Mine to Keep (Mine #2)(72)

“No!”

“Bullshit. I saw you walk away today. I know that walk. I know you. You always were a good actress, Anna Jean. Too good.”

Her frantic green stare flew around the room and locked on Skye. “Help me,” she begged. “This isn’t why I came here. I-I needed to talk with you.”

“So talk,” Trace invited.

Skye edged around him. “Talk to me.”

The woman’s chest shuddered. She glanced over her shoulder at Drake, then her terrified stare came back to Skye. “Y-you’re in danger,” she said. “I-I had to tell you. You needed to be warned.”

Trace stiffened. “Did you just threaten her?”

“No, Trace,” it was Skye who answered, her voice calm, “she didn’t.”

The woman—Piper or Anna Jean or whoever the hell she was—told Skye, “You have to get away from him.”

Skye glanced back at Trace.

“He’s a killer,” the woman threw out, breath heaving.

Skye already knew that.

“He…he was my sister’s lover. He killed Anna Jean, and I’m afraid he will kill you, too.”

The hell, no.

***

All of the players were assembled. They’d gathered. Drawn in close.

Now it was time for the chaos.

Time for vengeance.

They were all to blame, so they would all suffer.

In the end, no one would be left.

I will win.

Trace Weston—oh, he would lose everything.

The bodies would start falling now. If they’d thought the blood ran heavily on the streets before…

It’s nothing compared to what I am about to do.

***

“Hell.” Noah sounded stunned. “You screwed her, too, Trace?”

Skye kept her eyes on the woman called Piper. “You’re lying.”

Piper shook her head. “No, I’m not! My sister was in a hospital, some hole-in-the-wall in the middle of Russia. I barely got to her in time. She was dying. He’d stabbed her and left her for dead—”

“I stabbed her,” Drake said, his voice thick.

The woman stiffened. “Y-you?”

Skye watched as shock seemed to flare in the woman’s eyes.

“I stabbed her, and I’m the one who left her for dead.” He flashed her a hard smile. “And you know what? I’m the one who f*cked her, too. So if you’re looking for someone to blame for all that…look right here.”

She slapped him. A hard, vicious hit that seemed to echo across the room.

Then the woman fell to her knees. She wrapped her arms around her stomach. Shuddered. “I-I found the dog tags. She had them. She told me…” Her head lifted. Her face was a mask of confusion and rage. “Trace. He was the one. He killed her. He screwed my sister and he left her to die.” Tears leaked from her eyes as she looked once more at Skye. “And he’ll do the same to you! He’s a killer! A killer!”

Skye shook her head. “No.”

“It was me,” Drake said again. “Me.”

Claire tried to ease past Noah. He caught her arm and pushed her right back behind his body. “Don’t get close to Anna Jean. She’s a viper.”

“I’m not Anna Jean!” The woman yelled. “Anna Jean died in a Siberian hospital. She lost her fingers and her toes to hypothermia. She struggled to live—for days and days, but the fluids built up around her heart. Or, around what was left of it. She died, broken and in agony.” Now her gaze swung wildly around the room. “I-I thought it was just Weston, but it was all of you. All of you!”

Then she whirled around and grabbed at Drake. No, not at him. Her fingers latched onto the gun he’d tucked into his waistband. She yanked the weapon up.

Drake’s fingers locked around her wrist. “Let go.”

Trace flew across the room.

Skye didn’t move. Her eyes were on the scene before her. Piper seemed so broken.

She came to warn me?

Piper let go of the gun. She whirled back toward Trace. “Y-you were going to do the same thing to Skye. I saw in the papers…you were with her. You were going to kill her, too.”

“You’re wrong,” Trace said, his voice flat.

Piper flinched. “I wanted to help. I came all this way…to help…” Her shoulders sagged.

Skye’s eyes narrowed on her. “If you thought Trace killed your sister, why didn’t you go to the police?”

“Anna Jean died. Sh-she could barely remember what had happened to her. When she could talk, she told me that it was all white…snow and hell. A white hell, and that was all she could say.” Piper drew in a shuddering breath. “But she had Trace’s dog tags. She had them.”

“And now they’re in the city.” Trace tilted his head to the left. “Want to tell me how that happened? Who’d you give the dog tags to, Piper?”

Piper seemed to pale even more.

Trace lifted his head. “Who was it?”

Noah stalked toward them.

“Y-you know,” Piper whispered.

Skye frowned at her. Piper was shaking now. Trembling.

Piper glanced back at Drake. “I want to go. Please…please let me go…”