that they wouldn’t listen to her because she was a woman and lower ranked. They were her ideas and her plans, and I just fucking went with it—” Hutson yells.
“Hold on… Anna?” I ask, wondering if I’m hearing him right. “You’re saying Anna’s behind this? That’s funny when one of your guys stabbed her and she ended up in the hospital.”
“One of my guys did because she’s trying to kill me! I tried reasoning with her, I even tried paying her off, but nothing was helping so I did what I had to do to protect myself! I never would have hired anyone to have it done if she wasn’t doing everything she could to kill me!”
Leland slowly looks over at me as I try to read his expression. He’s giving me a quizzical look, waiting for my reaction about the whole thing. I mean… Anna’s always been on the sidelines. Hutson’s claiming she’s behind this? And everyone has been pointing fingers at Hutson.
I think about it for a moment before realizing that I really don’t know what to say but if we’re wrong and it’s not Hutson behind all of this, then we’ve left Anna with Cassel and the police. It is strange she knew right where Hutson was, but she claimed he was after her and she’d been hunting him down.
“Come out here and tell us your side,” Leland says. “We’ll sit down and have a nice little chat about it.”
I pull out my phone as he works on coercing Hutson out and text Cassel.
Me: Hutson’s trying to tell us Anna is the one behind this. I’m not sure who or what to believe at this point. Please be careful. Maybe just step away from it all. I don’t want you to get hurt. Let the police handle it.
Cassel: Okay, I’ll be careful.
When the door slowly swings open, I’m honestly surprised. Hutson has his hands in the air as he steps out, but Leland has a gun on him anyway.
“Have a seat,” Leland says as he waves at the table where there are playing cards strewn on it, like they’d been playing a game before we rudely interrupted them.
He sits down and keeps his hands up.
“Hands on the table, palms up,” Leland says.
Hutson quickly obliges as Leland keeps a close eye on him.
“Call off your men,” I say, not wanting to be shot in the back.
Hutson nods. “I need my walkie-talkie. It’s on my pants.”
“Move and I’ll blow your ear clean off and your brains with it,” Leland growls at him.
“I won’t,” he says as Leland reaches down and grabs it before holding it up to him to speak in.
The moment Leland presses the button, Hutson says, “Hold off all fire. They’re not with Anna. We’re going to talk.”
Whether or not they’ll listen, we don’t know, but Leland moves to the side so he has a good view of the stairs while we chat with Hutson.
“Tell me everything,” I urge.
Hutson seems hesitant, but he must notice we have very little patience. “How do I know you’re not with Anna? How do I know this isn’t a setup done by her?” Hutson asks as Leland picks up a playing card and twirls it between his fingers.
“Answer my lovely man’s question,” Leland threatens.
“Who the hell is this guy?”
“My fiancé.”
“Is he a soldier?” Hutson asks, like he thinks the only way Leland would be a threat is as a soldier.
“Stay on topic and answer the question,” Leland says with a flick of his wrist. It’s so fast I barely see it happen. Only a moment later do I realize that he flung the playing card at Hutson hard enough that the very tip of it embeds right in his forehead before fluttering to the ground. I think Hutson and I are both in stunned silence as a bead of blood runs down his forehead.
“What the fuck was that?” he cries.
“I once killed a man with just a deck of playing cards,” Leland says, and if I hadn’t just witnessed what I did, I’m not sure I’d have believed it. I’m still not sure… but it’s a bit more believable at the moment. “Do you want to be the second man I kill with a playing card?” he asks as he picks up another.
“Fuck! No! Don’t!” Hutson says, and I realize I’ve never seen him like this before. He’s always been the aggressor. He’s a big guy who’s kept his body in shape. His beady eyes always seem to be glaring and