Chapter 26 #2
“We have to hop the fence. Rayne, it’s going to hurt your hand, but you have to jump.”
“Forget about my hand. I can do it.”
My heartbeat is steady like a drum as I watch both of them get over the iron fence and land on the short leafy hedge on the other side of the fence.
All three of us make it onto the back lawn of Onyx House.
All three of us safe, and alive.
“To the other side of the yard. Let’s go,” I tell them. “We go to the side, make it up further onto Red Row, and run toward campus as fast as we can.”
Weston and Rayne round the opposite corner of Onyx House before I do.
And I see the Glock pointed at all three of us a moment later.
My heart skips a beat.
It’s her.
Briar is holding the gun, her hand steady as she points it at us.
The first true friend I ever thought I made.
A person I put my trust in.
“It was so easy,” she says. She does have a British accent, and I place it immediately.
It’s the same type of British accent that the Thornwick crime family have.
“You don’t want to do this, Briar,” I tell her.
She looks me up and down, shaking her head. “Well, it could have been easy, I suppose. You had to muck it all up for us, didn’t you?”
I hear a branch snap behind me and I glance and see her brother, Kai, coming up behind us with his own gun held out, too.
“We didn’t want to kill you,” Briar continues. “Just wanted to use you. For revenge. But now it’s all gone a bit messy, hasn’t it?”
“Why have you been threatening us? Threatening Onyx?” I demand. “What do you want?”
“You should ask your dear old dad, Knox.”
For a moment I don’t understand.
“What does he have to do with this?”
“There’s a reason I’m saying this all could have been easy,” Briar says. “We called your father the night of the first attack. Told him our terms. But he didn’t quite think James and Ethan were precious enough to bother with.”
“What the fuck?” Weston whispers.
“So we told him we were going to get closer and closer to someone your father does care about. When we attacked Rayne, it was only natural that Daddy’s boy Weston here would call his father and tell him all about it. Right, Weston?”
He puffs out a breath of air.
Briar comes forward suddenly, pushing the side of the Glock under Weston’s chin, and I reach out and grip her wrist as she does it.
“Not going to shoot him. Yet,” she says, rolling her eyes at me.
“Yes. I did call my dad and tell him about the attacks on Rayne.”
My stomach turns. “Wes. You told Dad? And…”
“And he just said wow, that’s a shame.”
Briar smiles wickedly. “Does that make you a little sad, Hunter? Your father was aware, all this time, that we were putting your little loverboy at risk, and he didn’t do a goddamned fucking thing to stop it.”
She pulls away from Wes finally, yanking her arm out of my fist.
“I don’t believe it.”
“Well, you should start,” Briar says. “We had to make our bargaining chips better and better. And I was hoping to send your father a photo of all three of you, tied up and gagged, and then maybe, finally he’d give us what we deserve—”
“You’re insane,” I tell her.
She pauses, a bitter look coming over her face. “But now I’m thinking maybe the bargaining chip has to be a little more brutal. If your father is ever going to give us what we require—”
“Which is?”
“Eight million dollars, you silver-spoon ignorant idiot,” she tells me. “You really didn’t know that bar fight you got into on your last night in London was staged? The Thornwick family were trying to save you. It was your own father who was accidentally going to get you killed.”
I feel sick as I realize that she’s telling the truth.
They never wanted us.
Not really.
They wanted our father, the whole time.
“Your father owes us eight million, which we generously lent him three years ago under the condition we’d get it back with interest. We didn’t. The Zhang family doesn’t exactly play nice with the Thornwicks, so when we found out one of Knox’s sons was with the Thornwicks? It was perfect.”
“You were already trying to kidnap me, even in London?”
“We threatened to go after you and your father didn’t even care. But the Thornwicks wanted you alive.”
“That can’t be true.”
“We told your father we were going to kidnap you while you were still in London. And he didn’t make a single move to stop us. Only your chosen little crime family did that.”
The puzzle pieces start to snap together in my mind.
The Thornwick family made me think they were after me.
Because they wanted me to flee.
To protect me from my own father’s deal with the Zhangs.
And the only way they knew they could ensure I wouldn’t take matters into my own hands was by making me think they were after me.
The Thornwicks fucking saved me.
It fucking worked.
I fled London.
And now the Zhang family had found their way here, for a target that mattered more to my father, these days.
Weston.
My father’s company was worth hundreds of millions, yet he couldn’t spare a dime for me.
“He wasn’t willing to part with eight million,” I say out loud, to no one and to everyone. “And he was going to let me be kidnapped and killed instead. Earlier this semester, he was willing to let Rayne, James, and Ethan be hurt, too.”
“I’m not going to take over the Knox Corporation, Hunter,” Wes says suddenly, the words spilling from him in a panicked tone. “I’m never trusting him again.”
Something white-hot fills me.
It’s over.
Weston was never my enemy, after all.
We were both just pawns.
I’m not going to be able to hold back.
If they’re going to kill me, they can kill me.
But there’s nothing in the world that is going to stop me from protecting Rayne and Wes.
I look up at Rayne, giving him a look that I hope communicates one thing and one thing only: you need to stay safe. Don’t move an inch.
But Rayne gets something different from my look.
This whole time, I’d thought he was terrified.
But he was planning something.
My heart drops as he suddenly moves, in a quick instant, bringing his closed fist up under Briar’s hand and knocking the Glock right out of her hand.
Holy fuck.
“Rayne, no—”
I know how quick Briar is because I’ve been fencing with her for months now.
But Rayne’s movement catches her off guard, and as he moves, he manages to catch the falling gun before it hits the pavement.
And then he’s the one holding a gun, instead.
He whips around to face Kai instantly.
“Drop it,” he tells Kai.
No, no, no.
My heart races knowing how much danger Rayne is putting himself in.
I have to act fast.
There’s no time to think.
And even though Briar is small and quick, her brother is anything but. He’s thickly muscled, broad, and not as fast as me.
I get behind him and bring my knife forward at an angle.
He struggles.
Manages to get another shot off, and it hits the edge of Onyx House, nearly grazing his own sister.
I take my knife and slash at his gloved hand that’s holding the gun.
And his gun drops to the ground, too.
I grab it before he can, and I hold it steady at Kai.
I hear the distant wail of sirens but I barely register it. I keep my eyes on Rayne and Wes, needing them to be okay.
Rayne’s terrified.
The gun is shaking in his hands.
He doesn’t know how to hold it properly at all.
“Even if you kill us, it isn’t going to matter,” Briar says, coming toward me and Kai. “Our father is on his way to your father, to ensure that a deal is finally struck. This war is bigger than you.”
It turns out her words are just meant to distract us.
She’s clearly going to try to get Kai’s gun away from me.
She lunges at me a moment later, but I was anticipating it.
I reach one leg out and manage to trip her before she can connect with my body. She falls to the ground, but she’s not badly hurt, still getting up and coming at us.
The sirens get louder.
Briar comes at me, putting her arm around my neck.
If I move at all, Kai or Briar will be able to get the gun from me.
If I don’t move, Briar will be able to choke the breath out of me.
Rayne and Wes will watch me die right here in front of them.
The same way I watched someone I love die in front of me.
Already, I can’t get enough air.
My lungs start to burn, but I can’t move.
“We have to leave,” Kai says to Briar, over and over, as he realizes that the sirens are coming for us.
She doesn’t listen.
She wants to kill me just for fun, now.
She never did like letting me win a fight.
I’m losing consciousness when the sirens become louder.
And a little glimmer of hope burns inside me when I finally start to pass out.
I see a team of police, running toward Wes and Rayne.
“God fucking damn it,” Briar curses.
And she finally drops me hard onto the ground.
Briar’s hand leaves my neck as she and Kai try to make a run for it, but my head drops to the grassy ground as my vision becomes spotty and I gasp for air.
Rayne and Wes are safe.
And we’re not alone at all.