When Chris saw me come to, he straightened and smiled. “Ah . . . Sleeping Beauty awakens.”
Heidi sagged against Phil, her pale face gaining a little bit more color. But not enough. I rose onto my elbows, taking in the scene. The three dead bodies hadn’t been moved, but there was a chair sitting next to me. And my gun was still on the table by the door. It was almost in reach, too. “You don’t have to do this, Chris.”
“Ah, but I do.” He smiled a chilling smile. “If you want something, you have to take it. You can’t wait for someone to give it to you. It’s the only way to get what you want out of this miserable life. You taught me that.”
“Bullshit,” I snapped. “You want something, you need to earn it.”
“Nah. It’s more fun to take it.” Chris pointed his gun at Heidi. She glared back at him. “And now, I’m gonna take it from you. And you’re gonna give it to me.”
I sat up and pressed a hand to my throbbing head. Chris frowned, watching me for any signs of a threat. He kept his gun pointed at Heidi, and so did Phil. “What’s the plan here? How are you hoping to pull this off?”
“The job should’ve been mine, Lucas. I was here, putting in the time, earning it. But then you waltz back in, after years away, and steal my promotion. So you need to die. With you gone, I’ll finally get the position I should have gotten all along.”
I laughed and ran my tongue over my split, dry lips. All I could taste was blood, but I didn’t give a damn. “The hell you will. Scotty will, dumbass. He’s my brother, and I’m not gonna shoot him like you’d hoped.”
A crazy light lit his brown eyes. “You don’t need to anymore.” Chris walked around Heidi and Phil, looking completely evil. He didn’t even look like the boy I’d grown up with anymore. I didn’t know this man. Not anymore. “You’re going to walk over to that table, real slow, and sign this will that I so kindly typed up and had the notary stamp. It says that you’re leaving everything to me—your blood brother—including your position. Heidi will witness the transaction, sign it, and then . . . well, you know what comes next. You fought off Bitter Hill as long as you could, but in the end . . . you failed. With your endorsement from beyond the grave, Tate will have to give me the job.”
I looked at the chair he’d set up. Sure enough, there was a pen and a piece of paper, too. “Not gonna happen. I’m not signing anything.”
“Yeah, you will.” He stopped next to Heidi. “You’ll do it, or I’ll kill her, right here. Right now. In front of you. And you know I will, too. But if you do it . . . she lives.”
“Let her go first. She can sign it and leave,” I said quickly. “Then I’ll do it.”
“Yeah . . . not a chance.” Chris snorted. “I’m not an idiot. You just want her gone so you can kill us both without risking her life.”
“You’re wrong.” I struggled to my feet. Chris watched me closely but didn’t tell me to stay on the floor. “I don’t want to kill you at all. Why do you think you’re still alive?”
He laughed. “Because I’m the one with all the guns.”
“Keep telling yourself that,” I said, forcing a smirk even though it hurt like hell. “I don’t want to kill you. I didn’t even want the job. As a matter of fact, you can have it. No killing necessary. Just let us go, and you’ll never hear from us again. We’ll leave Boston. You’ll live the life you think you want so badly.”
“I’m not the one whose life is in danger.” Chris straightened. His confident smile wavered. “It’s over. I’ve won.”
“Am I dead?”
Chris’s jaw tightened. “No.”
“Then it’s not fucking over.” I held my hands up and took another step. I was one step closer to my gun now. One step closer to getting Heidi and me out of this mess alive. “But it doesn’t have to end that way. Just let us go. Let us run.”
“What? You’d give it all up, all that power, to be normal? Scrambling around, trying to make ends meet, poor and powerless and alone? Go back to the way you grew up?” He gestured toward Heidi with his gun. “Live a normal, boring life?”
I curled my hands into balls. Heidi watched me closely, one eye swollen shut, and blood still trickling from the cut by her mouth. Tears ran down her face, and she’d never looked more terrified than she did now. Because of me. I had to fix this.
And for the first time, I knew without a doubt what my answer would be.
“Yes. I would run away from here forever, so long as I was with her, and we’d never look back.” I locked eyes with Heidi. “I’d live any kind of life to be with this woman, and be the luckiest bastard alive, poor or not, if she’d have me.”
CHAPTER 28
HEIDI