Page 64 of Ruthless Riches
I opened my eyes and stared up at the mask. “Please. I’m totally serious,” I said, voice cracking slightly. “I can’t be locked in a cell or basement for the rest of my life. I’d honestly rather die.”
“I can’t kill you. You know that.”
I pushed myself off the seat again. “Why?” I said, narrowing my eyes. “Why won’t you kill me? I’ve asked you a hundred times and you never answer properly!”
The Butcher lapsed into silence.
“Tell me!” I shouted, reaching out to bang on the bars in front of me. “Just fucking tell me!”
My pulse was speeding, heartbeat pounding. Rage and adrenaline were firing through my system, putting me on high alert and making my thoughts race along with everything else. Something suddenly clicked into place in my brain, and I narrowed my eyes and stepped forward.
“Why won’t you let me hear your voice?” I asked.
The Butcher tapped out another message for the phone to read out to me. “Isn’t it obvious? I don’t want you to find out who I am.”
I cocked my head. “That doesn’t make sense, though. If you’re planning to keep me forever, why does it matter if I hear your voice or see your face? Why go to all the trouble of hiding those things?”
The Butcher fell silent again.
“I can only think of two explanations,” I said slowly. “The first is that you’re planning to release me one day, and you don’t want me to be able to identify you when that happens. But I don’t think that’s the case. You’ve made it very clear that you don’t want me to go free. Not unless I magically lose all of my memories.” I paused for a second, lips tightening. “The second explanation is that you’re ashamed to show your face or let me hear your voice because you’re someone I know. You can’t stand to see the look on my face when I see yours and realize it’s been you all along, whoever you are.” I raised a brow. “So tell me. Am I right? Do we know each other?”
The Butcher remained quiet and still.
I rubbed the back of my neck as something else occurred to me. My thoughts were going wild now, flitting around in my head and crashing into each other before falling into place with loud clicks.
“I just realized something,” I said in a low voice. “You said you sneaked into my hospital room to put a tracking app on my phone. But there were guards outside my room after what happened to me. It was impossible to sneak in. You were letin.”
The Butcher’s prolonged silence was very telling. I was on the right track.
My thoughts continued to whirl as I considered the people on my approved visitor list. It couldn’t be Nate or my stepfather Simon—they were too tall to match the person standing in front of me. Ruby, Laurel, and my mother were too short.
That left one person.
I clapped a hand over my mouth and shook my head as bile rose in my throat. No. It couldn’t be…
I swallowed hard and spoke up again. “Sascha?”
The Butcher remained completely silent.
A sinking feeling appeared in my stomach, and my breath hitched in my throat. “Tell me I’m wrong,” I said. “Tell me it’s not you.”
The Butcher slowly pulled the tragedy mask away and let it drop to the floor with a clatter.
I was right. It was Sascha standing before me.
Another cold flush of adrenaline tingled through my body as shock set in. I felt disoriented, dizzy. I wanted to curl into a ball, clamp my hands over my eyes and ears, and scream until all of this was revealed to be a sick, twisted dream.
“No,” I said, frantically shaking my head. “This isn’t possible. You were just here. You were…”
I cut myself off and sank to the floor, still shaking my head. None of this made sense. My sister couldn’t be the copycat Butcher. She just couldn’t.
“You weren’t supposed to find out,” Sascha said softly, sinking down to my level on the floor. “I just wanted to make you forget everything. That way I could let you go free one day, and no one would ever be able to figure out that it was me who took you.”
Tears pricked at my eyes. “How is this possible?” I said in a ragged murmur. “How can it be you?”
“I really, really didn’t want you to find out,” she said, shaking her head.
“But I did,” I said, trying to swallow the avalanche of grief and confusion that was threatening to spill out of me. “How could you do this, Sascha? How could you hurt so many people?”
