Page 90 of Chad's Chase
I said nothing, waiting for him to tell me how all this led to him murdering Liz.
“After finding out about my new wealth, I set out on sowing seeds all over SF and LA. Inventing. Partnering. Buying. Building. The apartment building I live in now, it was being constructed buy Liz’s real estate mogul. I saw it, I wanted it, so I made an overly generous offer and bought it.
“I was in his office signing the final papers one evening when Liz walked in. I looked at her and realized I still loved her. But I was still blinded to the fact that all she was seeing was my money. She inquired what we were doing and I proudly told her I just bought the entire Russian Hill apartment complex from her fiancé. Because I wanted her back. I wanted her to know I could take care of her now. She came back—or so I’d thought.
“I thought we were good. But one night Ronnie caught her digging around in my office. That’s when I found out she never really came back to me; she was still with the real estate mogul, and I was the side fuck. She confessed she was searching for documents that would tell her what my offer price on a company—that both her fiancé and I were bidding on—was, so he could outbid me and get the company. I realized then that between me and him, he was her priority.”
His jaw muscles worked.
“I let her believe I forgave her for it. Let a few weeks blow off. Then one night when she came over, I told her I wanted to tie her to the bed and try something new. She was all for it. So I tied her up, spanked her, and fucked her. When she came, I sat on her chest, stuffed a couple of hundred-dollar bills in her mouth and duct tape it shut, then plugged two fingers inside her nostrils and kept them there until she suffocated.”
Silence. Dead silence.
Goose bumps rose all over me. My blood running cold. And this had nothing to do with the blasting air-conditioner.
There was a time when I never feared Chad. I only loved him because I never knew he was supposed to be feared. Then there was a time when I feared him greatly. Because he’d ruthlessly eradicated the Byrds, and I’d heard many tongues refer to him as the “undefeated”. Then, recently, I feared him no more, falling in love with him all over again.
And now, now I was back to fearing the man I love. My supposed savior. Sure, I’d killed my fair share of people, but they were orders I couldn’t get out of. It was either get the job done or be killed. And, yeah, okay, there was this one time when I contemplated killing my ex-girlfriend, Sydney, when I found out she was cheating on me with a man, but…would I have really gone through with it? When she didn’t even mean all that much to me?
I cleared my throat. “Her fiancé, the real estate mogul, didn’t he get suspicious of her disappearance? Come knocking and asking questions?”
“Nope,” he said so fucking easily. “Guess he thought she ran off or something. He moved on pretty quickly, as a matter of fact.”
Turning back around, I brought my knees up to my chest, staring out the windshield, unseeing. I could ask a lot more questions like: what did you do with her body? Do you ever regret it? Was that what triggered you back into killing?
But I didn’t think I wanted to hear anymore. I felt cold, ill, alone and afraid. Maybe I should just complete the job given to me and try finding my way back into Rafail’s good graces. At least with him, I knew where I stood: Do as I say and you live. Don’t do as I command and you die.
With Chad, he was so fucking capricious I had no idea what the hell would happen to me the next hour from now.
“I loved her. I never had an ounce of hate in me for her,” Chad’s voice broke through the brick-thick silence.
When I shot a glance over at him with incredulity no doubt slathered all over my face, he removed his aviators and locked our gazes. “It wasn’t hate that killed her, Jhay. It was love.”
Yeah, unrequited love. Sick fuck.
“You love me?” My voice was as frail as a broken butterfly wing.
“I always have,” he admitted.
“But…” I hesitated. “I don’t want you to love me.”
“Why?”
“Because youkillthe people you love.”
Tic.
TicTicTicTic.
“I’ll never hurt yo—”
“Yeah, you said that.”
Tic.
Tic.
TicTic—
