Deadly Deception

Chapter 15



Carter appeared closer to her. He lowered the gun to his side and stepped beside her.

“I knew you’d come.”

“Who are you?” Disdain dripped from her lips.

“I know this must appear disconcerting, but it’s just business, Anneliese. That’s it.”

She moved a few feet from him and toward the corner of the room.

“You promised him you wouldn’t kill us if he did what you asked.”

“Well, you should know by now I can’t be trusted, and lying is like breathing for me.”

“Why Sam then?”

“He pissed our money away on some worthless whore he met at a club in Hong Kong, begged me to get them out of China because her boss was after them. He owed him money too. I made a profitable deal with her boss.”

Carter yanked the papers from her clutched hand and tossed them on the floor. Anne watched the damning evidence flutter around her feet.

“What about Adam?”

Carter chuckled and took two steps toward her. Anne slid her back against the wall, slowly inching to the door.

“Adam, Adam, Adam. Well, when he started working for Richard, he didn’t know what he was getting himself into. At first he just sat on the sidelines and took notes, but after he saw the money he could make, greed set in, and the hunger to be number one, to be the big shot. I will say, he had a few lucrative plans, but you can’t win ‘em all.”

He motioned toward the black walkway where Adam’s body was lying, fading away from the gunshot wounds Carter had bestowed upon him minutes earlier. Bile began rising in Anne’s throat. She wanted to run to him, scream at his still body for all the hell he put her through, but also that she needed him and loved him. She wanted to beg him to live, to fight for them. She didn’t want to go against Carter alone but it looked like she was going to have to.

Pushing down every ounce of emotion was torture but necessary. Turning from Adam’s dying form, her hooded gaze locked onto Carter.

“You owed the Montgomerys money. That’s why they wanted him to kill you,” Anne alleged. Carter once again laughed with malice.

“They never asked him to kill me. I lied because I knew you two were conspiring together. Granted they wanted me dead, thanks to Adam and his shit scheme in Chicago. When the investment went sour I had to get out of there but Adam, oh, he decided that he would hide his millions and then snitch to the feds. Thought they could protect him,” he smirked. “Guess not.”

“Carter, we weren’t scheming together on anything. I had no idea this was going on, and I would never be part of something like this! That is blood money!”

Anne’s tears evaporated from the heat that radiated from her face.

“You think I’m going to believe for one minute that he didn’t say anything to you about his hidden wealth? That you weren’t luring me out of hiding so you could take my share and then the Montgomerys would finally end me once and for all?”

“What the hell are talking about?”

Every thunderous crack vibrated the wall Anne was leaning against, pulsating through her from the inside out. Carter’s glare was maddening. He darted toward her. Inches from the door frame, Carter leaped to Anne, pinning her tautly against the wall. His hot breath was unyielding alongside her neck; her heart thumped through her veins, almost throbbing as he pressed his weight into her.

“My Anneliese, we could have taken over the world, just the two of us, but you ruined it. I come back and see that you’re on his side, loving him, trusting him. Do you know how that made me feel?” Carter hissed. “Do you?” His russet eyebrows pushed together in consternation.

“You lied to me, Carter! You left me! You killed our baby! It’s your fault. Did you really think I would go anywhere with you after everything you’ve done? You drugged me, kidnapped me and were planning to kill me! You murdered your best friend in cold blood, watched him die right before your eyes, and now you’ve killed Adam, so just do it already—kill me! I would rather be with Adam in death, than with you alive on this earth.”

She could hear his teeth gnashing together; the gun shook between them in his dithering hand. He dug his head into her dirty blonde locks, exhaling hard. A small whimper fell from her lips while her head dug hard into the wall. She wanted this to end.

“Why must you push me? I love you so much it exhausts all rational thoughts. I know what I must do and if you won’t be with me, you won’t be with anyone and I’ll grant your request, but a life without you—that will truly kill me.”

“Good,” Anne seethed.

The gun was positioned downward toward the floor. She lifted her right knee, gouging it into his groin. Shoving his agony-stricken body away from her, his grip on the gun loosened. She kicked it from his hand; it flew back, hitting the opened armoire. Anne dashed toward the mezzanine that led to the warehouse, her feet stumbling beneath her. She was just a few feet from the stairs when her entire body arched backwards, like she was convulsing in mid-air. Her spine crashed into the metal floor. Searing pain shot through her body like an electric shock. Carter hovered over her, his face distorted like the devil himself had just been released. His elongated fingers wrapped themselves around her slender neck. In one swift movement, she was being hoisted off the ground onto her tip-toes. Her air supply was weakening, but Anne continued to fight Carter off.

Raising her hand and placing it on his scalp, she snatched a handful of wavy mane right from the roots. Carter flinched at the unexpected action, dropping Anne against the mezzanine’s top railing and slamming her lower back against the unforgiving metal. Ignoring the pain, Anne’s survival mode surged through her as she blindly began attacking the man she once cherished more than anyone in the world, the man she would have died for. Her arms flailed ahead of her, landing punches, scratches and gashes to Carter’s face.

Time stopped in the breath of a second, a cry lurched from Anne’s mouth. Her hands released the final thrust while Carter’s unbalanced body twisted over the mezzanine’s railing. She staggered forward. Carter grasped the top railing with his right hand, clinging to it, white-knuckled from the pressure of holding up his six-foot-three-inch frame with one hand. Anne leaned over the metal and stared into Carter’s blackened eyes, searching into the depths of his soul to find any good, any remorse at all. Her hands wrapped themselves around the chipped blue railing.

“Anneliese, please help me! I can’t hold on!” Carter begged between grunts.

The darkness surrounded them, the spider web of white flashes from outside reflected inside Carter’s sapphire eyes. Flashes of their life together, of a love she thought protected her from all the evils of the world when in fact he was the evil of the world, tore through her mind He was her pain, her suffering, her loss.

“Farewell, Carter.”

Flinching at her words, his struggle continued, his grip became less indomitable.

“Bitch!”

His hand flew through the thick dark air, reaching for her neck. Realizing his motion, Anne jerked back while Carter entangled his fingers around her pearls, pulling hard, thrusting all his weight into his clutch. The delicate strand shattered around them sending diminutive orbs of iridescent white soaring beneath them. Carter’s body began free-falling down into the infinite blackness. She quickly realized, so was hers.

Anne’s life halted. Her memories suspended around her in the warehouse. A horrified Adam lunged over the railing, reaching for her, screaming her name. She could see the torture twist across his face. He pulled out a cell phone, screaming at someone in the receiver. Anne couldn’t hear him, she couldn’t move and her vision was failing her once her body crashed into the cold cement.

An excruciating pain electrified her body, deflating all oxygen from her lungs. A tunnel of black began closing in. Before succumbing to her fate, she willed her eyes to shift to her side. Carter lay beside her, motionless. Relief washed over her with the knowledge he was dead. She could let go. Silently, she said good bye to Adam and then, there was nothing…nothing but peace.