A job half done.
I sucked in a breath as a vibration of disquiet stirred through me, and I tentatively took a few steps deeper into the closet.
Boxes lined the floor, some shoved farther toward the room as if Sebastian were planning to get rid of them or store them elsewhere, and a couple were still tucked in the shelves and coves.
At the very back, a plastic storage bin had been dragged out onto the closet floor, the lid balanced at the side. In front of it, a few pictures were scattered about and a journal was turned upside down, pages bent as if it’d been dropped.
I sank to my knees, shaking hands and panted breaths out of control as I reached down and cautiously picked up the journal.
I hated the thought of invading the man’s privacy, long after he was gone, but I knew whatever Sebastian had found was now clutched in my trembling hands.
Another piece of me broke for a man I didn’t know as I scanned the pure and utter desolation slashed across the pages. Page after page of hopelessness and shame. The heart and mind of a terribly lost soul.
Tears gathered in my eyes as I continued on, searching for anything. Any indication of what would have sent Sebastian toward a fate I knew he didn’t want.
My attention caught on an entry nearing the back, in a place where his typically messy penmanship had become almost violent. Frantic.
Fucking Donny and his fucking mouth.
Donny?
A sinking feeling washed through me, taunting me with flickers of recognition. Vicious blue eyes I would never forget. I gripped the book, reading as fast as I could.
Always with his fucking mouth. I didn’t want to know. I didn’t want any part of it. I knew Martin was sick. Both of them were sick. But not that sick. I told Martin so. I told him to go to hell when he demanded the money I owe him. Told him I’d take everything I know to the cops. I was going to anyway, money be damned. I knew what he’d had Donny do to that girl. I knew what he planned to have him do. She was a loose end. A liability. Just like me. Call me a snitch. I didn’t care. Let the asshole burn.
That girl.
That girl.
That girl.
That girl.
Oh my God.
Was this me?
A liability. A loose end?
That sinking feeling pulled me beneath the surface, like blackened waters lapping over my head.
I flipped the page. All my breath locked up in my throat, so thick and tight and suffocating. Lightheadedness tilted the room.
Donny’s gone. Dead in the water. I’m going to be next. I know it. Feel it coming. Am I scared? Yeah. Terrified, really. I led Martin on. Made him believe I’d leaked info. Ratted him and Lester out. He thinks I’m blackmailing, but I don’t have anything but Donny’s word. And Donny’s word is about as valuable as a ten-dollar whore. My only intention had been to thwart the plans he had to hurt that girl again. Only this time, make it final. Sick. Fucking sick. Couldn’t live with myself if there was any chance of it happening, so I’d rather die stopping it. I guess I finally did something in my life worth a shit.
Horror and hate collided in a cataclysm of fear when I locked on the name.
Lester.
And I knew. And I knew. And I knew.
I lurched forward, holding myself up on my hands and knees as I gasped for absent air.
I’d always thought the threat I’d made had saved Kallie’s and my life. Allowed us to live the way he never would have let us. But now I wondered if it was the stupidest thing I’d ever done.
And Sebastian…he was so protective, bore so much shame, regret, and guilt over the loss of Mark. One inciting factor would be the match. A combustion of sparks and flames and gasoline that would set him off.
Send him over the edge of the cliff on which he always teetered.
Volatile and explosive.
Just like Anthony had claimed…had asked me to accept.
Sebastian never loved lightly.
This was what Martin had wanted, wasn’t it? What he’d counted on?
Divide and conquer.