Alpha: Savage Alpha Part 17

He gave a disgusted snort. "He claimed it was because of me. That I was too jealous. Too possessive. That I was suffocating him with that obsessive jealousy."

"He didn't say anything like that to me..."

"It's enough that he said it to me on the day he died!"

Lily's unease blossomed into full-blown panic. "You said you hadn't seen Evan that day..."

"I hadn't. The little coward left a message on my cell phone saying that it was over between the two of us." His nostrils flared. "He wouldn't take any of my calls to him either, despite the dozen messages I left for him to call me back."

Messages left on Evan's cell phone...

The cell phone that had been destroyed.

Because of those d.a.m.ning messages?

Surely Todd wouldn't have, couldn't have attacked Charlie and Evan? Killed Charlie and Evan? No, the idea was too preposterous.

Wasn't it?

Why would he do such a thing? Surely not because Evan was having second thoughts about their relations.h.i.+p?

Oh G.o.d, where was Liam?

Where was Jonas?

"I tried to distract you from Evan, thought you would be flattered to have a secret admirer," Todd continued conversationally. "I sent you those letters telling you how much I liked you. How much I wanted to be with you. But it made no difference. Evan felt even more protective of you. So I decided to stop being nice and give him a reason to feel that way," he added in a hard voice.

"You were the one who wrote those disgusting letters and delivered the white roses?"

"Yes." His mouth turned back in a sneer. "I thought the blood dripping from the petals was a nice touch. At no little cost to myself, I might add." He looked down to where an inch-long cut had recently healed in the palm of his hand. "But you wouldn't listen, would you? Wouldn't back off. Why couldn't you just leave Evan alone? He didn't need you when he had me." He bared his teeth in a snarl.

Lily felt nauseated. All this time, they thought she had an admirer who had become an obsessive stalker, and instead it had been Todd's reaction to and jealousy of her friends.h.i.+p with Evan.

A jealousy that had led him not only to writing and sending those obscene letters, but also to spray-painting her dressing room, calling her those disgusting names?

To breaking into her apartment and destroying her bed, before plunging a knife into her pillow?

To killing both Charlie and Evan?

If that was true, then Todd had to be completely mentally unbalanced.

And Liam was missing, leaving Lily alone in her dressing room with a man who had already killed twice. Perhaps a third time, if he had harmed Liam.

"Move away from the door," Todd now instructed pleasantly.

Lily tensed. "Why?"

He gave her a pitying look. "Because I don't want that big guy, the one who follows you around, to interrupt us."

Jonas. He meant Jonas. Except Jonas hadn't been following her around, he had been protecting her, and for the past six days, he hadn't even been doing that. But he was here now, she reminded herself. Somewhere in the theater. As were Seth and a dozen of his men.

She moistened her lips with the tip of her tongue. "You don't want to do this, Todd."

"I don't?" He no longer waited for her to move away from the door but pushed her roughly to one side and turned the lock before taking a knife from his breast pocket.

Lily backed away. "Jonas and his men are outside."

"Exactly, they're outside, on the other side of a locked door," he said with satisfaction. "This room doesn't have any windows or other doors, and the bathroom window has bars over it on the outside. I know, because I checked when I decorated your dressing room for you."

She moved slowly sideways. Away from Todd and the knife he held. "Did you attack Evan?"

"It was an accident," he snapped. "I came back from my business trip after receiving his message, only he hadn't arrived yet, and he was still refusing to answer any of my calls. I'd been to the theater dozens of times with Evan, so it wasn't too difficult to persuade Charlie into believing I wanted to leave a surprise present in Evan's dressing room."

Instead, he had left a message for Lily...

Todd really had killed Evan. Charlie too. And maybe Liam. As he was now about to kill her?

Todd shrugged. "I intended waiting in Evan's dressing room and having it out with him face-to-face. But I saw some spray paint in one of the workmen's bags as I walked through and decided to leave a little message for you instead. Several little messages," he added with satisfaction. "Did you like my artwork?"

What was she supposed to say in response to that? To a man who talked so calmly of killing two people? A man she realized would have no qualms about killing her too.

Todd didn't wait for her to answer. "I remembered later that I had signed into that stupid visitors' book the doorman kept in his room, so I came back before the evening performance, intending to destroy the evidence I had ever been here that day. The stupid old man caught me doing it. Ironic, don't you think, that he died by being hit over the head with his own walking stick? Unfortunately, Evan had forgotten to take his cell phone with him after the afternoon performance, and when he came back for it, he literally caught me in the act. I had no choice but to silence him too."

He spoke so dismissively, as if he wasn't talking of killing two people-one of them the man he'd professed to love and wanted to marry.

Not only that, but he had returned to the theater a third time that day, giving the misleading impression he had recently returned from his business trip.

He'd pretended he had no idea what had happened to Charlie and Evan, and all the time- Lily was too horrified to move now, felt as if her legs were frozen in place. "But you loved Evan."

He scowled darkly. "I told you, he'd change his mind about me." A nerve pulsed in his jaw.

"But you don't kill people you love!"

Todd's eyes flashed. "He said he was going to call the police. He gave me no choice."

"Everyone has a choice, Todd."

He shook his head. "I didn't."

"But what if Evan had survived? What if he'd regained consciousness and named you as his attacker?"

"That wasn't going to happen."

"You don't know that-"

"Of course I f.u.c.king knew that!" His eyes became feverish. "If I couldn't have Evan, then no one else was going to have him either. It took Evan's family some hours to travel down from Scotland, and in the meantime, I had convinced the nursing staff that Evan and I were engaged, that I was effectively his next of kin until his family arrived. They very kindly allowed me to sit with him."

"What did you do?" Lily gasped. "Oh G.o.d, what did you do?"

He smiled slightly. "The police were guarding the outside of Evan's room rather than the inside. He was unconscious and too weak to fight anyway, so I put my hand gently over his mouth and nose and waited until he stopped breathing. The nursing staff tried to revive him, of course, but they failed. I believe the death certificate says he died following blunt force trauma to the head." Todd's eyes gleamed with malice. "And now it's your turn."

"My turn?"

"You're the reason all this happened. The reason Evan ended our relations.h.i.+p. The reason Charlie is dead. The reason Evan is dead."

No, she wasn't. No matter how much Todd might have twisted this around in his insane mind, she wasn't responsible for any of his actions. "If you kill me now, you won't be able to get away, and then the police will add two and two together and know you killed all of us-"

"You think I actually care?" he said scornfully. "Now that Evan is dead, I have no reason to live anyway. I have every intention of killing myself as soon as I've disposed of you," he explained in that calm, unemotional voice. "The only reason I'm not already dead is because I had to wait for you to come out of hiding so I could kill you first. And tonight, you did."

"It doesn't have to be this way." It was difficult for Lily to speak when her mouth was so dry. When her brain was frozen with the horror of Todd's confession. When he obviously intended to kill her too. "You're...unwell. I'm sure the police will understand that you were distraught at the ending of your relations.h.i.+p. That you suffered a temporary insanity." Except Lily didn't think it was temporary at all, and she doubted a psychiatrist would either.

"Don't treat me like an idiot!" Todd's calm had gone now, his body tensed and ready to pounce. "There's no going back from the fact I've already killed two people, and now I'm about to kill you." He raised the knife in his hand.

Oh G.o.d, where was Jonas?

Seth?

Anyone?

Chapter 14.

"Lily? Open this f.u.c.king door and let me in!" Jonas turned the handle and gave the door a shake as he heard voices inside her dressing room. "Lily?" He gave Seth a desperate glance.

"I'll go and talk to the manager, see if he has another key to this room." Seth placed a hand on his arm. "She'll be okay, Jonas," he a.s.sured him before hurrying away.

"Lily!" Jonas gave the locked door another rattle. "Answer me, d.a.m.n it!"

"Sounds as if your boyfriend is getting a little agitated," Todd mocked.

Except Jonas wasn't Lily's boyfriend.

But if she got out of here alive-and that was a big if!-she wasn't going to run away from her feelings for Jonas anymore. She intended to face them, and him, head-on. He liked her well enough to go to bed with her, to make love with, and if that was all he had to give, then she'd take it.

That decision made, she straightened her back determinedly. Knowing Jonas was on the other side of that door gave her courage. "My boyfriend, his friends, and my brothers are all going to kick your a.s.s once we're out of here."

"I thought I'd made it clear neither of us is going to leave this room alive." Todd eyed her with pity.

"Lily, who's in there with you?" Jonas demanded through the locked door.

"It's-" Todd's free hand over Lily's mouth stopped her from actually saying his name, the other hand pressing the knife against her throat.

Which was all Lily needed to make her move.

She put her brothers' training in self-defense into action as she jerked her head back sharply, knowing she had hit her target when she heard the sickening crunch of Todd Shaw's nose breaking and his pained gasp.

She took advantage of the loosening of Todd's arm about her throat to grab hold of his wrist and twist. He let out another yell of pain as the knife fell from his limp fingers.

Lily kicked back, catching Todd in the kneecap before turning to bring her own knee up, aiming for his face as he bent over.

"You f.u.c.king b.i.t.c.h!" He had straightened too quickly. Blood poured from his broken nose as he grabbed her beneath her bent knee before she could make further contact, throwing her off-balance so that she stumbled. Lily cried out as Todd pushed back and her head made painful contact with the wall, rendering her temporarily dazed.

"Lily!" Jonas shouted again from the hallway.

"Jonas," even to her own ears, her voice sounded weak, barely audible.

"f.u.c.k! Lily?"

She gave a gasp as there was a loud thud, followed by a cras.h.i.+ng sound as the door splintered and snapped open, the lock having broken under the force of Jonas's powerful body hitting the other side of the door.

Jonas took in the situation at a glance. Todd stood menacingly over Lily, with blood pouring from what looked to be a broken nose. Lily appeared dazed as she slumped against the wall.

Shaw's bleeding nose and the knife lying at Lily's feet told their own story. One where Lily had put herself in danger when she was forced to disarm Todd.

A red haze filled Jonas's vision as he could too easily imagine that knife plunging into Lily, ending her life, forever wiping out the sa.s.s and challenge in those beautiful blue-green eyes and leaving a gaping hole in his life where she should have been.

Jonas reacted instinctively, that rage now all he could see and feel as he plowed into Todd, knocking the other man to the ground before straddling him and pummeling him repeatedly with his clenched fists.

"Stop now, Jonas."

Several pairs of hands tried to pull him off the other man, but Jonas resisted and kept on punching, unconcerned about his own bleeding knuckles.

"Jonas, you can stop now," Lily spoke softly, her hand a gentle touch on his arm. "You can stop now," she repeated huskily as he turned to look at her with unfocused eyes.

Which was when Jonas became aware of all the other people in the room: Seth and Gabriel, along with the rest of the Knight brothers, and Liam with a cloth pressed against the back of his head where he had been struck from behind, as well as the police inspector from last week and several of his uniformed men.

Jonas moved off the battered man before standing and stepping away, leaving it to the police to drag Shaw back up onto his feet before placing him in handcuffs.

"I'm going to need statements from all of you," the police inspector informed them. One of his men bagged the knife from the floor before he and two other police constables escorted Shaw from the room.

"I believe the situation speaks for itself." Gabriel was the one to answer coldly.

"I'll still going to need those statements," the police inspector insisted.

"Tomorrow." Gabriel was just as unyielding. "My sister has been through enough for one evening."

Lily gasped. "The play..."

"Is being canceled even as we speak," the police inspector informed them.

Tears blurred Lily's vision. "He killed them. Charlie and Evan. Todd killed them both. He was going to kill me too. He was also my stalker." She was shaking so badly now, her legs were threatening to buckle beneath her.

Jonas's eyes narrowed as he took in Lily's appearance. She looked on the point of collapse. "Okay, that's enough for one evening." He stepped forward to put one arm about Lily's shoulders and the other beneath her knees before lifting her up against his chest. "Miss Knight will answer all your questions tomorrow, Inspector. Right now she needs to leave. With me," he added.