Page 95 of Royal Pain

His hand was shaking as he pulled his drink to his lips, managing to take a sip before she jerked the glass from him, tossing it into the fire. The instant flare was huge but brief. “You don’t understand.”

“Oh, I think I do. You fucking asshole. I loved you. You were my father. You even encouraged me to have my own life, but it was all a lie. A lie! Why was I allowed to leave? What did you do?”

“He has something else on the group. Isn’t that right, Mr. Weathers?” I asked as I stared at him, trying to keep my cool.

To the man’s credit, he lifted his head to look at me. I could tell he’d been drinking for a while. When he nodded, I glanced at Jeff. “I’ll need to know where that information is.”

“They’ll kill me,” he whispered.

“Nothing like what I might do. You will give my protector, the only person who really cares about me everything he needs to bring the rest of his horrible cult down. I was being groomed the entire time, my whole life. Right?”

When he started sobbing, she wrapped one hand around his disheveled shirt, yanking him partially off the chair and shoving the barrel of her weapon against his temple.

“Baby girl. I am so sorry,” he blubbered and I shook my head.

“Where is Damien?” My tone was more commanding.

He shifted his gaze toward me. That’s when I noticed his eyes were bloodshot. Whatever had gone down when the news broke had been damning for a lot of people.

“Where are they all, Dad? There’s a tunnel here, isn’t there?” she demanded.

When he didn’t answer, she acted like she was going to shoot the man.

That’s the moment we heard some commotion, more tears in the forms of sobs.

Her mother was brought into the room and she was hysterical. “Evangeline. I was told I’d never see you again.”

Evangeline looked up at her mother with a measure of contempt. She was starting to move to a different plateau, the very one I’d been on in killing the people who’d attacked her.

“Don’t.” Her mother threw her arms out. “He was being used.”

“So what, Mother? You both allowed my son to be taken from me. How much money did you owe? Oh, that’s right. Daddy killed someone on the operating table. The cult had a bargaining chip.”

Her mother was horrified, placing her head into her hands.

“Where is Damien? Tell me. Now,” Evangeline screeched, shifting her hate-filled gaze back to her father.

Suddenly, several members of the actual SWAT team rushed into the room, all brandishing weapons.

She dropped her father like a rock, heading toward her mother. “Where?”

“The basement. A connected tunnel.”

I don’t know who took off running first but she made it downstairs first. The basement she’d described before wasnothing like this one, which was bright given the windows located at the top. Some of it had been finished off, a game room installed.

As the SWAT team filtered in, Jeff and I started searching alongside her. Less than two minutes later, a passageway was found. It was unlocked given it had recently been used. Swarms of people raced inside the area, the light fairly decent for something like this. Thought had gone into building the passage, the tunnel easily sound in structure to keep it from collapsing.

She pushed her way through the group. I could feel her panic settling in and could tell she would do anything to get her son back.

Somehow, she managed to get ahead, acting as if she knew the twists and turns. Call it motherly instinct. Ten minutes passed.

Fifteen.

Twenty.

It felt as if the tunnel was leading nowhere.

Then a slight sound, a cry that wasn’t made from an adult.