Coasting down the road, I expected to see his car moving ahead of me. Instead, I came upon it in the darkness. There were no streetlights here, no homes or business nearby.
Prickling with foreboding, I pushed the breaks and slowed to a halt. He was blocking me in, I'd have to reverse down the thin dirt stretch. Why had he stopped?
Lars rose up abruptly, a solid shape with no features that stalked into view. His headlights illuminated him from the back, brightening his edges but throwing his face into a black void.
He moved fast, coming up along side my door in a blink. Something in his hand glinted. “Get the fuck out of the car,” he snarled.
Claws scraped at the inside of my stomach. In a moment, I'd gone from heated confidence to cold despair. He was a hellion at my window, knuckles rapping savagely on the glass.
Grabbing the door handle, he yanked it open. I hadn't thought to lock it.
Fuck, my mistakes were adding up. They were going to cost me.
“Who are you?” he snapped, lifting the hatchet high. The sight of it curdled my blood. “Why are you following me?”
Making myself tiny in the seat, I hoisted my purse and lifted my hands. Act like you aren't here to kill him! “Don't hurt me! I—I wasn't following you, I swear!”
Lars yanked me out in one quick motion. All of a sudden I was six again. Except this time, it wasn't Cece who had the monster towering over her with an axe at his side. It was me.
The fear was paralyzing.
“You weren't following me?” he asked, ignoring how I winced when I hit the asphalt. “Then why are your headlights off? I'm not stupid, lady. Tell me who you are. Now.” The hatchet glinted, wickedly sharp.
On hands and knees, I wasn't going to be able to escape. Running wasn't an option, but you know... for me, it never had been.
My purse had spilled open near my thigh. Grabbing the Ruger, I flipped back and aimed it at Lars' surprised face. The weapon fueled me, made it clear I was no longer the little girl hiding in a closet. “Throw the hatchet away. Do it right the fuck now!”
He hesitated, gaze flicking from the pistol to me. Finally, he tossed the axe, the instrument clunking in the leaves of the ditch.
On legs that did not shake, I rose up, keeping the gun leveled on him. “You want to know who the hell I am?” I slid the safety off. “I'm Marina Fidel. I'm the woman whose family you destroyed, the person you stole everything from.” Heat flared in my chest. “And I'm the one who's going to kill you.”
He hadn't blinked. The only noise was his car, the engine running quietly in the night. “Fidel?” he asked. “I don't remember any Fidel family.”
I couldn't keep the bitterness out of my voice. “You don't remember us? Let me help. Think back, sixteen years. You and a man name Frank. A hard working dad, a happy home, and you swinging that fucking hatchet of yours to chop everyone up.”
A coldness slid over his face. I thought he'd been scary before, but even through my stoic shield, Lars made me swallow loudly. “Did you come back from the dead, little girl?” Shit, how was he able to smile? “I swear I cut you up after I used your body.”
Inhaling sharply, I trained the gun on his evil grin. “That was my sister.”
“Was it?” He tilted his head, I followed the movement with the Ruger. “She was a sweet one. She screamed so pretty when I touched her.”
Cece.
My head swam with the memories he was forcing up. I felt vomit on my tongue, icy sickness knotting up my muscles.
I hadn't been thinking—could not think—my hands just squeezed.
The gun went off, firing uselessly past his ear and into the black sky. Bullet after bullet that missed and set me up for my own carefully constructed doom.
Lars was demonic lightning, he grabbed for me and caught me by the hair. The gun fell, my scream slicing up my own vocal cords.
His punch to my stomach ended the noise.
On the rough ground, I fell to my side and moaned.
Boots appeared, a hand in my scalp forcing me to my knees. The hard tip of the gun—Kite's gun—made me snap my eyes open. “I don't remember you,” Lars said calmly. “But if you're who you say you are, then I'm impressed. That was a long time ago. Did you live all these years, wishing me dead?”
Tears squeezed from the corners of my eyes. The way he twisted my hair was excruciating. “You and your friend murdered them,” I sobbed. “All of them!”
“My friend? You mean Frankie?” He lifted me, shoving me against Kite's car and bending so we were nose to nose. “He's not my friend. He was going to rat on me for a deal with the cops, and you don't squeal on the Diani family. He's dead now, I kill little rats. Get it?”
It clicked for me. “You had Frank murdered?” He was the one who hired Kite and Jacob.
“Had to happen.” he said. “Some people need to die to prove a point.”
This wasn't how this was supposed to go. Cece, Mom, Dad. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry.