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  With one last plea to Lane, hoping one day he could love her again, Ara pulled the gun from his hands, easier than expected. Had he let her? She spun around, directing it straight at Raina. “I said, shut up! How dare you speak to me like that, with what you two were planning? Tell him, Raina, tell him what you demanded Brad do to me.”

  Lane was speaking fast on Ara’s right, trying to be the voice of reason in her head, promising he would always love her, that she didn’t need to ruin her life this way. But Ara kept the gun pointed directly on her stepsister, trying her best to tune out Lane’s desperate pleas.

  “You wouldn’t kill me,” Raina said.

  “Funny, Brad said the same thing.” Ara spit.

  “OK, fine! I hate you, Ara. I hate everything about you. All prissy and damaged. So many times I wanted to slap you, tell you to grow the hell up. I couldn’t stand you got the perfect little life that should have been mine all along.”

  “You introduced us! How can you be so warped as to convince yourself I took anything from you?”

  “Please, I never thought he’d actually go for you, let alone marry you. But no. You and your doe eyes practically moved him right out to the suburbs. But he was bored. Miserable. Banging anything that opened its legs at the office. And I realized I could get it all back on track. It could be Brad and me.”

  It was agonizing hearing the words spewing from her mouth.

  “I would have won, too. He was going to kill you. Make it look like a robbery gone wrong, suicide. Whatever he wanted. He established your mental issues just in case. Every time he encouraged you to tackle your demons, he just wanted to lock you up so he could build a story of your insanity. He had no problems at the office, it was all a lie so he could convince you to legally get that gun. You should be dead, not Brad, you!”

  Lane now had one hand on Ara’s back, the other on her extended arm, inching toward the gun.

  “How did you convince him to do it, Raina? That’s all I want to know. What did you do to convince my husband he couldn’t just divorce me but had to kill me?”

  Raina shrieked in amusement. “That’s the best part,” she said through riled breaths.

  “How?” Ara demanded.

  Raina laughing harder, shrinking Ara down to feel shamefully small. “I told him I was pregnant. Just. Like. You. And that he had to choose or I would expose everything. It was easier than you would think, Brad was so afraid of what his big congressman daddy would think if he knew about all the affairs and the love child. He had to pick, and he picked me!”

  Like a sucker-punch to the face, Ara’s body convulsed at the thought. The sound of the shot ricocheted off the walls sending her ears ringing. Lane, just centimeters away from stopping her, wrapped his arms around Ara’s waist, falling to his knees, sobbing into the side of her thigh.

  A gaping hole in her neck, Raina gurgled something incomprehensible before falling to the floor, her life ending in the same room as Brad’s, in some odd sense of irony.

  Ara waited for tears, waited to crumble under the brutality of what she’d just done, but she was still as a statue. Was it worth it? In her heart, she knew it was. She would never regret what she did. Brad and Raina had left her no other choice, and nothing would force her to feel remorse for choosing herself.

  She could feel Lane’s embrace slipping down her body. Shaking the picture from her head, she turned and kneeled, moving her eyes in front of his, demanding his attention.

  Stern and unshaken, she finally said, “He was going to kill me, you see that now right?”

  Trembling, he shook his head back and forth. Taking his gun from her hands, Lane looked back at her horrified. He really saw her now, and she wasn’t perfect. She was twice a murderer.

  Ara couldn’t stand the pained look in his eyes. She wanted to hold him, promise she was the good he believed in. But he looked like he might kill her himself.

  “They wanted me dead, please, baby. Listen to what I’m saying. You heard what she said, I would be dead.” There was nothing in his eyes that showed agreement. Overcome, she gagged on her tears, sobbing as she placed her forehead to the floor.

  With a brush of a kiss to the back of her head, he stood. Untucking the lower part of his shirt, he wiped the grip of the gun before securing it in his own hands and raising it in the direction of Raina’s fallen body. Looking up at him, there was nothing more to say.

  Ara understood knowing she killed his lifelong friend bore a deep burden, but it was a necessary evil to righting the wrong. Ara had peeled back the ugly layers exposing Brad for exactly who he was. A man who would kill his pregnant wife to save his reputation.

  As a genuine, good man, the law taught Lane to believe that murder was never a just solution to a problem. That no crime went unpunished. But she hoped he could see that what she did was simply self-defense flavored with a spit of revenge.

  Finally, he said, “I promised you, no matter what, and I meant it.”

  A hand on her back, Lane guided her toward the door, but she stopped, placing her hands to his cheeks and kissing him, unapologetically. Feeling the quaking behind his lips, she pulled him in, holding him tighter. “I love you, Lane Bene.”

  Moving back, he nodded and wiped his eyes where the tears had escaped, before moving her out the door without a single look back.

  Detectives Ameno and Maro were racing down the hall, each of them ready to draw their weapons. When Ara didn’t show at the station, they came over as fast as they could, afraid they were too late. Lane raised his right arm and tucked her head into her favorite nook in his shoulder. The detectives stopped in front of them as Lane pulled Ara in, giving her the slightest nudge, signaling it was time. That there were more steps to the process, and she had to seal the deal. Walking toward the detectives, she allowed herself to ugly cry, filled with forced gasps for air and full-bodied sobs. She could let it out now, tell them everything.

  Maro reached out for Ara and continued to move her down the hall, away from the horrific scene, finally seeing her as a true victim. Ameno put one arm on Lane’s back, shook his head with understanding, and reached for his radio pausing until the elevator doors closed, safely taking Ara downstairs and out of the building. Once again, chaos would unfold and forensic teams would funnel inside; no doubt the media would swarm every inch leading up to the taped off hall.

  Back at the station, the detectives showed Ara what was on Dr. Dan’s video, the piece to the puzzle needed to finally close the case. Raina exiting the front doors of the building the night Brad was murdered, wearing the same oversized dark jacket and hood as the mystery person shown on the security footage. What the detectives didn’t know was that Ara already knew she was there.

  That night, when she got to the top of the stairs, before opening the door to the corridor, she heard them, Brad and Raina, bickering in hushed voices on the other side. Quiet as a mouse she moved out of sight from the stairwell door window and held her breath. She listened, her heart beating out of her chest, as Raina told him it was now or never before pushing him back and stomping away. Ara carefully opened the door and peered around the corner and watched as Raina stormed to the elevators, Brad following. Even if the security coverage wasn’t perfect, she knew somehow she’d be caught on tape. She had even strategically asked Brad to show Raina the gun weeks earlier while they all sipped on wine in their living room. By then, mostly knowing their plan, she needed to make her endgame stronger.

  “It scares me to hold it,” Ara had lied. “To have that much power in your hands.” Taking the bait, Raina had snatched it from Brad, aiming it at the window before passing it back, leaving her prints and saying, “I kinda like it.”

  Without even knowing, Raina had set herself up to be blamed for Brad’s death. Thankfully, Dan had created a second source, capturing her face as she walked away from the scene. That’s a narrative Ara would have never thought to create. But it was perfect. Dan held an important piece in her life after all.

  Ara listened as
Lane detailed their account of what took place in the apartment to the detectives knowing that eventually Raina’s partial print would match to the murder weapon, solidifying her guilt.

  If only Lane had the courage to talk to her first that New Year’s Eve, all of this could have been avoided. A knight hardly did any good on the rim. But that was the past, and she was tired of the games. For once she could think about her future.

  It turns out, when push comes to shove, one night could change it all. A single moment forcing its players into corners unplanned for. Brad was right when he said chess was a lot like life. But in life, you should never doubt a queen. Even in a concerted effort for deliberate sacrifice, her power can be limitless. And this time, she won her game.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Caitlin Sara works in digital marketing, but writing fiction has always been her passion. Rooked is her debut thriller. Born and raised in New Jersey, she is currently working on her second novel of the same genre.

  caitlinsara.com @CSaraBooks

  This book is a work of fiction. Any references to events, real people, real products or places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places and events are products of the author’s imagination and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2018 by Caitlin Sara

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever.