He’d lost 10,000 Lux once. I’d given it back to him just recently. Now it slipped through his fingers for good.
But Kyle had Amsel, and really, that was all that mattered. Somehow Dane would get Mikaela out of the sticky situation as well. He’d save them all.
Relief didn’t edge in on me, though. I watched with rising fury as Dane signed the papers. Kyle backed out of the room and my attention shifted to him, my focus on the baby, though I slid a glance Dane’s way when he straightened and tossed the pen onto the desk.
“Stay the fuck away from my family,” he said. “And Kyle and Rosa.”
“Fine,” Ethan said. “It’s over. I got what I wanted all along. You all leave Sedona, stay far away from 10,000 Lux, and this will just be a bad memory. No more.”
Dane backed up as well. Kyle had almost made it to the front door. Ethan collected the paperwork and opened the drawer again.
The baby must have screamed, though we couldn’t hear anything from that far off. It nabbed Dane’s attention, though.
A split second later, Ethan pulled a gun from the drawer.
“Dane!” I cried into the phone.
Everything inside me seized up.
This was it.
Game over.
chapter 20
I stared at the flat screen above the fireplace, rocked to the core of my being. Horrified.
Dane must have caught the reflection of Ethan in one of the front room windows, because he whirled around while whipping out his own weapon.
My hands spasmed and I dropped the mini. It hit the floor and the TV went blank as though we’d lost the feed.
Except I heard the gunshots, and each one made me jump. Four times.
Rosa shrieked.
“Dane!” I called out again.
Who had just shot who?
Stan lunged for the mini and pressed buttons until the camera function worked again. Suddenly our big screen was filled with blood splattered everywhere, all over the walls behind the desk where Ethan had stood and covering the papers Dane had just signed. Dripping ominously.
My stomach lurched.
Then I saw Dane. He had his gun pointed at Mikaela, the nozzle pressed to her forehead. Her back was against the wall. She didn’t move an inch.
“Dane? What the hell?” I demanded. Monumentally relieved he was alive but confused by this new course of action.
“Holy shit,” Stan said, sounding traumatized. “What the fuck is going on here?”
Dane reached in his pocket and turned on the speaker function of Kyle’s phone. Then he asked Mikaela, “How long have you been in on this?”
“Dane!” I froze, my eyes bulging. He couldn’t possibly think she was directly involved with—
“I didn’t have a choice,” Mikaela said. No false Italian accent. Her eyes were also wide—with terror. Brimming with tears. Her voice cracked as she told Dane, “I was in too deep to walk away at the time I found out you were alive.”
“What did you do?” he demanded, his tone sharp, filled with rage. “Why did you turn against me?”
“I didn’t, Dane! I swear!” She choked on her words. “It all just happened—I couldn’t stop it.” She’d gone as pale as the light-pink sweater she wore with white leather pants, which had Ethan’s blood splashed across them. “I had no choice. You have to believe me!” Tears streamed down her ghostly cheeks.