46. Chapter Forty-Six
Chapter Forty-Six
D eclan
I shut my eyes as the bastard presses the gun deeper into my skull.
"Don’t move," he orders in a silky tone. "Drop your weapon."
I cock my head only slightly, trying to see him in the window's reflection. "That’s confusing messaging my friend."
"Shut up. Just drop the gun."
"Hmmm." I move slowly to place the gun on the ground in front of me. At this angle, I can just about make out his shadow on the wall and catch a glimpse of the bottom of his face in the glass. He's about my height, but not overly muscular. I could probably take him in one-on-one combat if need be.
But then there’s the problem of the pesky little gun he has on me. I’m not necessarily concerned he’s going to kill me for my own sake, but if he does kill me, he’ll probably go back and look in the car and realize that Amelia is gone.
She hasn’t yet made it far enough to be at the bottom of the hill, so I doubt she’s safe with Monty. I need to keep this guy distracted so that she escapes, which means I’ll have to comply with his orders.
As I drop the gun, he says, "On your feet."
I oblige, wondering what exactly he plans on doing with me. Am I going to die here? Not going to lie, I knew it was a possibility coming into this. But now that it's becoming an imminent reality, I can't help but think back to pivotal moments in my life, especially recently.
And God, I have so many regrets.
I wish I’d spent more time with my daughter watching her grow.
And I wish I didn't spend so long fighting my feelings for Emma.
I should have told her that I loved her earlier. I should have told her how amazing she is, and how much I need her in my life. I should have done a lot of things, but I’m here right now and all that matters is that my daughter is alive at the end of this.
"Move." He shoves the gun into my back.
I start walking, towards the door.
"Open it," he says.
Here we go . The sense of finality is punctuated by another round of thunder. The door creaks as I pull it open.
The wood is damp and smells like mildew, and although it’s the same room that Emma and I took refuge in from the storm, it somehow looks different. When I was here with Emma, even with the storm raging outside there was something cozy about it.
Even with the dirty mattress and dusty corners, just the fact that we were cuddled together in front of the fireplace made for a homier ambiance.
I can still spot the place where we made passionate love.
Right now, it’s hard to even believe it’s the same place. Everything is stark, severe, and dark, making the room look even smaller.
And then there's the half dozen men who have now occupied the space.
Rick’s eyes nearly bulge out of his head when he sees me. "You."
About half of the men are behind Rick, their hands frozen on their holsters.
The other half are behind a gray-haired man holding a gun to Rick's head.
He turns to me and raises an eyebrow. "Who is this?"
Rick doesn’t answer at first. He pales and confusion lights in his eyes. He doesn’t know why I’m here since he didn't call yet to schedule a ransom exchange. Which means he doesn't yet know that I figured all this out.
Sudden rage freezes through me.
"What?" I allow a sneer to touch my lip. "You thought you were going to kidnap my daughter and I just wouldn’t show up?"
He swallows, eyeing the man in front of him as he replies carefully. "I wasn’t kidnapping her. I just needed her help in finding something."
"You should have taken me instead, you bastard. I know more than she does. But you went after my daughter instead of me because you're nothing but a spineless coward."
Rick's face flushes. I don't know if he's pretending but he does look truly ashamed.
"Okay, I’m done with this." The gray-haired man still has his gun trained on Rick while still staring at me. His eyes are cold as ice, his tone detached. "I don’t care who you are, but unfortunately, you're in the wrong place at the wrong time. Which means I'll just have to get rid of you too. This whole thing has turned into such a mess."
"You don't want to do that," I say. "I'm the only one here who can get you what you actually need."
That gets his attention. "What?"
"The Rainbow Pearls? That’s what you want isn’t it?"
He blinks at me, then glances at Rick, then me again, and back to Rick. "I thought you said no one else but your crew knew about this."
"He lied," I say. "Because he wanted to keep the business to himself. He didn’t want to cut me in on it." I raise my eyebrow. "But you seem like a smart man, so I’d like to make you a deal myself. You interested?"
Interest gleams in his ice-blue eyes now.
I try not to shift my gaze so he doesn’t become suspicious, but I mentally count off how many men are in the room and where they’re located, plus the one at my back. I have no way of knowing who is part of Rick’s crew and who is with this thug. Either way, there's no way we’re getting out of this alive without a big miracle or some really fast talking.
"Cut him out and cut me in," I say. "I own the land that you find the Rainbow Pearls on."
"He’s lying," Rick says quickly.
"I’m not. It’s why he kidnapped my daughter," I say. "I can grant you access to the land to do all the extracting you want for a reasonable fee."
"And why would you want that?" Grey-Eyes says.
That’s a good question.
"For starters because you have a gun on me." I shrug. "Also, I don’t see why not. Rick has apparently been making a fortune from this business, so I don't see why I can't also do the same."
The man carefully regards Rick. "Well from what my friend Rick here was telling me, you’ve been preventing him from doing what he’s supposed to."
"That’s because I didn’t know at the time that the Rainbow Pearls were real," I say. "Now I know, I want a cut. Here’s what we can do. You let me go and I can draft a contract that allows you access to the land for an annual fee. How does that sound?"
"Or I can kill you now, and take the land for myself," he says. "Or did you not think I would figure out that the land you’re talking about is the Pink Hotel? And that you're Declan Tudor, the new buyer?"
Shit. I was hoping he didn't know that key detail. My chance of escaping seems more distant as time passes.
Gray-Eyes dismisses me, his head pivoting back to Rick.
"Here’s the thing that irritates me, Rick,’ he says. "I don't like when you make promises you can't keep. You guaranteed me you would eventually help us find the Pink Pearl. Yet you haven’t done so. And you also promised us a shipment of Rainbow Pearls, which you also haven’t fulfilled. I also don't like it when I don't get my shipments on time, because then our gem crushers can't do their jobs, and everything gets delayed."
Gem crushers? I frown. They're crushing the pearls?
Rick swallows, eyeing the gun before he speaks. "You shouldn't be doing that in the first place. That’s not what we got into this for."
"You think you can tell me what to do with my business," the man chuckles. "Right, well, I’ll go talk to the boss and tell him everything else that happened today. Tell him that I met the owner of the Pink Hotel and tell him about the deal he offered. And he might choose to go with it or get out of this Rainbow Pearl business altogether. But either way, Rick, your usefulness to us has expired."
And with that, I know GrayEyes is going to shoot. My entire body tenses up. He's going to kill Rick in cold blood, right now, in front of me.
Gray-Eyes considers Rick with a weak smile on his face. "Any last words?"
I have a split second, where I freeze in horror, where Rick’s head swings to me, his eyes wide in fear and a bit of an apology.
That doesn't move me.
What does move me though, is imagining Emma here, with us, imagining what she would do when she learns that the man she loved like a father is dead.
As much as she’s probably mad at Rick, I know she doesn't want him dead. She'll mourn him like she mourned her parents.
And that, above everything, prompts me into action.
I duck and find myself moving, weaving out of the way of an exploding bullet behind me.
Gray-Eyes turns the gun to me, but Rick grabs his wrist and jerks it away right as the gun goes off. Shots fire in the air, as I tackle Gray-Eyes, and all three of us go down.
At that moment, all hell breaks loose.
Gunshots ricochet all around us and in the absolute cacophony above me and I have no clue who’s shooting who. The white-haired man is beneath my body and his eyes are wide. I glance down to see that Rick somehow managed to grab hold of the gun, probably after the tackle, and it's now pointed into Gray-Eyes' abdomen. The spreading of blood on his shirt is proof that at least one bullet went right into him.
Damn it.
"You fucking asshole," Gray-Eyes says with an almost laughable amount of indignation.
I don't have time to process his death.
A hand on my shoulder drags me back to my knees.
"We need to get out of here," Rick says. The gunshots have stopped and I glance around at the bodies lining the floor, then back at his face.
I really want to punch him right now.
"There's more coming," he says. "We need to go."
Fuck .
I can punch him after we escape.
We burst out of the cabin and run for our lives. I hear a gunshot behind me and another close behind it. I don't stop. We tumble down the hill, rocks flying out from under our feet. Pain suddenly tears into my side, but I don’t stop moving despite it. All I think about is Amelia. Has enough time passed? Would she be in the car by now, hopefully, safe from all this chaos?
I don't know, but I can't risk leading these maniacs to her.
Thunder rumbles and I feel the first droplets of rain on my skin. I grab Rick's wrist and divert him from the straight path, cutting sideways.
"What the fuck are you doing?" Rick yells out but runs with me anyway.
He has no choice. I'm holding onto his hand.
My plan works. It works. The gunshots follow us instead of going down the hill. Rick snarls and rips his hand out of mine, running ahead of me deeper into the woods.
How is he so fast? Or is it just that I'm getting slower?
I spot a stream in the distance. If I can get there, then maybe I can dive inside to avoid the bullets.
But will I reach it in time? My body does indeed feel slower for some reason. Sluggish. I start stumbling over my own feet. My vision is getting blurry.
I glance down and I'm surprised to see blood spreading over my clothes. Did I get shot?
Of course.
I'm almost at the stream when another shot explodes into my shoulder. My body is already falling into the water.
The last thing I hear is someone screaming my name in a voice as loud as the distant thunder:
"Declan!"