She turned to me slightly, still holding the gun at my father. “It’s your choice, my beautiful son. Either we’re all together in this life…or the next. What will it be?”
“I’m not sure”—my voice cracked—“what you mean.” In reality, I had an inkling of exactly what she meant. My heart thundered, and a wave of sickness traveled through me.
“Darling, you’re not a simpleton. You’re the son of two geniuses. You know very well what I mean. You choose. Do you and I and your father stay together here, without the rest of these people, or do the three of us go together into the next life?”
My blood pulsed in my head like a freight train. Was she truly asking me to choose whether my siblings or I lived?
No.
I’d just found happiness with Ruby.
But Talon was healing. Joe and Melanie were having a baby. Marjorie was young, so young, only twenty-five years old.
My father was dying anyway, and Wendy’s life wasn’t worth anything to anyone.
But my life…
Damn it, I wanted my life! I wanted a life with Ruby, with our children, with my brothers and sister. My true siblings, even if I’d been borne to this lunatic.
“Wendy,” my father interjected. “I will go with you into the next life. Our son deserves a life here. Don’t put him through this.”
“Why not? It’s time to find out where his loyalty lies.”
“You’re asking him to choose between his own life and his siblings. It’s not fair.”
“What if the three of us go off somewhere together?” I said, the words coming out rapid and jumbled. “You don’t have to kill my brothers and my sister. We can keep them away from us. You guys will leave us alone, right?”
“O-Of course,” Marjorie stammered. “Won’t we?”
My two brothers and Jade said nothing. Even Joe was speechless, his face pale and his eyes…something different about his eyes, something I’d never seen before. Fear. He was scared.
“No,” Wendy said. “My mind is made up. I deserve closure, and this is how I aim to get it. I’ve waited long enough to have my family together, and I won’t have anyone fucking it up for me.”
I knew the answer in my heart before I voiced it. Talon, Joe, and I had recently had a conversation about the horror Talon had lived through. He’d told us that he’d have gone through it willingly if it meant saving us from the same fate. Joe and I had both agreed. We would do the same.
And I would do that now.
“I choose my siblings.” My voice was strangely monotonous, but it didn’t crack. “They will stay. We will go.”
“No!” Ruby and Marjorie shouted together.
Ruby stood, leaving her father’s lifeless body and running to my arms.
“Easy,” I said, holding her tightly. “I love all of you.”
Joe finally came out of his stupor. “We’re not going to let this happen, Ry.”
I eyed my mother, who still had the gun trained on our father. “It’s okay. I’ll be okay. May I please say something to each of them first?”
“Of course, dear.”
“Joe.” I looked to my big brother, trying to draw in his strength.
“Hey, you wait. This isn’t going down like this,” Joe said. “I’ll fix it. Somehow.”
Always the big brother. But he couldn’t fix this. “We don’t have a choice. You’re having a baby. You need to live. You’re the bravest and strongest of all of us, and you’re going to be a hell of a father, Joe. Tell your child about me. Please.”
I shifted my gaze to Talon, wise beyond his years mostly from losing his innocence at such a tender age. “And Tal, you’ll always be my hero. Be happy. Please. Every minute.”
“How can I be happy if I lose my little brother?”
“Because you have your wife. You have Joe and Marj. You’ll have children someday.”
“Ryan, please!” Ruby shouted.
“Baby. Try to understand.”
She gulped back sobs, still holding on to me as I turned to my sister, who represented youth and joy. “Marj, you’re so young, so full of life and energy. Find your life and live it. For me.”
My baby sister said nothing, just bit on her lip, sobbing.
I turned to the woman I loved. She nodded slightly at me, and an understanding passed between us.
“I love you, baby,” I said. “You’ve shown me things I didn’t think were possible. I’ll always love you.”
My mother pointed her gun at my heart.
I pushed Ruby away as hard as I could, and she fell to the floor, sliding against her father’s body.
I closed my eyes and absorbed every fear I’d known in my short life. What would it feel like to die?
“No.” My father’s voice. “You will not kill our son. Not before you kill me.”
“Fine.”
I opened my eyes. She pointed the gun back at my father. I breathed a sigh of relief without meaning to.
“You may have your last request, Brad. You know I could never deny you anything.”
She fired the gun, and my father slumped over his desk. Screams echoed, as if they were being yelled from the top of Pikes Peak.
My mother turned to me.
And a shot rang out.
Chapter Fifty
Ruby
The gun my father had held on Wendy fell from my hands and clattered to the floor. This was not my first kill, but taking a human life—even a human as psychotically deranged as Wendy Madigan, who was bent on shooting the man I loved—was never easy.
I had hesitated. For a split second I’d thought Wendy wouldn’t harm Brad Steel, and I’d been so relieved that she’d taken the gun off Ryan. I hadn’t been able to save Ryan’s father, and I’d have to live with that.
I ran to Ryan and fell into his arms. “Are you all right?”
He didn’t say anything, just held on to me and wept against the top of my head.
Marjorie had run to her father. I had no idea what the other two Steels and Jade were doing. All I could do was hold on to Ryan and never let go.
He sniffled. “You saved my life, baby.”
“I’m sorry I couldn’t save your father. I was so relieved when she took the gun off of you that I didn’t act quickly enough. I’m so sorry.”
“He’s ill. He would have gone to prison. You saved him suffering through cancer while he was incarcerated.”
That didn’t make me feel any better. “I hoped you understood that I was going for my father’s gun. I should have taken it sooner, but when she pointed that thing at you…” I choked out a sob.
“It’s okay.”
“No, it’s not. I’m sorry.”
He kissed the top of my head. “You’re here. I’m here. My brothers and sister are here. That’s what matters right now.” He pressed his lips to my forehead. “We both lost fathers today. Fathers who weren’t anything close to what they should have been…but they both ended up saving our lives.”
The truth in Ryan’s words flowed through me.
I hadn’t put any stock into my father’s promise when he first uttered it, but he had fulfilled it.
I’m going to make sure she doesn’t hurt you.
He had made sure Wendy didn’t hurt me.
I wasn’t sure how to feel about that.
The others buzzed around us, making calls, crying, hugging each other, but it was all white noise in a haze of relief and gratitude. I just held on to Ryan.
For a long, long time.
* * *
Both my father and Ryan’s were cremated with no ceremonies. As far as the world was concerned, Brad Steel was dead already, and no one mourned Theodore Mathias. Not even Jade’s mother, Brooke Bailey, who’d once fancied herself in love with him. Jade had told her the truth about Nico Kostas aka Theo Mathias, and though Brooke hadn’t believed it at first, she finally did when Talon corroborated the story.
Wendy’s failsafe had appeared in the form of ironclad documentation linking my father, Tom Simpson, and Larry Wade to the human-trafficking operation—a moot point since they were all dead. Oddly, Brad Steel was not implicated in any way. Perhaps she had never planned to bring him down, despite her threats. In her own warped way, she had truly loved both him and Ryan.