“I was in town because I was seeking out a woman named Whisper, who I assumed was some old whore my father had taken into his home.”
Miss Catherine winces. “Why be assumin’ this?”
“There was a will.” I wait for her to acknowledge she knew about a will, but she doesn’t. I explain there appeared to be two wills, and there was an inconsistency with my name, Dallas Masson, and Dallas Dupré on them. I hit her with the nutshell version of how I came to no longer be in my father’s care, hence the surname change. I explain Whisper had been presented with her own document leaving my father’s inheritance to her. Still, nothing registers on her face. She has no clue about any of this. Whisper didn’t want to involve the old lady, or she didn’t have time to tell her.
“In death, my father managed to get me tracked down because he wanted to play with me. About three days ago, I sped out of Albuquerque. I hadn’t even cared how he wound up dead. Him no longer breathing was good enough for me.” The old lady had earlier revealed how he’d died. It sounded too good a death for him. He needed to have met No Mercy.
The old lady’s hands tremble as she attends to my foot, bandaging it up. “You said Whisper has been shot.”
And we finally get to the money question.
“Who shot her?”
How the fuck do I handle this and convince her I am trustworthy?
And then her phone starts ringing.
She’s immediately standing, hovering like an annoying bee you want to swat away, while I try to listen to the terrified girl who is trussed up inside a car trunk. All Whisper wants is for Miss Catherine to be safe.
This was the sweet and wild girl I got to know.
I allow the old lady a few words with the female she obviously cares so much for. She calls me by my birth name, which confuses Whisper. We both gave different names when we met at the bar. Would she put two and two together and work out I was the same Dallas she left the letter for, before her night turned to pain and abduction? There’s too much to explain, and no time for explanations now.
I slide the laptop onto the floor, being sure to pick up Whisper’s phone, and I’m up off the couch taking back control of the old lady’s phone, moving away from her for some privacy. I start to sway about, reaching for the sideboard and grabbing a hold of it to steady myself.
Fucking blood loss is catching up to me.
I let her know she’s being tracked as the old lady comes toward me with the glass tumbler. I take it, draining the last bit of water while I move away from her again as I respond to Whisper’s comment, sounding guilty as charged. Then, I’m cursing at her next question, and all I can grunt out is, “There appears to be a misunderstanding.” And if that wasn’t the fucking lamest response to being asked if I had shot her. She assumes correctly that I did, and nothing comes out of my mouth because I can’t deny it.
She asks me if I wanted to kill her. Anger consumes me for hurting her, and I’m cursing and hurling the glass tumbler onto the wooden floor, shattering it, because I did want to kill her after I extracted the information I needed out of her.
I just didn’t know it was my sweet and wild girl.
I can’t reply because the car has stopped, she sounds terrified, and then she’s gone.
The old lady keeps one eye on me as she cleans up my mess, and all I can do is stand here feeling pissed at myself. I could possibly have prevented her abduction if I had taken the time to hunt rather than gone off half-cocked.
I replay Whisper’s words in my head while I try to calm down. My foot burns like fire and brimstone is hailing down on it. A reminder of how fucked up the night has turned out, penance for hurting the girl.
There was so much confusion and emotion when she asked me if I’d shot her.
Fuuuck!
Sara was who I’d gotten to know for a few hours; she was a gentle, sexy female. We talked about movies. She wasn’t like any of the bitches I’d fucked in the past. At the time, I had no clue Whisper was the one naked on my bike. I had no clue she was the girl I hunted. But they are one and the same.
Her softly spoken words may as well have been shouted at me with how deep they cut into my conscience.
And. I. Don’t. Fucking. Have. A. Conscience.
Her words had sliced through the soul I thought was too rock-hard to let anything penetrate it, but they slid like a hot knife sinking into butter.
I’m not a guy who feels any remorse. I get the job done and I walk away.
Fucking hell.
I did shoot her, and shit wasn’t black and white anymore. It never was. I was just too cocksure to slow down and take my time with the hunt. There was this whole big messed up area that had her blood and my blood tainting it, and that just pissed me right off.
I shot a totally innocent woman.
Now those two fuckers have stopped and are about to open the trunk, and I can’t stop it from happening.
“Dallas!” The old lady snaps me out of my thoughts. “Who. Shot. Whisper?” Her words are icy cold.
“Motherfucker!” I roar, making her jump, and she takes several wary steps back.
“I shot her. Are you happy now I’ve confirmed it? I was aiming to maim the woman who was my father’s whore, and then I was going to kill her once she told me what I needed to hear.”
“And what would be happenin’ if she be refusin’ to tell you who she be because she be protectin’ her identity, her humiliation, her secrets?” Miss Catherine shouts at me.
“Lady… she would have told me her deepest, darkest secrets by the time I was finished with her. Make no mistakes about that.” My words are dark and threatening.
She doesn’t cower. A fortress has been erected around her emotions. She’s now going into survival mode until Whisper is found.
She won’t bow to me, and I need her to stay inside her fortress, stay rock-solid for me. I can’t deal with her if she caves.
“Well, then you better be hearin’ me straight, as sure as I am about dem bones of mine and when they be warnin’ me. You’ll be askin’ for her forgiveness. I know your young life been a bad one. I make no bones about that, but as an adult, you be a grown-ass man. Whisper is nothin’ but kindness. She be livin’ nearly twenty years under that bastard, and she never be nothin’ but kind toward me and others. You been makin’ decisions for what you deem right, but you been made into a coldhearted killer who hides his feelin’s.” I allow her to vent at me; it’s what she needs to do. “Whisper will never be made into a killer. She be good through and through. She be an angel sent to me. She be my granddaughter without bein’ my blood. There be a difference to how you and Whisper be conductin’ yourselves… no matter havin’ William Dupré in common.
“You be findin’ her and rescuin’ her, and she be comin’ back to me. I need you to be promisin’ me this right here and right now. That chile is comin’ back alive and into my lovin’ arms.”
How can I promise she will be alive? But she needs to hear it from me. She would expect lies from a person like me after what I did to Whisper.
“I promise, Miss Catherine, whatever it takes.” I fucked up and can’t change what I did.
The bad seed didn’t fall far from the rotten apple.
Did he know me for the killer I am?
Did my father know I was an enforcer for the Soulless Bastards MC? If he did, he would have known the kind of man I had become.
I played right into the dead fucker’s hands. He could not foretell I was gonna aim to kill her, but I think the sick bastard hoped I would.