Page 80 of Death is Familiar

I didn’t have to win. Or escape. I only had to buy time.

But that didn’t mean I couldn’t make him pay.

I was midway through dropping all my weight on Mads’ stomach when I heard a familiar voice call through the foliage, “Hands up!”

It was rough, and stern, and just about the sexiest thing I’d ever heard.

“Ooof!” Mads sputtered beneath me, trying to catch his breath. My body jostled up and down as he coughed.

A sly smile broke out across my face, as I looked up at Jack and Todd. They were a full head and shoulders above the crop looking as rugged as ever, their weapons trained on Mads. I dropped my weight onto Mads’ belly once more for good measure. “Oh look, mummy and daddy FBI are here.”

17

The second Jack and Todd arrived Mads refused to talk. He simply released me, raised his hands above his head until his wrists smacked dirt. Which, truth be told, was rather anticlimactic after I had just kicked him in the face, and dropped my weight onto his stomach just to make him suffer.

Having caught enough of the exchange, the agents must’ve known there was more fury simmering beneath my skin, and I shouldn’t be trusted near the stocky man who’d all but ruined my life. Because the agents, very astutely, made sure to keep us separated while we waited for the cops to arrive.

With Mads handcuffed inside the agents’ rental car under Jack’s supervision, Todd and I spent fifteen minutes searching the cornfield for the gun I’d tossed. We couldn’t exactly leave an FBI-registered handgun in the middle of a farm field. It was also key to placing Mads in Monongahela, where the two masked assailants—members of his team—were killed. By him.

My back stung, sweat plastered against my skin, as I actively ignored glances from Todd through the crop. The search allowed me a moment to process just what the hell had happened, what Mads had revealed.

For the last fifteen years, Mads manipulated my life.

Unintentionally or not, he’d killed Isaiah, broken Liam’s legs, and worked with Peter and his family to make me believe they had disappeared. Mads had conditioned me to think I was cursed, or scar me so irrevocably, that I would stay away from men of my own volition. And it had worked.

Shivers of rage rolled through my body. I fought the overwhelming urge to storm past Jack, grab Mads by the collar, and punch him in the face twice more for good measure. He deserved it.

No, that wasn’t quite right. He deserved much much worse.

Mads killed my brother.

He might not have pulled the trigger, but he’d drugged and programmed him to do as he was told. Lawrence was made to believe he had to kill himself. For me. A move that not only got Lawrence out of the picture, but put me in prison.

Fucker.

Keeping my rage in check, the tips of my nails cut crescents into my palms.

Mads was going to pay.

Big time.

The good news was Mads was in our custody, and I was going to enjoy fantasizing about all the ways I planned on making him atone. I didn’t want him dead, no, that would be too easy. But maybe the agents would let me get one more swing at him.

Or we could put him in a holding cell with a faulty smoke detector that beeped at unpredictable intervals.

Or maybe, if I was extra good, they would let me pay someone off to slip some itching powder into his prison uniform. With the itching powder and the constant rubbing of the jumpsuit, it was sure to drive him up the wall…

Todd’s head appeared above the stalks next to me, his brow furrowed. That’s when I realized I'd been giggling to myself like a school girl.

Oops.

Clearing my throat, I wiped the grin off my face as I swallowed down my laughter and tried to get my thoughts back in order. It really wasn’t a laughing matter, but I needed something to keep me going. A slice of revenge. Something that wouldn’t work according to Mads’ master plan.

Of course, there was my stabbing. He hadn’t planned that. But my stabbing wasn’t exactly the sort of thing I liked to think about. At all. I’d repressed it so far inside my memory I couldn’t even remember the face of the person who’d attacked me. Couldn’t give a description. Nothing.

They were a foggy blur of grey, a spray of red.

They were pain.