Monroe looks up at me for the first time since the recording started. He knows something isn’t right. That something is missing. But he must prove it. And as far as Austin mentioning the group? Everyone knows we’re the GWS. Have been since we were young. This isn’t the first time he’s ever had one of us in an interrogation room.
“All part of my plan. Every time I pushed you away, Cole pulled you closer.” And Bennett had to doctor this part as well where he told Austin our final plan of killing Bruce. “She wanted me to kill you and Cole and run off into the sunset with her and Lilly.” He snorts. “All the lies she told Cole.” He chuckles. “You. It was so fucking perfect.”
“I’m not like her, Cole. You can’t blackmail me.” Celeste had said that to me when I told her I knew she was sleeping with Kellan. I didn’t think about it at the time, but how did she know what I was doing to Austin? I was too consumed with finding a way to get Kellan off her back that I wasn’t thinking about her words.
Listening to this tape makes me wish I would have asked him some questions before I killed him. Like why did he want her to come here in the first place? What were his plans for her and how much did they change? Now that he and Celeste are both dead, I will never get those answers.
“You sick bastard,” Austin spits out.
He chuckles. “He and I are the same, Austin. We both used you however we wanted.”
“Cole would never hurt me. Not now.”
I swallow the knot that forms in my throat at her words. She and I both know she was lying. Because I was hurting her. Or he wouldn’t have been alone with her. The guys and I thought if I pulled back, he wouldn’t have a reason to go after her. But that was before we knew Celeste had plans too. If Austin dies, her blood will be on my hands. And I can’t live with that.
“You’re right,” he agrees with a sigh. “He wouldn’t harm a hair on your head. But I’m gonna paint these walls with your blood. After all, his favorite color is red.” Then more commotion.
You hear skin skid across the marble floor, like she’s trying to get away from him. Then she cries out and the sound bounces off the walls in the interrogation room, followed by something hitting the floor with a clank.
“I wanted Bruce to take care of you,” he growls. “Just like I wanted him to kill Cole when I drove his car to fuck his wife.” He laughs at that. “But I’ll just have to do it myself. In case you just recorded me killing Celeste.”
I don’t understand why he said that, ’cause he was recording it. But Bennett pointed out that Kellan sending me this tape is different than her sending it to the police.
You hear her struggle, gasping for air.
“My only regret is that I won’t get to fuck you.” He sighs and my body tenses at his words. “Because I listened to the recording of Cole fucking you inside that bathroom, Austin.”
The detective and officer both look at me with raised brows. Fuck, that video has got to go.
“I got off on it so many times, imagining it was you and me.”
My jaw tightens, and you hear her stop struggling followed by a long silence. Monroe goes to turn off the recording, but then you hear Kellan scream and her coughing. “FUCK!” he screams.
Seconds go by of her strangled breathing.
“Cole!” Austin chokes out my name in the distance. As if she was able to get away from him. Maybe to another room.
It was when she had called me.
You can’t hear what I say to her. But she bursts into tears and I bow my head. I should have fucking been there for her!
“He’s here!” she screams. “Kellan’s at my father’s house. He killed Celeste!”
I shake my head. I couldn’t get to her fast enough. Always failing those I love.
You hear Kellan’s voice. “He’s not gonna make it.” Followed by gunfire. “Fucking bitch!” he hisses before the recording goes dead.
I keep my head down. My body aches. My fists still bleed, and the cuffs dig into my wrists. They put them on extra tight on purpose. But killing Kellan was worth it. That bastard deserved to die. Just like the rest of them.
Silence fills the room, but you can hear Monroe’s heavy breathing. He’s pissed because I just solved his case. He thought he would finally get to put me away for good. He’s wanted to put all the GWS away for years because we’ve pulled so many pranks. And this was his last chance before I leave this godforsaken town.