Page 67 of Tangled Past
Magnets fell. Photos fluttered to the floor.
Maya’s stomach turned as one of the photos landed face-up—smiling people in sunlight. Normal lives on a normal day.
Like none of this belonged here.
Asa shoved back, and they both went down hard, sliding across the kitchen floor in a tangle of limbs.
“You killed him,” Asa hissed, voice raw. “You killed my father.”
“He chose Vanessa,” he rasped. “He chose Maya . . . over family.”
Asa wasn’t just fighting the killer; he was fighting the last piece of his father still living inside him.
With the radio’s chatter ringing in her ears, Maya’s gaze snapped to the floor. The gun near the kitchen table. Her heart slammed against her chest as she scrambled toward it.
Asa had told her earlier:If it gets to be too much, tap my hand. We walk out.
There was no walking out now. There was only one ending to this.
Her fingers closed around cold metal. The weight of it shocked her. Too heavy. Too real. She’d never held a gun in herlife like this—never with intent—never with blood and breath and fate on the other side of it.
She whipped around then froze. Asa lay unconscious on the floor. “No!”
Jonas stumbled to his feet. With Asa out of the picture, he was free to eliminate loose ends. His lips curved, slow. “There you are.”
Her blood turned to ice.
Jonas lunged for her.
Her voice came out strangled. “Stop.”
“You’re not going to shoot me.”
Maya’s finger hovered near the trigger. She didn’t want to kill him. She wanted Asa to live. She wanted her mother back. She wanted the years he stole to matter. “You don’t know what I’m capable of doing,” she whispered.
He moved closer. “I do. Because you’re like your mother.”
Maya’s throat tightened. “Don’t! You killed her!”
He didn’t deny it, and her world threatened to shatter.
He kept talking, because of course he did. Because he loved the sound of his own voice. Because he loved the sound of fear. “She thought if she talked, it would save her.”
Asa moaned.
Jonas’s smile widened before he slammed Maya against the wall. The gun hit the floor, skittering away.
Maya’s shoulder exploded with pain. Her head cracked against the wood. For a second, the world roared then went white. She heard Asa’s voice—distant, broken—saying her name.
Then the man leaned close, face inches from hers, and Maya saw him clearly. The monster that had stood in the barn and made a four-year-old girl go silent.
His voice dropped into her ear, so tender it made her gag. “I let you live,” he whispered. “But you didn’t stay quiet.”
Asa materialized beside them. He whipped his arms around Jonas’s neck and tore him away from Maya, slamming him into the opposite wall so hard that a framed picture fell and shattered.
Maya slid down, clutching her shoulder, gasping.
Asa stood between them again, blood on his face, eyes wild.
