Chapter Sixty-Nine
She snatched her hand back as if she’d touched something hot and the sensation of burning had just hit.
Every sense in her was telling her to get up and get help.
Call out. She opened her mouth, preparing to scream.
It was the sudden pressure of something hard pressed into the back of her head that silenced the scream in her throat.
“Ah, ah, ah. Not a good idea,” the voice behind her said, low and urgent. The presence of a solid body radiating heat too close to her, having materialized from nowhere, made her lose her footing. A hand grabbed her tightly by the elbow and yanked her up and flush with his body.
“You just don’t know how to stay out of shit, do you?” Jackson breathed into her ear. “You’ve got to be the nosiest bitch I have ever met.”
She swallowed hard, her mind going blank as he shifted the pointy pressure from the back of her head to in front of her, showing her the black GLOCK he held. He made his point silently, shutting her up.
“Since you decided to crash our party of two, you can serve as both witness and motivation. Not a word. Go.”
He squeezed where he held her upper arm, his fingers digging deeply into her muscle. Isla gasped from the pain. He pushed her forward, keeping close to her, toward the cracked door.
“Dixon? Myles? Is that you?” Victor called from inside. “Get in here. You asked to meet, didn’t you?”
Jackson nudged the door open with his toe, opening it wide enough for them to shuffle in, Isla first with him right behind, holding her by the arm, with the muzzle right to her head. That was what Victor saw, his mouth dropping open in shock and horror as his eyes jumped from Isla to Jackson.
Jackson kicked the door closed behind them. He repositioned himself behind her so she couldn’t get out of his grasp easily.
“Sorry I lied, boss. That would be me who dialed in that emergency meet to you.”
Victor thundered, “What the hell—” He sucked in air as Jackson pressed the gun harder against Isla at the volume, a warning to Victor.
Victor lowered his voice to a loud whisper. “Let her go. She has nothing to do with this.”
“She has everything to do with this,” Jackson retorted.
“She is the reason for all this. And if you don’t sit the fuck down, old man, I will kill her right in front of you.
And you’ll be next before anyone gets here.
” He waggled the muzzle in the air. “Crazy the things you can buy. Thank God for capitalism, the NRA, and the freedom to buy whatever the fuck you want, even if it’s only used to kill people.
Who needs a silencer but people intending to kill others without being caught, am I right? ” He chuckled.
“Asshole,” Isla breathed, wiggling to get out of his tight grasp. She whimpered when he hit her with the butt of the gun, not hard enough to make her pass out but enough to let her know not to test him.
Victor put his hands up to appease the both of them. “Okay, okay. You’re the lead here,” he said.
Jackson growled, “Don’t play me like we’re in the boardroom, old man.”
“What do you want?”
Jackson scoffed. “What do you think? For you to sign over everything to Bennett. Name him as the next CEO taking over the company.” Jackson pushed Isla into a chair and repositioned himself between her and Victor, aiming the gun at Victor when Isla was too scared to move.
She was obsolete. Victor was his intended mark.
Victor said from behind his desk, “Threatening me isn’t going to make me sign anything over to Bennett. You’d need to kill me anyway for his succession to be put in play if I was stupid enough to sign. And who’s going to believe I did that willingly?”
Isla’s hands dampened—the opposite of Victor’s cool, unruffled demeanor. She was barely hanging on. Once Jackson was done with Victor, she would be next.
“No one will believe it.”
Jackson laughed. “Just like no one thought Eden was dead until you uncovered her bones? I had you believing she was alive all these years from one little letter and a couple of little international transactions. You don’t think I can make people believe you killed yourself and”—he looked at Isla—“her in a fit of grief over your daughter and rage that she knew something had happened and lied all this time? Absolutely I can. And without even being around. Bennett will know what to do when he sees what your will says.”
Jackson was sweating bullets. He winced as he pulled a stack of papers from inside his coat and tossed them on the desk.
His wound. Isla had forgotten that Victor had wounded him.
She’d forgotten that the blood trail on the floor belonged to him.
Having a gun to your head made you forget things quick.
He motioned with the weapon for Victor to pick up the papers.
Calmly, Victor sat in his high-backed chair, always cool, ever defiant. “You’re crazy.”
“It doesn’t have to end like this,” Isla said, trying to keep Jackson calm to buy them some time. He had the gun on Victor. He’d shoot without hesitation. He had nothing more to lose.
“Shut up,” he seethed without looking at her. “If it wasn’t for you . . .” He didn’t finish, and Isla didn’t want him to.
Jackson’s face was smeared with blood and dirt, his clothes torn and dirty with bits of leaves and grass.
And though the clothes were dark, Isla could see large dark stains around his shoulder.
Blood from where Victor had shot him. Jackson held his gun, the barrel trembling slightly from his anger but aimed directly at the chest of Victor, who remained seated at his desk, appearing composed despite the gravity of the situation.
Jackson’s eyes flashed like those of a rabid animal.
He would do anything. He no longer cared. Except for one thing.
“You’re going to sign it all over, you arrogant son of a bitch,” Jackson snarled.
“The company, the estate—everything. You’ve stolen enough from me.
Made me live my life like one of your lapdogs.
It’s my son who’ll inherit all you built for all the pain and suffering I had to endure from your bullshit. You’ll die with that knowledge.”
“You think you deserve any of it?” Victor’s voice was calm, cutting. “You’re a parasite, Jackson. You’ve always been.”
Isla shook her head furiously at Victor, silently begging him to stop.
But there was no imploring Victor of anything.
He matched Jackson’s hatred, unyielding, like he was ready to take down the man who’d killed his daughter.
Victor was pushing Jackson so he would make a mistake.
Maybe Victor was buying some time for help to arrive, though Isla couldn’t help wondering why he didn’t have some silent alarm button to call forth a whole army.
Or maybe that was her wishful thinking. Whatever the case, Isla didn’t need him pissing Jackson off further for him to shoot them both.
Jackson’s face twisted with rage. He stepped closer, the gun steadying. “Shut up! You had everything handed to you by your father—your wealth, your family, your power. I had to scrape and claw for every inch of ground I gained. And now you’re trying to take that away from me too?”
“I took everything?” Victor was incredulous, losing his cool at Jackson’s audacity.
His tone rose an octave from outrage, his hands balling into fists from his pent-up fury, but his usual ironclad restraint was slipping.
Something needed to be done. There wasn’t much time before one of these men lost his last thread of tolerance and snapped.
Victor’s gaze blazed like lava. “Are you mad, man? You’ve been cheating with my wife since before I married her.
You passed your kid off as mine, and I never knew.
You came up with some scheme with her to steal my company from under me using your kid while making me think you were loyal.
That she was loyal. And you say I took everything from you?
You never had what I wanted in the first goddamn place. ”
No, no, no, Isla chanted silently, wincing every time Victor spoke, antagonizing Jackson when he should have been calming him. The two men had seemingly forgotten she was in the room with them.
“You lost the moment you betrayed me. And your son? If he’s weak and inadequate, it’s because he has your blood in him.
I raised him like my son. I loved him, tried to make him strong.
I would have and have given him the world, and it was still never enough.
But you, you killed, lied, and cheated. You say it was for Bennett.
But, Jackson, it was only for you. Bennett was never going to be CEO.
Understand? Not even if any of your crimes panned out.
I understood what type of man he’d be long ago and was giving him chances to succeed.
Yet he failed at every chance. He is your son, after all. ”
“Say that again,” Jackson growled, his voice breaking with fury.
Why’d Victor’s study have to be so far that no one would hear anything unless they came this way?
It was by design, and probably ideal, to ensure privacy when Victor was doing business, but now Isla thought it was the worst idea ever.
Anything could happen—was happening—and no one would know until it was too late.
Why the hell hadn’t Victor put cameras in this damn house?
Oh yeah, privacy. Fuck the damn privacy—they were about to be killed.
The tension in the room was reaching a boiling point. She looked around for something, anything, that could be used. She moved her leg, and the weight inside her pocket moved as well, alerting her. The weight . . . her hunting rock. Slowly, she slipped her hand inside her pocket.
Jackson’s laugh came out hollow, manic. “Do you have any idea what I’ve sacrificed? Decades of work, planning, manipulation—and for what? For you to just tear it all apart at your whim?”