Chapter 14 - THE TRUTH BENEATH THE HOUSE
Garrett forced me downstairs.
I had lived in that house for three years.
I had never seen the hidden door behind the wine shelves.
He opened it.
A narrow room stretched beneath the foundation.
Files.
Computers.
Weapons.
Photos.
My family.
My parents.
Tobias in the hospital.
Me leaving college.
Me at work.
Garrett had watched us for years.
My hands went cold.
“You were tracking me before we met.”
“Since you were twenty-one.”
“You were nineteen.”
“My father trained me early.”
I looked at a photo of myself outside my first apartment.
“You never had a choice either.”
He laughed.
“Don’t psychoanalyze me.”
“Victor made you into this.”
“He made me strong.”
“He made you afraid.”
The gun moved toward my face.
“Careful.”
I kept talking.
“You killed him because you were still afraid of him.”
“Shut up.”
“You spent your whole life obeying him.”
“I said shut up.”
“And when you finally killed him, you still needed his plan.”
He hit me.
My lip split.
But I smiled.
That made him angrier.
“You’re exactly like him,” I whispered.
He grabbed my throat.
“No.”
“Yes.”
“He was weak.”
“You’re holding a gun on your wife in a basement because you couldn’t beat her in a boardroom.”
His face twisted.
Then something crashed upstairs.
Garrett looked up.
I drove my forehead into his nose.
He staggered.
I ran.
Gunshot.
The bullet hit the wall beside me.
I climbed the stairs.
Garrett grabbed my ankle.
I fell.
He pulled me down.
Then Tobias appeared above us.
“What part of stay did you misunderstand?” I shouted.
“All of it.”
He jumped.
Garrett fired.
Tobias dropped.
“Tobias!”
Rage exploded inside me.
I grabbed a broken wine bottle and drove it into Garrett’s shoulder.
He screamed.
The gun fell.
I kicked it away.
Garrett lunged at me.
We crashed through the hidden doorway.
He slammed me into the basement railing.
It broke.
For one terrible second, we both hung over the concrete floor below.
Garrett grabbed my wrist.
“Help me.”
I stared at him.
The man who drugged me.
Betrayed me.
Stole from my body.
Tried to drown me.
He looked terrified.
“Rosie… please.”
I tightened my grip.
Then Tobias groaned behind me.
Garrett smiled.
May you like
A second gun appeared in his free hand.
And I realized his plea had been another lie.
