Chapter Sixty-Nine #2
“You can still walk away from this.” Isla spoke up, palming the rock in her hand, slipping forward to the edge of the chair slowly.
Her mind raced. She needed to stall him, to give someone—anyone—time to intervene.
“If you do this, you’ll never get away with it,” she said, her voice steady despite how dry her mouth was.
“You’ll destroy any chances Bennett may have.
You don’t want to do that, right? Because under all this, you do care about him. He’s your son.”
“Isla,” Victor warned with a quick headshake. But they needed Jackson off guard and confused. They couldn’t have him concentrating on just one of them. And Victor pushing Jackson to the breaking point would be a mistake neither of them could afford.
Jackson concentrated his attention on her.
“I should have dealt with you earlier and permanently. You wouldn’t get the hint .
. . not at the hunt, or when Bennett’s idiot friend followed you to the barn.
Not even when we brought that fucking leech of a woman to expose you.
You waltzed right in and set decades of planning on fire.
You, a cheap con with an act Victor the Great bought hook, line, and sinker.
Put that in your fucking article,” he said with a sneer.
He took a step back, swinging the weapon in her direction.
“Bennett doesn’t need chances,” Jackson snarled.
“He needs power. And I’ll make damn sure he gets it, one way or another.
So sign the goddamn papers, or I will shoot her dead right now. Right the fuck now!”
“What do I care about her, huh?” Victor asked suddenly, flipping the script.
Ice ran through Isla’s veins. What?
“What the fuck are you doing?” Jackson asked, his sweat-slicked face crumpling into confusion and wariness.
Victor glanced over at her. His eyes went over her as if she were just another piece of furniture. There was no care there. He was cold. He was angry. At her.
Victor shrugged. “Like you said. She’s a con artist and a liar.
She let me go years without telling me something might have happened to Eden.
She let Eden come here and got her killed.
You think I care about what happens to her?
She deserves it. Maybe you’re right. Maybe if she’d never come here, I could have continued my life of blissful ignorance, believing Edie was still alive out there and just mad at me.
My family would be as it was. Bennett would still be a Corrigan, and you wouldn’t be wanted right now.
So go ahead. It’s what she deserves. For Edie. ”
What the hell? “Mr. Corrigan, wait! I—” Isla stammered in disbelief. If looks could kill, she’d be dead from that and then dead from the coming gunshot.
Jackson grinned, grabbing her by the hood of her sweatshirt and snatching her up. “All right then,” he said, calling Victor’s bluff.
She tried balancing herself so she wouldn’t stumble and fall.
She clamped her mouth shut so she wouldn’t cry out as the gun’s muzzle pointed at her chest. Her right hand gripped the rock harder as it slowly slid out of the pocket and kept it at her side.
One shot. She only had one and needed to make this count.
Jackson growled, “We’ll make a deal.”
Victor looked from Isla to Jackson and to the stack of papers dotted with blood. He nodded, making his executive decision. “A deal. Because you really got me between a rock and a hard place.”
A rock. That was when Isla knew and made her own executive decision, raising her hunting-nightmare souvenir, which would now actually serve its purpose.
She swung upward with all her force, mashing the sharp edge of the rock into where the spreading dark blood on his shirt was seeping through, an especially wet patch.
The gun went off, its shot going wild. Jackson stumbled backward, grunting in surprise and pain.
He was still gripping her hood, and she swung again, not sure where the rock connected, maybe the edge of his jaw.
He stumbled back into a floor lamp and fell with it as it crashed down, with Isla on top of him.
Victor was next to them in a blur, pinning Jackson’s hand, wresting the gun from his loosened grip.
Jackson took his free hand and thrashed wildly, landing a blow that hit Isla square in the face.
She saw stars, and her body followed them, half sliding off him while he kicked at Victor, who had been trying to separate him and Isla.
Jackson kicked his feet, sweeping Victor off his and onto the floor.
The gun skipped over the rug like a rock on the surface of water, away from them, and both men struggled to reach it first. Isla swam in pain, her lip wet from the blood trickling from it.
Something caught her eye in the corner, and she crawled to it.
A loud crash sounded, and the door burst open, Lawrence and Myles charging in like two linebackers.
Holland crowded the door behind them, yelling and jumping frantically for help as she took in the scene.
In a blur of movement, Lawrence tackled Jackson.
Myles dove for the weapon as well just as Jackson threw a vicious punch at Lawrence, catching him across the jaw.
The men grappled, crashing into the furniture.
Isla scrambled to her feet and grabbed the handle of Holland’s saber from behind a nearby table where she’d left it after one of her visits—the joys of living with a new adult who thought the world was her closet.
Jackson gained the upper hand, shoving Lawrence onto the ground and reaching for the gun that was nearly in his grasp.
His fingers pulled it toward him as he kept Myles at bay.
Then he howled as Isla ran the saber through the palm of his hand.
“You killed my best friend,” she seethed. She wanted this monster to hurt as much as he’d hurt others for too long. This wasn’t enough. She kicked him. “You fucking bastard.”
She pushed the weapon down farther into his flesh as he screamed, bucking from the pain.
All she could see was Eden driving away and then Edie in that pit, the gold of her necklace glinting against her remains.
Isla would have kept pushing her weight down, forcing his arm to bend back toward his body until the blade pierced his chest. But large hands appeared, covering over hers, and, with gentle force, pried her fingers away, pulling her from that madness, off the dark path she had walked, and into a warm, solid embrace that smelled of sandalwood and safety.
It was finally done.