Page 115 of Intrepid

“Dane was certainly an easy choice.”

“You killed Eli.” My voice wobbled with the beckoning tears. “Jo knew, and you destroyed her life to cover it up.”

He shrugged, his lips still stretched into his psychotic smile, but he said nothing.

“You deserve to burn in fucking hell.”

“And perhaps I will. Unless you want to burn alongside me, I suggest you tell me where that ledger is.”

The roof access door flew open, and Dane clutched his bloody hand, hobbling over to where we stood. The deep wheezes and crackles of his chest sounded as if he’d collapse right there. His forehead shined with a layer of sweat, his T-shirt clinging to him, pits stained with moisture.

“It’s done …” He seemed to struggle to get the words out between each pant of breath. “I’m ready … to collect … what you promised me.”

I frowned, my eyes flitting between Dane and Karl and the door, as I pondered whether, or not, I could slip past them.

“I lured him here … as you asked. Put him in the cage. Sera’s mine.”

“I belong to no one, you fucking—”

The crack of gunfire interrupted me, and Dane fell back onto the gravel, a black hole in his head marking the path of the bullet.

A scream broke from my chest, and I backed myself to the edge of the wall, every muscle in my body quaking with fear.

“I’ll give you one more opportunity to tell me where to find that fucking ledger, and then I’ll pile your body beside his.”

The trill chime of a cellphone broke the silence between us. Keeping his eyes and the gun on me, my father lifted his phone to his ear, without bothering to see who’d called.

I couldn’t make out the voice speaking through the receiver, but Karl’s face screwed up to a heavy frown.

“Who is this?” he asked, tugging the phone away for only a second, and examining the number. “Who are you?”

The tremor in his voice told me, whoever it was, the phone call wasn’t welcome.

Color drained from his skin, leaving a pallid shade of alarm, as he lowered the phone, letting it drop to the concrete beside him. “Sera …” As he spoke, a flicker of his eyebrow suggested hurt. “What have you done?” In all the years I’d lived with my father, I’d never once seen his eyes fill with the kind of terror staring back at me right then. “What have you done?” Hands shaking, he racked the chamber of his gun, and my body stiffened, tears blurring his form.

“They’re coming for you,” I deadpanned, in spite of the fear wrapping itself around my words. “The hackers. The vigilantes. The ones who despise your kind. They know what you did, and they’re coming to make you pay. See, you might have connections in high places. But I have connections in very low places. Very dark places.”

A single shot rang out.

My muscles jumped beneath my skin as the sound echoed inside my ears, and I stared into the dead expression of my father’s eyes, watching him fall to his knees and smack his face against the gravelly pavement.

Three deep breaths did nothing to calm the frantic thrumming of my heart, as I searched myself for a bullet, certain he’d shot me and not himself.

Only one shot.

He’d shot himself.

It didn’t make sense, but as the rivulet of blood seeped down his temple and onto the gravel, it sank in.

He was gone. Out of my life.

My jaw tightened with each hard breath I took, a combination of panic and relief toying with my blood pressure.

“Fuck!” Ty’s curse swung my attention to him, and I swiped up Karl’s fallen phone and scrambled for the roof door.

The phone screen lit the dark stairwell, shaving off a small bit of the fear breathing across the back of my neck. Hands shaking, I stared down at the ‘Unknown’ number popped up on the screen and quickly deleted it.

A slip of my foot nearly sent me tumbling down the crumbled stairwell. My hand flew out to the wall, catching my fall, and I continued on, concentrating on the placement of my fingers as I dialed 9-1-1. The moment I set the phone back to my ear, the stairwell blackened, and I pulled it away to flip on the flashlight app.