Page 117 of Secrets That Bind Us
"I'm not doing this toyou, Verity. I'm doing it toDean."
"Why?"
"You mean he didn't tell you?"
My stomach pulls, and nausea rolls– but I keep my breath steady. "Tell me what?"
"Yeah, tell her what?"
I feel the shift in Micah as he grows tense, but he's smart– moving quickly to have me in his grasp, my back to his front, arm around my neck ina chokehold, gun still at my temple. I can’t help but close my eyes at how cool the metal is against my skin. I open my eyes to look at my dark angel.
Dean takes a step forward, but Micah steps back, dragging me with him.
"Golden boy here put a hit on me."
My eyes clash with Dean's burning cerulean gaze.
"Did I?" He smirks with a lifted brow, looking as villainous as Micah due to the shadows the candles are casting.
"Don't fuck with my head, Dean! I know it was you.'I fucked with the fuel line. He’ll never be seen again.'That's what you said to Zoey. I heard you. I heard everything!"
"When Micah? Huh? When did I say that to Zoey?"
Micah clutches me tighter and black dots appear in my periphery. He points the gun at Dean, still keeping his arm around my throat– squeezing tighter.
Dean’s hands fly up in surrender but makes a gesturing motion with one. "Put the gun down, Micah. This is between us. Okay? Your quarrel is with me. Let Verity go."
"No... No, I don't think so. You took it all away from me. Now it's my turn to take it all away from you."
"Took what away from you? Verity was always mine, Micah."
"No... no. You... you... I saw you that summer at the beach house party. I saw you at every single one of her signings in Texas. You were there. Always there. Fucking with my head. Then in Venice– it was Venice. The boating accident. You... I saw you there, too. I don’t know how you did it. But I know it was you. The gallery."
"I think the drugs have fucked you up more than you want to admit, Micah. I've been here the whole time. I’m a sheriff in Small Town, USA. How would I have the time to go to all these places? Themoney? Huh? C'mon now– give me the gun. You aren’t thinking clearly." He takes a step toward us.
"I was never on any drugs!" Micah growls. "After the boating accident, yeah. But there wasn't... I wasn't... sick. You were on the boat when I proposed to her. You were a waiter. You slipped that stuff in my drink."
My brain goes back to the night Micah proposed– how he was so drunk he almost went overboard. I keep my eyes on Dean, but he's looking at Micah, who’s dragging me closer to the wall of candles all over the floor and end tables. That’s when I see his blankets on the floor. He was here this whole time, squatting while we were living here. How did Will not see anything?
“My workers have seen stuff in the basement…”
“Mom, I swear I saw someone in here…”
Oh God. They tried to tell me– and I brushed it off.
But it’s still not making any sense. “But the body! I buried someone!” I try to fight out of his grasp, but it’s too tight.
“You wouldn’t believe how easy it is to purchase one from a failing morgue.” He chuckles gruffly, sounding like a monster awakening from deep slumber.
“You… you just had a corpse available?” I rasp.
“Of course I fucking did!” he roars, jerking me to the side. “I watched my security camera feed and saw when Dean snuck into my house! I knew he was gonna fuck with my car! So maybe I got burnt a little, but I did the old switch-a-roo while driving. I bet you saw that, huh, Dean? Saw the car swerve a little bit? Did you like it? Did it get youhardthinking I was going to die, and you’d finally get my little wife?”
Oh my God he’s fucking crazy.
“You sound like a fucking lunatic, Micah!” Dean says what I’m thinking.
It makes Micah choke out a maniacal, wet, garbling laugh– not noticing he’s shuffled us even closer to the flames.
