed letter. Basically saying she couldn’t deal with the loss of my father and needed to break away from my mother and I. She apologized and begged forgiveness… And yada, yada, yada.”

“There was no clue to where they were going?” Despite his prior outburst, he seemed to be believing me. Not that there was anything not to believe, because it was the complete truth.

“My sister and I never got along. As you should understand given the circumstances.”

“Yeah.” Raking his fingers through his blonde hair, Kyle sighed. “Yeah, makes sense.”

“Besides, I’m going to assume your guy knew what he was doing, and I’m going to also assume he knows your techniques of gathering information, unless you employ idiots.”

“Tanner was one of the best. That’s why we wanted him back on our payroll so badly.”

I shrugged, spreading my hands to the side as if to say ‘well there ya go.’

“Yeah…” He stared down at what appeared to be some random spot on the floor. I could see he was mulling the new information over.

“So what happens now?”

He looked up at me and clucked his tongue off of the roof of his mouth. “I haven’t figured that out yet. If you’re no use to me, then I guess I deal with you now.”

~*~ TT ~*~

Kyle
 

Fuck, fuck and double fuck
. I should have known it wouldn’t be as easy as getting the information from her. Tanner was too damned smart. He wouldn’t make a rookie mistake. Rebecca was the start of what looked like a very long road.

The next logical step would be to simply kill Rebecca, then track down her mother, and once I was done with her, get rid of her as well. But when it came right down to it, I believed Rebecca. Her mother wouldn’t know anything more than she did. Tracking down her mother seemed to be an exercise in futility – not that it would be that hard considering I already had the address.

As for Rebecca…

I stared at the dark-haired beauty across from me. She looked adorable in my t-shirt, which even with it being my smallest shirt was still too big for her. It seemed like it would be a waste to end her life.

No, I decided, I wasn’t done with Rebecca yet. Not by a long shot. As far as I was concerned, she was mine, and regardless of what Flynn had to say, that wasn’t going to change, unless of course I lost interest, but I didn’t see that happening any time soon.

So now what?

I didn’t think it would be this hard. I thought she was just going to be another job, but she wasn’t – she was special and unique, and she was mine. But I’d been thrown a curveball, which had thrown my whole plan out of whack.

“So now that you know the truth, and that I don’t know a thing that can help you hunt down my sister like a rabid dog, I guess this means this will be my last supper.”