55. Briar
55
brIAR
C hloe holds the wall for support as she stands.
There’s fire in her eyes as she glares at me. She’s looking at me, but I know that her anger isn’t meant for me.
She walks toward me and grabs my hair.
Her face is contorted with fury.
"I'm sorry, Briar," she whispers. And then louder, she says, "You fucking bitch. This is all your fault. If I'm going to die, I'm going to take you down with me."
She enunciates each word with her mouth, making it easier for the person watching the video feed to lip-read.
She tilts my head back and places the tip of the makeshift knife right underneath my chin. She drags it down my throat and over my sternum. She lifts it into the air, and she's about to bring it down on me when the door is thrown open.
My mother stands at the threshold, looking like a furious queen.
Our little show had an audience, after all.
"Hello, Mother," Chloe says, turning me around so we're both facing our mother. "You look surprised. What's the matter? Did you think I'd go down quietly?"
"What do you think you're doing?" Mother asks, gritting her teeth.
The aircraft slows to a stop.
"What does it look like I'm doing?" Chloe says, yanking my head back. I let out a whimper for added effect. "She's always been your favorite, hasn't she? You never hid it, either. You rubbed it in my face every chance you got."
"Let go of her," Mother snaps.
Her frozen face doesn't show it, but she's positively fuming. She doesn't like it when things don't go her way. And things haven't been going her way for a long time now.
"Why should I?" Chloe counters. "If it weren't for your favorite daughter, I wouldn't even be here."
"I always knew you would turn out to be an ungrateful bitch," Mother says. "That's why I never bothered with you."
"Really?" Chloe says. "You saw a little six-year-old girl who just lost her mother, and you just knew that she'd turn out to be an ungrateful bitch?"
"What do you want?" Mother says.
"That's just it," Chloe says. "I don't want anything from you anymore. Well, that's not entirely true. I do want something from you. I want to make you suffer. Briar has always been your whole world, hasn't she? She's always been your most prized possession."
Mother bites the bait.
“You stupid whore,” she starts. I tune out the rest of it.
My mother has always been dramatic, and this time is no different. She spews venom, telling Chloe exactly how little she thinks of her. It's nothing I haven't heard a thousand times before. But for once, it serves a purpose.
With every second that passes, Dimitri and Max are getting closer to us.
I have no way of knowing how much longer they'll take, but I pray they'll get here on time. I try not to think about the way Chloe's hands have started to tremble. I just hope that Mother doesn't notice it too.
Just when I think everything is going according to plan, we're interrupted by one of my mother's lackeys. It’s Lucas, a tall Dutch man who's been with us for the past few years.
"What is it, Lucas?" Mother says. "I'm in the middle of something."
"There's been a police raid at the auction," he says.
That catches her attention. Immediately.
"What are you talking about?" she says, turning around to face him.
"Interpol," he says. "I don't know who alerted them, but?—"
The metal in Chloe's hands falls to the ground. A second later, Chloe slumps to the floor as well. She's gasping for air and clutching her throat.
"I can't breathe," she says.
"Mother, please," I say, looking up at her. "I'll do anything you want. Just please let Chloe live."
"She wrote her own fate," Mother says. "As for you, you should be ashamed of yourself. She was trying to take your life just a few seconds ago."
Only my mother would automatically assume the worst in people. I knew it would work on her because that's just how her mind works.
"No, she wasn't," I say, cupping Chloe's cheek. "Chloe, please. Stay with me. They'll get here any second now. They're coming for us."
“You scheming little bitch.” Mother strides toward me and yanks me up by my hair. “I thought I raised you better than this, but I assumed wrong.”
My scalp hurts from the way she’s holding my hair.
"Ma'am, we have a bigger problem," Lucas says from the door, checking his iPad. "The ' Ndrangheta 's army isheaded toward us."