Chapter 27 – Lance #2
Blood bloomed across his tactical gear, dark and spreading fast.
“No!” The word ripped from my throat, raw and agonized.
Every wall I’d built came crashing down. Every thought I’d locked away. Every emotion I’d compartmentalized.
Not him. Not my brother.
We hit the deck together, Hector’s weight pinning me down. He was still moving, still breathing, but the blood, there was so much blood.
The monster couldn’t help me now. This wasn’t something I could kill or outfight or strategize my way through.
This was just loss, pure and simple, and it was tearing me apart.
“Stay down,” he gasped, his face pale with pain but determined. “He’s mine.”
The last guard made the mistake of coming closer, thinking we were finished. Hector rolled, using his good arm to grab the rifle and yank it toward us. The guard stumbled, off-balance, and Hector put him down with a brutal strike to the throat.
But the effort cost him. He collapsed beside me, breathing shallow, his hand pressed against the wound that wouldn’t stop bleeding.
“Hector, stay with me.” I pressed my hands over his, trying to stop the bleeding, but it just kept coming, hot and slick against my fingers.
The blood was everywhere. On my hands. On the concrete. Pooling beneath us like a crimson mirror reflecting the emergency lights.
Too much. There’s too much.
“Did we get him?” Hector’s voice was fading, his eyes losing focus.
I looked up. Grandfather was in the helicopter, the door still open, watching us with an expression I couldn’t read.
“Not yet,” I said, my voice breaking. “But we will. I promise you, we will.”
Hector’s hand found mine, squeezed weakly. “Good. That’s good. Been waiting fifteen years to make him pay for what he did to mom. To all of us.”
His grip was getting weaker. His face was the color of old paper.
No. No, no, no.
“Don’t.” Tears were streaming down my face now, hot against the cold wind. My chest was tight, each breath catching on something sharp and broken inside. “Don’t you dare die on me. Not now. Not after we finally—"
The words caught in my throat, strangled by the sob I couldn’t hold back.
I’d lost everyone. Mom. Dad, in every way that mattered. Ten years of my life pretending to be dead. Morgan, thinking I was gone.
I couldn’t lose Hector too. Not my brother.
“Finally got to be brothers?” Hector’s smile was pained but genuine, even as his eyes started to glaze. “Yeah. ’It would’ve been nice to have more time.”
“You’re going to have more time,” I insisted fiercely, pressing harder against the wound even though I could feel his life slipping through my fingers. “You’re going to live, and we’re going to be actual family, and you’re going to meet Morgan properly without all this darkness hanging over us.”
My hands were shaking now. My whole body was shaking.
I can’t stop it. Why can’t I stop it?
“She’s good for you.” His breathing was getting more labored, each word costing him. “Makes you better. Human.”
“Hector, please—" My voice cracked completely.
I’d killed dozens of men. Maybe more. I’d been trained not to feel, not to break, not to let anything touch the cold center where the monster lived.
But this was tearing me apart.
“Tell her I’m sorry,” he whispered, his voice so quiet I had to lean in to hear it. “For scaring her that night in the alley. For not being able to protect her better.”
“Tell her yourself,” I choked out, but we both knew he might not get the chance.
His eyes were closing now. His chest barely moving.
No. Please. Please, not him.
“Hector.” I gripped his hand tighter, like I could anchor him here through sheer force of will. “Stay with me. You hear me? You don’t get to leave. Not after everything we’ve been through. Not after—"
The sob broke free, raw and ugly and completely beyond my control.
I’d cried at my mother’s funeral. Cried when I’d watched Morgan grieve for me. But this, this was different. This was watching the last piece of my blood family slip away while I was powerless to stop it.
The helicopter’s engine pitch changed, preparing for liftoff. Grandfather was leaving. Escaping. Winning.
And I couldn’t do a goddamn thing about it because my brother was bleeding out in my arms and I couldn’t make it stop.
I’d failed. At everything. At protecting my mother. At staying away from Morgan when it would have kept her safe. At keeping Hector from taking a bullet meant for me.
I ruin everything I touch.
“Lance!” Morgan’s voice cut through the rotor wash, desperate and terrified.
She appeared at the helipad entrance, alone. Her face went white when she saw us, saw the blood, saw Hector’s pale features. Saw me, covered in my brother’s blood, falling apart.
“No, no, no,” she breathed, dropping to her knees beside us. Her hands immediately went to the wound, adding pressure, but her eyes were on me. Reading the devastation on my face. “Hector. Stay with us. Please.”
“Morgan.” Hector’s eyes found hers, fighting to focus. “Glad you’re okay. Lance would’ve been impossible if something had happened to you.”
“Nothing’s going to happen to me. Or to you.” But her hands were shaking as she helped me apply pressure to the wound.
She looked at me, and I saw my own fear reflected back in her eyes. Saw her trying to stay strong when we both knew—
“I can’t—" My voice broke. “Morgan, I can’t lose him. I just got him back. I can’t—"
“I know,” she whispered fiercely, one bloodstained hand leaving Hector’s wound to grip my face. “I know, baby. But he’s going to be okay. He has to be.”
It wasn’t a promise. It was a prayer.
The crack of a gunshot made us all freeze.
I looked up to see grandfather stumbling in the helicopter doorway, blood blooming on his chest. Behind him, stepping out of the shadows of the helipad, was Silas.
The man who’d spent fifteen years gathering the evidence that would bring down the DuLac empire. Who’d been more of a father to me than anyone with DuLac blood ever was.
He fired again.
And again.
Each shot precise, professional, final. Blood in, blood out. The old family way.
Grandfather fell, tumbling out of the helicopter to land on the helipad deck with a wet, final thud. His eyes were still open, still burning with rage and disbelief, as the life drained out of them.
“For Christiane,” Silas said quietly, lowering his weapon. “And for every life you destroyed.”
I should have felt something. Triumph, relief, satisfaction. But all I could feel was Hector’s blood on my hands and the fear that I was losing him too.
“Medics!” someone was shouting. Atticus, appearing at the helipad entrance. “We need medics now!”
They appeared within seconds, Pierce’s team, professional and efficient. They tried to take Hector from me, tried to get me to let go so they could work.
I couldn’t.
“Lance.” Morgan’s hands framed my face, forcing me to look at her. “Lance, let them help him. They need to work.”
“I can’t lose him.” My voice broke completely. “Not now. Not after everything.”
“You won’t.” Her voice was fierce, certain, even though we both knew it was a lie. “But you have to let them do their job. Trust them. Trust me.”
Her eyes held mine, brown and warm and alive. So impossibly alive.
I looked down at Hector. His eyes were closed now, his breathing shallow but steady. One of the medics was already setting up an IV, and another was examining the wound.
“He’s stable,” the medic said. “Lost a lot of blood, but the bullet missed the major arteries. He’ll make it if we move fast.”
He’ll make it.
The words took a moment to register. Then relief hit like a tidal wave, stealing whatever strength I had left.
I let them take him. Let them load him onto a stretcher and start moving toward the extraction point. Morgan caught me as my legs gave out, her arms around me, holding me up.
“He’s going to be okay,” she whispered against my hair. “You’re both going to be okay.”
I held her and watched Silas standing over grandfather’s body, his expression unreadable. Justice delivered by family. Blood paid in blood.
It was over.
Finally, after fifteen years of running, of hiding, of being hunted. It was over.
“Take me to my brother,” I said, finding my voice again. “I need to be there when he wakes up.”
Morgan nodded, her hand finding mine. “Of course. And when he’s better, we’ll take him home.”
Home.
Yeah. That sounded right.