Chapter Thirty-Five - Rachel
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
Rachel
There are moments in our lives that define us. Moments that change the very essence of who we are—altering our DNA until we barely recognize ourselves when we look in the mirror.
I’ve experienced a few of these moments.
Holding my grandma’s hand as she passed away when I was ten years old and developing a habit of popping my knuckles.
Not being able to afford a school field trip to the zoo in the fifth grade and realizing, for the first time, the level of poverty my family lived in.
Standing in my apartment in the arms of a man I barely knew, realizing I was pregnant with his child.
But somehow, none of those feel so important now.
Like they were only child’s play.
I know, even in the midst of this moment, that my life is never going to be the same.
If I thought I knew what true pain was, I was only kidding myself. This heart-wrenching, soul-crushing pain is unlike anything I have ever felt before.
It hasn’t wounded my ego, hurt my feelings, or bruised my skin—but I wish it would. That would be so much easier to bear.
Instead, it feels like Ryder tore my chest open and slowly ripped through everything in the path of my heart as he wrenched it from my lifeless body. The weight of his abrupt rejection in my time of need is so heavy that it feels like I’m drowning.
I stare at the door that is barely illuminated by Dr. Cane’s phone flashlight and swallow the realization that Ryder left me here after I begged him to stay.
He left like it was nothing to him.
Like I’m nothing to him.
“What do you need?” Alec asks, pulling me from my longing to where he’s speaking to the doctor.
Alec wears a fiercely determined expression that I’ve never seen before, and, damn, it’s scary. He doesn’t look like a kid anymore.
Not one bit.
Dr. Cane is breathing deeply, mouthing words to himself, and ticking off things on his fingers. “Okay,” he mutters. “Okay, I can deliver the child in these conditions, but I’m going to need a few things from the main infirmary.”
He lists the things off to Alec, and I wonder how he’ll remember all of them, but judging by the look of pure focus on his features, I know without a doubt that he will.
When Dr. Cane is finished with the list, Alec bolts from the room, and I once again stare at the door as it shuts behind someone I thought wouldn’t leave my side.
Maybe they’ll both come back.
Or maybe they’ll get hurt, and you’ll never see them again.
“You need to breathe, Rachel,” Dr. Cane says, and somehow, his voice remains calm despite the blaring alarm still echoing throughout the room. “I know that’s asking a lot right now, and it might feel impossible, but for the baby’s sake, you need to relax.”
I strain to take deep breaths, but thoughts of my baby girl motivate me to pull air into my lungs.
“Do you think you can get that to stop?” I grit, pointing to the alarm.
He nods, and I watch as the old man climbs a chair and uses a reflex hammer to beat the alarm until it finally stops.
“Thank you,” I manage, and a wave of pain hits as another contraction rocks through me.
“Don’t worry, I have the epidural right here, Miss Lance.”
Oh, thank goodness.
Dr. Cane moves behind me, but I barely notice what he’s doing. It’s like there’s a gravitational pull to the door, stealing my ability to look away even if I wanted to.
Walk through that door, Ryder, I silently—and uselessly—plead.
“I’m going to administer the epidural now. Are you ready?”
“Yes,” I say breathlessly as another contraction hits.
Then, like a dream come true, the door swings open.
But the man who steps inside isn’t Ryder.
It isn’t even Alec.
Nicholas Belford.
“What—what are you doing here?” I ask, unable to do anything about the complete vulnerability of my position and situation.
It’s then that I notice the look of complete ease that he wears. No worry for the base’s safety. No concern for the lost power. No qualms about my state of distress.
“Sir, you shouldn’t be—” Dr. Cane’s words are interrupted by the bullet that Nicholas lodges in his brain without so much as a blink.
An ear-piercing shriek comes from my lips, and a fear so potent I can taste it fuses with the blood in my veins, becoming a part of me that I’ll never be rid of.
I wrap my hands over my stomach, tears streaming down my face as I try not to hurl, but Dr. Cane’s blood is splattered across the wall, and I have no doubt mine will follow.
But Nicholas doesn’t raise the gun at me. He takes slow—painfully slow—steps forward. I wish I could move away, but I’m frozen in fear and pain. I can’t do anything as he closes the distance between us.
“G-get a-away from me,” I sputter.
He clicks his tongue. “You should know I take no pleasure in taking your life.”
Another sob escapes—but I can’t help it. It’s not even myself that I’m worried about, but the child that I so desperately want to live through her first night in the world.
“Then don’t,” I choke. “Please, I’m begging you. Don’t do this.”
But what has begging got me so far?
“Really, I have no choice,” he says with a huff, eyeing me with disgust that I can’t even begin to process. “I’d hoped Mr. Moreno and Ryder would put a stop to this before it got to this point, but since they didn’t, I have to.”
“A stop to what?” The words heave out of me as another contraction takes over, and I let loose a scream that Nicholas doesn’t even seem to notice.
“It was bad enough that they were working with another family’s traitor—but then they brought you here.
” He gestures to my body with his gun, and I cringe away.
“You’re a nobody—irrelevant to this family, yet our underboss moved you in like a guest of honor.
It’s an affront to everything this family used to stand for. ”
He taps the barrel of the gun against my stomach, and I’m so afraid he’ll shoot if I move, so I don’t.
“Bringing Mason here was the last straw. This family spits in the face of tradition, and it’s a mockery of what Moreno’s father stood for when I served under him.
I hoped Moreno would make a good boss, but if this is how he intends to run his empire, it will burn.
This push from me will help him more than he knows.
The best part is that Mason’s arrival ensures I can pin the entire thing on him,” he laughs like the idea is genuinely amusing. “It all worked out quite well, really.”
“Please,” I beg. “Please, don’t do this.”
He shrugs like this is all so mundane and not the brutal end of my and my daughter’s lives.
“Like I said, I won’t take any pleasure from this,” he says and cocks his gun before lining it up with my stomach.
I never really understood the whole inhuman strength thing that people talk about mothers having, but my first burst of it comes with a fury I don’t quench.
I grip the barrel of the gun and twist at the same time the trigger is pulled.
Gas from the shot burns my hand, but I barely notice as I jerk the weapon back.
I use all the strength I have to ensure the barrel doesn’t turn toward me, but in the struggle for the weapon, it’s not easy.
Nicholas has strength and training on his side, but I have something just as powerful: an angle that breaks his trigger finger when I snap the gun to the side.
His wail rivals the still-blaring alarms in the hall, and I use the brief moment of surprise to toss the gun across the room.
I regret the choice for two reasons.
The first is that the gun fires for a third time as it slams into the wall, and I have just enough mental capacity to appreciate that no bullets hit me—even as another contraction does.
The second comes with the realization that Nicholas is now crossing the room to grab the abandoned weapon.
The pain—emotional, mental, and physical—is too much.
He won’t get close enough for me to grab the gun again, and I’m in too much pain to get off the table, let alone try to get away.
I watch the last moments of my life in slow motion.
Nicholas lowers, takes the gun in his uninjured hand, and begins to rise to his full height. His expression is one of exasperation and fury—and I despise that it’s the last face I’ll ever see.
So, I close my eyes as the fourth shot rings through the air.
“Rachel!” Alec’s voice is what wrenches my eyes back open, and I wipe at my tears to see him standing in the doorway with his raised weapon. Only when I pull my hand away do I realize the wetness coating my cheeks isn’t tears but blood.
Nicholas’s blood.
Nicholas—who lies limp on the ground with a hole through his head.
The realization that Alec got here in time—that he saved my life, my daughter’s life—is enough to make me openly weep.
He rushes to me, and I cling to him with each sob, even as the cries morph from relief to horrific pain.
“It’s okay, Rachel. You’re safe now,” he mutters on repeat.
“Alec,” I cry as another contraction hits. “The baby—she’s coming.”
I watch as he visibly shuts his fear and worries down, and a mask of perfect determination comes over his features.
“I’m not going to lie to you—I have no idea what I’m doing. But I swear that I will do whatever it takes to keep you and this baby safe.”
I nod. The ball in my throat is so thick that words aren’t even an option.
“Okay,” he says with a firm nod. “Let’s have a baby.”