I’ve failed myself.
My aim finds my grandfather’s head a moment too late. Each of his security guys has his back and front covered as he glares at the smoking, blacked-out Jag I recognise from the night Cassie left me.
Like it’s a motherfucking omen, every part of me seizes up with dread.
The chassis is covered in bullet holes, the windscreen appears to be shattered, barely staying in place.
“Drop it.” Jack says, still threatening with the lighter, his hand trembling. He’s facing me, but his eyes are flitting everywhere.
“I’m going to enjoy killing you. I’m going to make a sieve out of you.”
“You know, your threats are getting really fucking old, Fairfax.” Stepping closer, he fists the lighter in his hand.
I’m fighting myself to keep my eyes on his rather than on the hand fisting the lighter. My blood is burning in my veins like we’re already on fire and her words replay in my head again and again until my finger is a hairbreadth away from pulling the trigger.
I don’t want to die.
The quiet around us is so still that the air whistling from the Jag’s tyres seems loud.
“It didn’t have to come to this.” My grandfather turns to the car with a sigh.
It almost sounds like he’s sorry, but I know better now.
“It was always going to come to this.” The door of the wrecked Jag opens and any hope I had of making it out of this. Of a miraculous rescue is gone.
My grandfather’s face lights up as my father steps out of the car.
“You already took one, I can’t let you take the other.” My father looks over my shoulder and nods at the same time as the bodyguard aiming at me stiffens his stance, ready to shoot. “I warned you. I told you not to touch the Sinclairs. I told you not to get involved in this shit. I warned you it would crush everything we built.”
Looking between them, trying to understand what’s going on, mine and my father’s gazes meet, and his abrasive words echo in my ears from the day my grandfather told him about my deal with Francis—What have you done? What were you thinking?
At the time I thought he was mad that I’d gone to the Sinclairs. That he was scared that I was going to bring him down.
All the angry words and slurs Kit and I shared because he was protecting him. Loyal to a fault when I was the one feeding the devil. Sustaining his greed.
“It’s all crumbled. Gone.” My father states, eyes narrowing on my grandfather as he takes a step forwards. “He’s all that’s left, and I won’t let you have him. It wasn’t Kit that went to Maxwell, it was me. Maxwell and I knew what you would do, that’s why he got the priest involved. The things in those church walls…a place of salvation full of damnation.”
Something clicks, this whole time Father Byrne said he couldn’t tell me who the source of all the information was. It didn’t make sense that my father disappeared, it didn’t make sense that Francis wasn’t actively hunting him down.
“The biggest mistake you made was taking Maxwell down.”
“He had it coming.”
“Now, they’re here for you.” I glance over my shoulder as the goon aiming towards the car starts firing like he has bullets to spare.
Francis’ quiet Tesla has hardly stopped when smoke grenades fly through the air, there’s more shooting and all I see is the flicker of the lighter.
I drop the Glock still in my hand and bat the flame away as hard as I can. The adrenaline doesn’t allow me to register the burn until the flames catch my eyes. Slapping my hand back and forth on Jack’s dark jacket, I grab his collar with the other.
I can feel the sting on my skin, it’s minor, it doesn’t hurt and with the smoke I can’t really assess the damage. All I can do is jam my first into every plane and curve of my cousin’s face. I keep going and
going until I’m holding him up, against the rail of the bridge.
He’s so pathetic that he doesn’t even try to defend himself. He puts up no fight. He simply looks at me with bleary, bloody eyes. Like he knew this was coming and that resistance is pointless. But then, he’s always been like this. Talks a good game, even tries to compete, but in the end, he surrenders like a coward. Because he is a coward.
“You should never have touched her.” Biting between hits, I watch his blood coat his mouth and dribble down his jaw and neck…and all I see is her.
How she’s bleeding in that car. How her teeth were too, coated in blood. How she couldn’t keep her eyes open for me.