Chapter Forty
Tobias
E yeing the two shadows just inside the entryway as I am hauled in, I spot a few more in the kitchen before I’m released at the doorway of the living room. My eyes immediately land on Cecelia, who’s standing on the opposite side just outside her bedroom. She is dressed in her pajamas, her hair still wet from a recent shower, her Beretta in hand. A dead man lays just feet from her—and from the looks of it—died by her hand.
“She was quite insistent on keeping her gun,” Antoine muses from where he sits opposite her in the high back chair next to the roaring fire—the only light in the room. Antoine sits relaxed in the chair as if Cecelia doesn’t at all pose a threat with her gun, and from the looks of our situation, she doesn’t, because standing on either side of him are two familiar, armed men.
Palo and Julien.
Are David and Oz dead? Did they even make it to the airport?
I move to stand next to Cecelia to get a clear view of the three of them and meet Palo’s steady gaze; he gives me absolutely nothing. I can only conclude he’s again switched allegiances. If I had any hope at all, it was that I still had his. Then again, I haven’t heard a fucking word from him in weeks, which is indicative enough of where we stand.
The problem with buying men is that they can be bought .
They’ve allowed Cecelia to keep her fucking gun because they find it laughable. I study Cecelia, and her expression remains stoic as her eyes trail over me with relief and mine do the same.
She’s breathing. She’s unharmed and armed. It’s more than I could have asked for, and yet we’re still fucked.
Too soon. It’s too soon for us to be over. We didn’t have enough time. We’ve been robbed of it from the start. The reality of that rakes at my chest as I begin to mourn the loss of us and mouth, “I’m sorry.”
She subtly shakes her head as I turn to face off with Antoine.
Where the fuck are my birds?
This can’t happen again. This can’t fucking happen again.
I glare at Antoine, who’s impeccably dressed, his frame frailer than the last time I saw him due to his age. Greg joins his side, a towel full of blood in one hand as he retrieves a vial from his pocket with the other and thumbs the cap off.
Coke.
Which explains a lot. The man can’t fight for shit, but the drug made him a believer. I grin at the fact that I’ve ruined his tool for consumption, and he glares at me as he tosses it to the back of his throat.
“I told you,” Antoine says, giving Greg a side-eye, “that you were running a fool’s errand.”
“He’s fucking here, isn’t he?” Greg snaps, his eyes drifting between me and Cecelia, whose gaze is zeroed in on him.
“Jerry’s estranged stepson,” Cecelia clarifies for me, loud enough for the room to hear. “He’s here for me because I cost him his inheritance. Oops .”
I glance over at her, fury coiling through me; she caught it, and I missed it due to jealousy. But by putting a bullet in Roman’s old business partner before I got here, I set off this chain of events and helped put this into motion. In my haste to get back to her, I left a loose end.
One too many, it seems.
Greg chimes in. “I suppose I should thank you for putting a bullet in the fat fucking pig’s head,” he says to me before turning his eyes on Cecelia. “Or should I thank you now that my mother lives in a mental hospital? And the cherry on top? I’m now power of attorney over a bankrupt empire.” He bites his lip, his eyes on Cecelia, his intent clear. “We could have had some fun, you and me, and we were going to until your fucking thug boyfriend showed up and told me your little love story. Thankfully for me, stepdaddy dearest wasn’t at all concerned about his trail. Once I found his contacts, and Antoine and I had a little chat... it made it a lot easier to put the pieces together.” He takes a menacing step forward, and so does Cecelia, hand steady as she keeps her gun trained on him.
Greg scoffs. “You going to shoot me, sweetheart?”
“Yes,” Cecelia replies without hesitation.
“And then what?” Greg looks around the room, knowing he’s got us.
Cecelia shrugs, her intent clear as she inches forward, her hand steady.
There are guns aimed at us from every adjoining room, except her bedroom, which is where it appears she came out, gun blazing.
One fucking day, we needed one fucking day for our protection to kick in.
Think, Tobias.
“Cecelia,” I warn, and she doesn’t so much as glance my way.
With the lift of Antoine’s hand, Greg steps back, but Cecelia remains where she is, and I join her.
“Common enemies, Tobias, you advised me on that,” Antoine jeers. “Between you both, I would say you’re gathering quite the list... well, that is until you started ticking them off before you got here—”
Cecelia cuts him off. “Some random asshole with a pretty face shows up to my café out of nowhere four days in a row and takes an interest specifically in me? It was amateur .” She clicks her tongue at Greg. “I was onto you day two, and certain by day four ,” she says, projecting her voice to me, “gotta love Ryan.”
“You called fucking Ryan and didn’t tell me ?” I grit out.
“He’s my partner in crime, good at finding out who the leeches are, and you and I have had quite the failure to communicate on this front, haven’t we? But don’t worry, your old business partner has introduced himself.”
“You hid her well, Tobias.” Antoine’s eyes rake over Cecelia, who stands stoic beside me, alert and ready, before she returns her gaze to Greg, a defiant lift to her chin. Antoine’s eyes drift back to me.
“Let’s save each other some time by stating the obvious. You were expecting me.”
“At some point, but I was hoping you would spare me the headache. However, I knew you would come when you found the right leverage.”
“My leverage is beautiful.” He sickeningly assesses Cecelia, and it’s all I can do to keep from lunging at him.
“She was never a part of our arrangement.”
“Ahh, that’s where you’re wrong. My body may be turning against me, but my mind has not, Tobias. I remember our conversation well. You broke our agreement a long time ago, and my trust.”
“Our business has been over for some time. You aren’t here because of broken trust.”
“No? Then do enlighten me. Why am I here?”
“Because you’re close to your expiration date. Because you have nothing left to live for now, other than your bitter grudges, and you’re inventing them at this point.”
His eyes flash with fury as Cecelia bristles next to me, her hostile eyes on Greg, who only smirks.
“I’m disappointed in you, Antoine... after all I’ve done—” I look toward the men standing behind him—“ this is the best you’ve got?”
“You shouldn’t be so smug. It was far too easy to get through your front door and Cecelia’s been such a good hostess—well, aside from those first few minutes.” He glances down at the dead man at her feet. “For you to go to such lengths to keep her from me all this time tells me all I need to know.” He clicks his tongue. “The daughter of your sworn enemy. You went against everything you believed.”
“Worth it,” I swallow. “And you can end me right now. You can end me right now by taking her away. I’m not denying it. ”
“A punishment that seems fitting of the crime.”
“What crime? You’ve always been so fucking delusional, and that’s why you never got my allegiance. I’ve broken no arrangement. I owe no debt to you. Why is she such an insult to you?”
“Because my nephew and men died while you indulged in her all those years ago. I had wondered what kept you. Now it makes sense.”
“A nephew and men you cared nothing about. I’ve never crossed you. You’ve lived a long life, and your safety was never my priority. But here you are, alive and breathing because of me . That should tell you enough.”
“You’re so quick to point out how you educated me and my men, yet you let your dick make your decisions, which is fucking pathetic , according to you.”
“And what would I have to live for if I would have taken my own advice? I realized the error of my ways. And my number one goal was never to become a clone of you. No one to remember me. No one to take over my legacy. No reason to fucking live other than for the game, and later, to exist alone only to reflect on my evil deeds. I chose a different way. You take this from me, and then what? Who will you go after? Is this what you truly want?”
“Don’t insult me with your bleeding heart, Tobias. You know I can’t be persuaded.”
“Do you want me to beg for her? Because I’m not above it.”
“Tobias, don’t,” Cecelia whispers softly, as Greg’s lips curl into a fucking feline smile.
I pull Greg’s gun from the back of my jeans—a gun they didn’t bother to check for after securing my Glocks—and know that there are at least six others trained on us. Four in the kitchen, and the two I passed in the entryway. Even if we get a few shots off, we’re going to lose this fight. Rage thrums through me at the idea that this is how it all ends. I’ve been bested by a man I detest, an unworthy man, and he’s about to take the one thing I can’t live without.
“For her, I’ll give you every cent I’ve earned. I’ll hand it all over. Take my money, take my life, but let her go. ”
He scoffs, “There’s that nobility. I’m afraid it’s going to cost you a lot more this time.”
I keep my ready insult to myself, hoping that at least I can somehow negotiate her to safety. If I can just get her away from this house, there’s a chance she can make it to my birds, but I see no option, no chance of that.
Antoine has always been merciless when doling out his punishments, and that’s one thing he’ll always have over me.
Hope disappears as resolution covers me. I’ve got nothing, absolutely fucking nothing. There’s no scenario here where one or both of us doesn’t die.
“If you take her, my wrath would be welcome, wouldn’t it? One last thrill, old man, before you go?” I lift the Glock to my temple and Cecelia gasps my name. “I won’t let you have the fucking satisfaction, and if you even so much as look at her again, I die, and you won’t get what you came for. Care to fucking test me?”
His eyes light up with surprise. This was always going to happen. Always. No matter how much space I put between my past and present, Antoine was always the thread between them.
I became useless to him—to the game—when I gave in to my own needs for the first time in my life—when I stole those months with her. I knew then I’d lost the upper hand over any enemy past, present, or future.
I’ve always been right about emotional entanglements being a downfall. Just this once, I wish I was wrong.
For Antoine, it’s jealousy and greed that brought him here along with the tasteless state of his life now.
At one time, I saw his present as my own future. The future I agreed upon when I started all of this, one I accepted for myself more than once, until she came back into my life and reminded me that I had a choice. I sacrificed our happiness over and over to ensure this confrontation would never come to pass. But she and I have always been ill-fated, star-crossed in every imaginable way. In the end, I chose her, instead of suffering the wait without her. Emotion threatens and I swallow it back, my rage boiling over as I press the gun into my temple as Antoine keeps his gaze on mine.
“Just let her go.”
Antoine scoffs. “So fucking scripted. Who’s pathetic, Ezekiel?”
I saw Cecelia’s future as well, as she pleaded for me to love her back those long months ago, as she begged me to see what we could still be, all the while imagining what her life looked like through Delphine’s bloodshot eyes. By sacrificing our hearts, neither of our lives would be worth living. Mine as an emotionless and hollow man, and hers as a loveless woman. And even through it all, I know I felt it and she would say it now if given the chance: worth it.
Gun to my head, I stare off with Antoine in a dare. It’s me he wants, and I know despite his threat, I’m the real bargaining chip. I have to believe that he’ll attempt to talk me out of taking his prize away and spare her. It’s my only move.
“It was worth it, Trésor. So worth it,” I say, squeezing the trigger just enough to have Antoine gripping the sides of the wingback, his eyes fixed on me. He’s starting to believe me.
“Fireflies,” Cecelia says softly, and I turn my attention toward her.
“That’s our outside force, Tobias. They were the ones that looked out for us.” Her eyes water as she studies the gun pressed to my head. “Wouldn’t you agree?”
I nod, my own eyes stinging as I weigh her words.
“We were never alone, Tobias,” she murmurs softly, her tone curling around my heart. I can see the resolution in her own eyes as we step to the edge of the cliff we’d thrust ourselves upon. Even now, while on the precipice, I can feel the conviction of that truth between us. Worth it.
“Heavy is the head, my love,” she murmurs as if we’re alone, “just this once, let me save you the burden.”
She turns her gaze back to Mr. Handsome and I do the same to see red lasers beaming through every window of the house just as I realize her intent.
“Cecelia, no!” I lunge for her just as she pulls the trigger.