UNWANTED SON-IN-LAW

CHAPTER 7

Nathan stared at David Porter. The man who was supposed to be tied up and hurt, standing free and happy in the door of the place.

“What is this?” Nathan’s gun still said at Sarah, but his eyes went to David. “You were supposed to be caught. The photo said you were tied and had blood.”

“Fake things, offspring. Robert is good at making fake blood, and we have good at taking photos.” David came inside. His men spread out behind him. “Put the gun down. Sarah is who she says. Sort of.”

“Sort of?” Nathan’s finger moved on the gun.

Sarah put her hands up slow. “Nathan, I can say what is true.”

“No.” David’s voice cut like a sharp thing. “I will say. Sarah, Robert, you go.”

Robert went to the door fast. Sarah did not want to go. She looked at Nathan with sorry in her eyes, then went.

The men with guns stayed and held their weapons up.

“Alone means just us,” Nathan said. His gun moved to say at David now.

David smiled like he thought it was funny. “You would shoot your own dad?”

“I do not know who you are now.”

The smile went away. David told his men. “All of you go out. Now.”

They did not like it but went. The door shut. It was just the two of them and the heavy quiet.

“Sit down,” David said.

“I stand.”

“Do what you want.” David went to an old couch and sat like it was a normal day. “You want to know things. I will tell you. But you have to know one big thing. All I did, all the tricks, all the hard things, I had to do.”

“You let them hit me for three years.”

“Yes.”

That word hit worse than if he said no.

“You saw Marcus hit me. You saw them give me no food. You saw Victoria make me feel bad every night.” Nathan’s voice was not steady. “And you did nothing.”

“I did do things.” David bent forward. “You know what goes to soft men in fights like this? They die fast. I had to make you hard, Nathan. I had to make you mad. I had to make you see what they could do so when it was time to hurt them, you would not stop.”

“There were other ways.”

“Were there? Tell me, if I came to you three years back and said the Blackwell and Vale groups broke us, would you think it was true? You were only twenty-five. You had faith in law and being fair. You would go to the cops. You would say it in court. You would play by rules that do not work for them.”

Nathan said no thing because it was the truth.

“So I gave you facts about how things work,” David went on. “I let you see how real power goes. How the Blackwell group stay above the rules. How the Vale group pay for what they want. How Victoria can lie to your face every day and make you think it. Now you know. Now you get it. Now you can do what needs doing.”

“What is that?”

“To do the rest of what I began.” David got out a flat thing and looked at files. “Blackwell’s will fall by tomorrow. The fake thing is just the start. I have proof of not paying taxes, taking cash, and paying off the board. Edward’s death made it go faster, and it helps us. With him gone, we can break the rest.”

“You made him die.”

“No. That was Sarah’s choice. She saw you in danger and did it. But I do not mind. Edward was always going to die. This way, we say Vale’s did it and watch them turn on each other.”

Nathan felt bad in his gut. “What about the Vale group?”

“Ah, Harrison Vale. That is where it gets good.” David’s face went cold. “The Vale group has been selling arms from their boats for a long time. I have lists, receipts, and talk with bad people in six lands. When that comes out, the law takes all their stuff. The Vale family will be gone.”

“You have been planning this for three years.”

“More time. I started when they broke our first place. I just did not know the fire would come. That made me go faster and think fast.”

Nathan put his gun down a little bit. “What do you want from me?”

“I want you to go back.”

“Go back where?”

“Go back to the Blackwell group. Victoria thinks you run and are scared. Use that. Get close to her. Find what she knows about her mom’s plans.”

“Her mom? Caroline?”

David’s smile came back, mean and sharp. “You think Edward was the main bad guy? Caroline Blackwell is the true head of that group. She always was. Edward was just muscle, but Caroline is in control. She knew about the factory break. She said yes to your wed. And I bet she knows where I hid all these years.”

Things came together in Nathan’s mind. “The men who came to the place. That was not Harrison Vale.”

“No. It was Caroline’s men. She makes things clean, son. Edward got sloppy and was a bad thing, so she killed him. Now she comes for all who know. That is you, me, and bad luck, Victoria.”

“Victoria is her girl.”

“And Caroline will kill her own girl if it keeps her safe. Family means no thing to her. Just power.”

Nathan’s phone made noise. A text from Victoria.

“Nathan, hear me. I am in bad things. My mom knows I got proof on her. She will kill me. I need you to help. Come to our old place. Where we had one night as real people. Please. I got no place to go.”

Nathan showed David.

David read and laughed. “Trap for sure. She wants to get you.”

“What if she is being real? What if Caroline really will kill her?”

“Then Victoria dies and we got one less bad thing.” David stood up. “Hear me good. Victoria Blackwell is not your real wife. She never was. She is an bad person who acted for three years. What you think you like is just brain tricks. Let it go.”

“She has proof we need.”

“Or she has a gun with your name on it.”

Nathan’s brain went fast. The old place. He was there before. A small place they got for one night before the big house. Victoria said she wanted it. “One night we are just normal people,” she said.

It was the one time she made him smile like she cared.

“I am going,” Nathan said.

“Do not be dumb.”

“You said you want me hard and mad. I am both. But I am done being what you tell me.” Nathan went to the door. “If Victoria has proof, I get it. If it is a trap, I get out. No more orders from you.”

David’s face went dark. “If you go, you are alone.”

“Good. That is what I want.”

Nathan opened the door. Sarah and Robert stood in the hall with the men.

“I want a car,” Nathan said.

Sarah gave him keys. “Take mine. The black one out front.”

“Why do you help me?”

“Since your dad is right about big things, but he is bad about Victoria. I saw her for three years too. She is not what they think.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means go to that place and hear what she says. Real hear. Not with mad. Just hear.”

Nathan took the keys and left.

Behind him, David’s voice came. “Go after him. When he gets what he wants, kill them both.”

The old place was in a bad part of town. Nathan left the car two blocks away and went on foot. He checked all the dark spots.

The place was on the three floor. The door was not locked.

Nathan got his gun and went in slow. It was the same place he was before. Small room. Tiny cook place. One sleep room. Old stuff with dust.

“Nathan?” Victoria’s voice came from the sleep room.

He went there with his gun up.

She sat on the sleep place. She still had on the red cloth from the eat place. Her face had no paint. Her hair hung down. She looked dead tired.

And scared real bad.

“You came,” she said soft.

“Talk fast. I do not have time.”

“I do not have time either.” She got up slow, hands out. “My mom knows I took proof of her. She said she would kill me. She may have sent men now. I do not know.”

“Why would I think you are true?”

“I can show you proof of all I say.” Victoria put her hand in her cloth.

Nathan said his gun at her. “Slow.”

She got out a small thing that holds files. “Three years of what my mom and Harrison said. What my mom and your dad said.”

Nathan felt cold go through him. “What?”

“Your dad and my mom have worked as one group, Nathan. All of it. They broke your group’s work as one. They said your dad was dead as one. They said we wed as one. All that went to you and me and all of us, they made happen as one.”

“You lie.”

“I wish it was not true.” Sad came from her eyes. “They knew they had to have some one bad when all of it breaks. Some one with no worth. Some one all would think did the bad things. That is you, Nathan. You were the bad one who had to pay. And I was the wife who could say you went mad and hurt me.”

“No. My dad would not…”

“Your dad went to see my mom one time each month for three years. This small thing has a photo with time and place. They sat at a place in the old work part. The same place he said he ran his hit back plan.”

Nathan’s all things went slow.

Victoria came closer. “I am sorry. I am sorry I did not say before. I thought if I did what they said, and got proof on them, I could show what they did and we both go free. But they knew what I did. Now they hunt us both.”

“If this is true, why say it now?”

“Since you are the one person I know who wants to stop them as much as I do. And due to all of this, all the lies and hurt and tricks, you are the one who ever saw me like I was more than a Blackwell girl.” She put her hand on his face soft. “You are the one who made me want things to be not like this.”

Nathan had to pull away. Had to say she lied. Had to hold onto his dad.

But the small thing in her hand was heavy like no other thing.

“Show me the files,” he said.

Victoria said yes and went to look at the small computer on the wood thing.

Then the glass went boom.

Glass bits went all over. A shape in dark cloth came in on a rope.

Sarah Mitchell came down with a gun said at Victoria’s head.

But this Sarah was not the same. No mark on her face. Not the same eyes.

“Hello, sister,” Sarah said and gave a smile at some one behind Nathan.

Nathan spun fast.

The real Sarah was in the door with her gun said at the same Sarah in the room.

“Hello, Emma,” Sarah said cold. “I have been hunting for you.”