Page 92 of Aftershock
When he’s done writing, he retrieves the Mason jar and plucks a toothpick from the table. Four large steps, and he looms over Harold like an avenging angel.
All that’s missing is his wings.
“Did you listen to her?”
“Mmm. Mmm-mmm-mmm.”
“What was that?” Even from this angle, it’s clear that Alaric’s cocked eyebrow is a warning. “She deserved it? She needed constant attention? Was a pain in the ass?”
“Mmm!” Harold’s eyebrows fly up. He bobs his head frantically, as if he thinks his captor finally understands him. “Mmm!”
He doesn’t. Alaric’s tone is drenched with so much scorn that I know he’s judging Harold.
“Of course.” The sharp, angry tic of his jaw means I was right about him. He despises Mrs. Tobin’s son. “Parents can be such a burden. God knows I hate mine.”
A pang of worry slices through me. He hates them? Why?
Did they hurt him?
Is that why he’s doing this? Why he saves with one hand and tortures with the other?
The longer I picture him going through what I did, the more concern spreads through me. My chest feels like it’s caving in on itself.
Tears line my eyes and roll down my cheeks.
But a beat later, while Harold keeps up his idioticmmms, anger takes over me, wiping out every other emotion.
How dare they?
My hands curl into tight fists, a growl building in my throat.
I’ll spend whatever it takes to hire the best hitman out there. The most vicious one alive, someone willing to inflict pain on Alaric’s parents for weeks before finally killing these motherfuckers.
“Hated, actually.” With two words, Alaric soothes me. The idea that he was abused still eats at my soul, but at leasthis parents are gone. “A drunk driver took care of my problem fifteen years ago.”
When he was twenty. In college. Old enough not to be passed around through the system.
That, too, brings me a sense of comfort. I was lucky with the Griggs and Hope. Plenty of other kids aren’t.
“They, unlike your mother, deserved to die.” Alaric’s icy tone has Harold’s head rearing back in fear once he realizes he was wrong about his captor. “According to you just now, Mrs. Tobin is guilty of what? Getting in the way of”—Alaric’s disgusted snarl twists his features—“your drinking?”
Harold stares up at Alaric and lets out one miserable, “Mmm.”
“You could’ve sold her home. Could’ve used the money to pay for a decent assisted-living facility for your mother, where she would’ve been taken care of.”
The loser’s eyes widen, eyebrows flying up.
“Yes, I know she owns that apartment.”
Harold blinks, visibly stunned.
“Oh, sorry for getting the tenses mixed up again.Owned.” He takes a step closer to Harold. Another one. Alaric bends at the waist, his toothpick ready to strike. “I overheard the nurses saying how happy they were for her. How lucky she’d been to hire a realtor who managed to sell her home fast and at market price. That it was quick, even for New York’s real estate market.”
“Mmm?”
I’m willing to bet it’s ashe did?
“She did. Does that piss you off? That your plan failed?” Alaric’s voice drops to a whisper, somehow making it more dangerous. “Yes, I figured out you were after her inheritance. That you’d been trying to speed things up while dodging those ridiculous facility fees. My guess is, all the times she was brought to the hospital were because a neighbor called 9-1-1 while you were waiting for her to die.”
