“It’s your choice, Lila. If I die, Knox dies with me. There will be no second chances this time.” Victor shifted, his chest shielded by Knox’s shoulder. There was no way I could kill him without shooting Knox, too.
I stood frozen in place as my heart pounded and my vision grew blurry. “Even if I let you go, you have no way to know for sure that I’ll stick to my word.”
“But the country is watching, remember?” He inched the knife across Knox’s throat, and pearls of blood formed at the blade. “Surely you wouldn’t lie to them.”
“They want you punished for your crimes. No one would blame me for having you arrested, no matter what promises I make.”
He sighed. “I suppose you’re right. I guess that means I’ll just have to kill him after all, won’t I?”
His hand holding the knife twitched, and I didn’t think. I didn’t breathe. I did exactly what he’d urged me to do less than an hour before, standing on that platform in front of thousands of people, with Celia kneeling in front of me, ready to die.
I pulled the trigger.
XVIII
Scars
The bullet hit Knox in the spot where his shoulder met his chest, half an inch below where Daxton’s shot had landed.
The force of it pushed him backward, and the knife went flying as Victor slammed against the wall. Together they lay in a crumpled heap, and I hurried over, my heart pounding.
“Knox?” His name came out choked, and I dropped to my knees beside him. “Please don’t be dead, please don’t be dead—”
“I’m not dead,” he managed, wincing. “I think Victor might be, though.”
Knox sat up, revealing Daxton underneath him. His dark eyes were wide, his mouth slack, and fresh blood blossomed from the bullet that had traveled through Knox’s shoulder into his chest. He wasn’t moving.
“Looks like the bastard had a heart after all,” said Knox, and I held out my hand, helping him to his feet. The world seemed to tilt on its axis, and I stared at Daxton’s body, trying to absorb what had just happened.
He was dead.
Finally, at last, Daxton Hart—Victor Mercer—was dead.
“I should—I shouldn’t have killed him,” I whispered. “I should have shot him in the knee.”
“You’re not that good of a shot. Besides, he was already minutes from dying,” said Knox. “Look at how much blood he’d lost. There was no saving him.”
“He should have had to stand trial for his crimes. He should have—he should have had to look his victims’ families in the eye and lived to face the consequences. Death was too easy. I had him. I should have—”
“Lila.” Despite his injuries, Knox hunched down in front of me, staring me straight in the eye. “You did exactly what you should have done.”
I threw my arms around him, hugging him as tightly as I dared without causing him more pain. He embraced me in return, rubbing slow circles on my back.
“Come on,” he murmured. “Let’s get out of here.”
Knox hadn’t been bluffing. The Blackcoats had once again hijacked the broadcast system, and the entire country had seen the showdown in the safe room between me and Victor Mercer. Before Knox and I even made it to the atrium, a team of paramedics ran down the steps directly toward us. I stepped aside, expecting them to race to the safe room to see if there was any hope to save their Prime Minister, but instead they stopped.
“Miss Hart—Mr. Creed—please sit and let us examine you,” said a woman. I glanced at Knox, and he nodded. Together we sank down, and the paramedics got to work inspecting my throat and the bullet wounds in Knox’s shoulder.
I insisted on walking to the ambulance, but much to his chagrin, Knox was forced onto a stretcher and carried out, the paramedics threatening to withhold painkillers if he didn’t stay put. Greyson waited for us outside with Rivers at his side, and as soon as I stumbled out, a blanket wrapped around my shoulders and a paramedic holding my elbow to make sure I didn’t fall, they both raced toward us.
“Lila—are you—what happened?” Greyson skidded to a stop on the gravel drive.
“Victor’s dead,” I croaked. The more I spoke, the harder it became. “Knox—”
“I’m fine,” he called as the stretcher appeared. “Did the whole thing get on air?”
“The whole thing,” said Rivers with a grin.
I refused to be split up from Knox, so we rode to the nearest hospital together in the same ambulance, with Rivers driving Greyson behind us. Through the back windows, I spotted hundreds, if not thousands of people gathered atthe gates of Somerset, watching us drive off. A cheer rose up, loud enough for us to hear through the ambulance walls, and the sob I’d been holding in all morning finally escaped. We’d done it. We’d actually done it.
“It’s really over, isn’t it?” I whispered. Knox, who’d so far spent the ride arguing with the paramedic, nodded.