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Wheels spin behind Callista’s emerald eyes, no doubt running through everything I’ve told her and comparing it to the public story she knows.
“The only reason I’m not dead is because Wendy needed a beard, someone she could hide behind, especially with my father gone. I knew that day that I would never be able to pull the trigger again, never be able to take any life the way my father had demanded I do for him, but I agreed to stay up here and never leave. I agreed to dispose of any bodies they brought to me, and now I’ve lived here alone with the ghosts of the people my family has killed, generations of them. Keeping records for my sister and essentially being a prisoner to her and the guilt and regret I can never shake over what I’ve done.”
Tears stream down Callista’s face, and she runs her fingers through my beard. “I’m so sorry, Weston. That’s”—she releases a tiny breath—“terrible.”
I close my eyes and lean into her touch, needing it more now than ever. “I told you I was a killer, that I was dangerous, but it isn’t just me, Beauty. My sister’s the one who took you, and it had nothing to do with your father messing with her best friend’s business.”
“Why is Eliza still friends with her after she killed her brother?”
Opening my eyes, I meet her questioning gaze. “Because Eliza thinks I did it. When he disappeared, she was frantic, asked me to help look for him, thought that perhaps one of the Barkers’ enemies got to him. But in time, she began to suspect what my father had done and, of course, presumed that I had handled the actual dirty work.”
“So, she doesn’t know any of this?”
I shake my head. “As far as I know, she doesn’t. I can’t imagine she would’ve stayed best friends with Wendy if she knew. But I haven’t spoken to the woman in thirty years, Callista. She said she never wanted to see me again, even fired a damn gun at me to get me off her lawn and back into my car so I’d leave. Even if I told her the truth, she wouldn’t believe me.”
Callista slides off my lap, putting a distance between us that makes me instantly chill. She paces in front of the fireplace, chewing on her bottom lip. Her eyes occasionally dart over to me. “Your sister sent the message telling me to come up here?”
I nod, and she stops pacing.
“That’s why you were so confused when I arrived. You never sent the message at all?”
“I haven’t left the mountain, certainly not to put any sort of message like that on your father’s door. I would never invite anyone up here. It’s literally where all the bodies are buried, not to mention the records in the library that document everything the Barkers have done basically since forever.”
“Shit.” Her brow furrows. “But why? Why would she…” She trails off as she stares at me like she’s seen something there she never did before. “She was trying to get to you.”
Clever Beauty.
It took me far too long to figure out what she was doing, what her goal might have been in sending Callista up here when keeping Barker Mountain has always been a top priority and the situation with her father could have easily been resolved with a single bullet to his head.
But Callista caught on quickly.
I nod slowly. “My sister has always wanted me to come back to help her run the business. She doesn’t trust anyone, and it’s getting difficult for her to maintain a reliable hitman when she keeps having the new ones kill the old ones. I’ve staunchly refused for three decades, only agreeing to help with the disposal process so I’m not forced to leave the mountain. But lately, she’s been getting pushier. I believe she saw your father’s issue with the Rosewoods as a way to try to lure me back, thinking I would want to come to Eliza’s defense.”
“But why involve me at all?” She turns and resumes her pacing. “Why not just have you go after my father?”
So fucking brilliant.
I offer her a sad smile. “Because if I killed your father, I would have just come back to the mountain. She hoped I’d fall in love with you. She was trying to give me something to live for because it’s the easiest way to control someone. And now she knows because”—I wave my hand around the room—“she’s been watching…”
Callista blanches. “The cameras. Oh, my God. She’s seen everything.”
“Almost. There aren’t any in the library, and I turned off the one in the bedroom after you discovered the surveillance room. Like I said, it didn’t feel right watching you, but she saw that morning in the dining room. You on my lap…”
The phone conversation she overheard must be playing through her head right now.
“She’s seen and heard all of it until I disconnected the server when you went to see your father.”
She runs her hands through her hair, tugging on it with wide eyes, her growing panic infusing the air. “You seem far too calm for this, for what’s happening.” Her entire body trembles as she says the words. “Is she going to try to leverage me again to get you to do whatever it is she wants?”
I wish I could tell her no. I wish there were any way to keep her from being caught in the middle of this, but the day Callista knocked on my door, it started something that can’t be stopped now.
Not without more bloodshed.
“That would be a pretty good assumption.”
“Shit.” Callista turns away to stare at the fire. “What are we going to do?”
Pray to the God I don’t believe in.
