33. Drew
Ican feel Bel’s eyes on me, but I don’t budge. The slightest change in my demeanor could cost me the entire plan. While I want to soothe her worries, I can’t risk messing up. Instead, I look anywhere but at her.
I lock eyes on Richard, the officiant, who looks bored. He’s mastered the indifferent smirk most of us learn from childhood, but there’s something about the way he clenches and unclenches his hand in his coat.
I’m more aware of my surroundings than most people think. To others, his demeanor might seem normal, but he hasn’t even bothered to remove his hands from his pockets. It’s almost like he’s waiting for something to happen. Like he’s going to make a run for it the second his duty is done.
We move into position, and I wonder if he’s here voluntarily or if my father coerced him in some way. I also wonder if he’ll be an ally the second I put a bullet in my father’s head or a hindrance. I’m grappling with the idea of killing one person. The idea of killing two feels exhausting.
Then there’s Bel. I fear her seeing me so cold-blooded will just give her another reason to walk away, and it kills me. A person can say they understand all they want, but there’s a huge difference between saying and doing something, between watching a bullet enter someone”s brain, and watching life leave their eyes, and simply saying you’re going to kill them.
My father steps behind me, and I remain as still as a statue, hoping he isn’t close enough to feel the imprint of the gun at my back. I nearly sigh with relief when his hand clamps down on my shoulder, his fingers digging hard into my flesh.
I barely restrain snarling at him as the pain from his grip ripples across my shoulder. He needs to take his fucking hands off me in the next three seconds or this is all over.
When he steps away to my right and waves at Richard, I breathe out a long exhale. “No point in dragging out the inevitable, so let’s go. I have plans this evening that I don’t want to miss.”
Which is code for I have a woman I’m waiting to fuck. Fucking asshole.
Richard lets out a sigh, then tugs an index card from his pocket, his gaze dancing between Bel and myself. “I guess we should make it official, then. I took the liberty of truncating the ceremony so we don’t have to waste anyone’s time.”
I assume on my father’s order, but I keep my mouth shut. We’re getting closer to the finish line. All I need is a clear shot. The second he cuts in front of me, I’ll end him. Right here. Right now. My only regret in all of this will be dragging Bel into this mess, but there wasn’t any other option. I just hope she can forgive me afterward. This isn’t going to be easy to witness.
The weight of my choices weighs on me. Hurry. I want this to end. I need it to end. My nerves are fried, and I’m barely keeping myself standing upright. The sound of shuffling feet over marble meets my ears, and then the closed office doors fly open, slamming against the wall.
Both Bel and myself startle at the intrusion. The goons my father usually has circling him like vultures stalk forward, two of them dragging a very pissed-off Sebastian. He thrashes his body back and forth, one of them nearly losing their grip on him. Fuck. The tension in my chest makes it hard for me to breathe, and I risk glancing at Bel, who looks fearfully between Sebastian and myself.
As if that’s not enough, a third guard comes stalking in behind them, his hand clamped tight around a man I recognize immediately. My mother’s old doctor. The one I went to the hospital to get answers from.
What the hell is he doing here?
He wasn’t a part of the plan. At least not my plan.
The guards release Sebastian with a shove, and he falls to the ground a few feet away from us. He’s pushing up off the floor and onto his feet in seconds. There’s no fear in his eyes when he makes a rush at the guard nearest him. The hulking giant gets him in a headlock, his thick muscled arm wrapped tight around his neck. “Give me a reason, pretty boy. I hate rich little assholes like you. It would be my pleasure to relieve the world of one more entitled rich kid.”
Sebastian’s deadly gaze finds mine as he claws at the man’s forearm. I give my head a little shake, trying to ward him off. We might still be able to salvage this, but only if he keeps it together.
My thoughts take a nosedive into darkness when my father takes a step toward Richard, then turns to face us. All the air in the room is sucked out when I see the glint of metal as he pulls out a gun. Of course. I should’ve expected him to have a weapon. I’m so fucking stupid. The plan is crumbling in my hands.
With a murderous glare, he trains the muzzle on Bel, and I instantly grasp the hilt of my own handgun, pulling it free of my waistband. I point the muzzle directly at his face with my finger on the trigger.
“If you want to play whose cock is bigger, I’m pretty sure I’m going to win.”
My father narrows his eyes at me. “I don’t know why I had any belief in you. I should’ve known something was up when you agreed so easily to my demand.”
All I can do is shrug. “What do you want me to say, Dad?” I hope he doesn’t miss the emphasis I put on the name. “You opened that door and pushed me inside. I don’t think you have any idea how long I’ve been waiting for this day to happen.”
His eyebrow arches. “And what day is that, son? The day I finally put you in the ground?”
My father and I are lost in a stare off, our guns pointed at one another. It’s only a matter of time before one of us pulls the trigger. One of us is going to die, maybe even both of us. All I know is that when this is over, even if I die, the fucker is going to die too. Shouting off to the left of the room gathers both of our attention.
I turn my head the briefest just enough to get a peek at what’s going on, refusing to take an eye off my father and find Sebastian behind one of the guards, who is kneeling, a gun in his hand, the barrel pressed to the back of his head.
The other is standing as Sebastian holds a wicked-looking serrated blade against his throat. In the all-black sweater, jeans, and combat boots he’s rocking, with his hair falling forward over his eyes, he’s giving some serious badass assassin vibes right now. I can’t help but smile despite the fucked-up situation.
The air in the room becomes hotter, the tension rising, making it even more difficult to breathe. Focus. Don’t let him get to you. Movement catches my eye, and I swing my weapon toward Richard, who tucks his cards into his pockets before raising his hands palm up.
The guard holding the doctor has his gun pointed at Sebastian.
“Well, one of us will have to make a move soon or we’ll be standing here all night,” I say.
Bel makes a small sound beside me, and I shift away from her. The movement leaves her unprotected, but I’m not stupid. She’s not really the one my father wants to kill, at least not until he gets every penny Sebastian took from him.
No way in hell will that happen, not when I have a Desert Eagle pointed at his head. It will make such a satisfying hole too.
“Let’s discuss this like adults. What do you want, Drew?”
“You. Dead.”
“Hmm, and what do you think the outcome of doing that will be? I have guards, more on the way likely. Do you really plan to murder me in cold blood right here in my own office, much less in front of an officer of the court?”
“I’m not scared. I’m prepared for this to end in the worst way. All that matters is making certain you take your last breaths in this office.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I spot Richard, whose face definitely says leave me the fuck out of it. He keeps quiet, letting us carry on without his input.
“My death will not fix whatever it is that you’re trying to fix. Killing me solves nothing.”
“It solves everything!” I growl. “The only thing you deserve is death, and I’m going to make certain you get nothing short of that.”
Even when facing death head-on, he still doesn”t have the balls to admit his wrongdoings. Red-hot rage blisters through me. I hate him for destroying me and ruining my life. For hurting my mother. For taking every good thing in my life and killing it.
I know I’m letting him get the best of me, and I need to keep a clear headspace, but I can’t stop the reaction from bubbling up and out of me.
A bitter laugh rips from his throat. “Do you really think you can end me and walk out of this office without your own death taking place?”
I shrug. “You fire, I fire back, and if you somehow manage to kill me or hurt me enough that I can’t shoot you, then Sebastian will kill you for me. Either way, you will die here. Today. By my machinations. Your luck has run the fuck out, and I’m done being under your control.”
My father smiles, and it takes me a minute to realize he’s always smiled like that. Slightly unhinged and ready for anything. It’s why I’ve never really been able to fight back. I’ve never known which side of him I was going to get. One day, he might take me to the movies and treat me to anything I want. Then the very next day, he might beat me to within an inch of my life for looking at him wrong.
Has he always been this unstable and have I just been blind to it?
“I know you don’t want to kill me. All this is, is built up anger and resentment. Think rational, Son.” His voice drops low, becoming almost soothing.
I shake my head, my sweaty finger moves against the trigger. “That’s where you’re wrong. I do want to kill you. I want to kill you like you killed me. I want to put a bullet deep inside you for every time you ripped a piece of my soul out of my body, for every beating I had to endure, for every hateful word slung at me. I didn’t deserve to be treated like I did as a little boy, but you didn’t care. You still don’t. The only thing you care about is yourself.” I’m like a dam breaking. All the pain and sadness rips through me like water escaping through the cracks. “Even now, while facing death, you only care about yourself. It’s pathetic, sickening, and I’m ready to end your pitiful life so I don’t have to deal with you anymore, and I can be free.”
“Killing me won’t change anything. You’ll still be the pathetic piece of shit you’ve always been, regardless of how much I tried to fix you. It’s a shame your mother and I couldn’t have children of our own. I always wondered if I had a son with Marshall blood pumping in his veins if things would be different.” There’s a new thread of malice braiding his tone.
His words sting. They sting so bad. Like he’s beat me with them.
A smile tugs at his lips. “Did you think I didn’t know?”
“I don’t give a fuck what you know,” I grit through my teeth, reminding myself that all he’s trying to do is sway me, to anger me into submission.
“Do it. Ask me the questions I know have been weighing on your shoulders, Son.” My hand trembles. The gun feels heavier in my grasp now.
“Do it!” he demands, his voice booming. “Ask me, Andrew. Ask and you shall receive.”
Even though I shouldn’t, because I know it’ll lead me nowhere, I give in to the impulse to ask him the questions weighing on me. As badly as I want to end his life, I also desperately want to know what it is that I’ve done to deserve so much hate.
“Why? Why did you pretend I was your son for all these years? Is that why you hated me so much? Because I didn’t have Marshall blood running in my veins.” I keep my face blank. He might’ve pushed me into asking him, but I’m not that trapped little boy controlled by him anymore.
“I thought you figured it out years ago and were just too chickenshit to confront me about it. That or you didn’t give a shit. You being a bastard child might’ve been the obvious reason for my hate toward you, but it wasn’t the only reason. You were born with everything that I had to claw, cheat, and steal to get. I came from nothing, less than nothing, less than your little wallflower. You’ve been oblivious to that fact, always a spoiled, entitled brat all your life. One I raised, admittedly, so part of that is on me. I thought maybe a little discipline would help, and it only made you more arrogant. The harder I tried to get a rein on you, the worse you became. Soon, I realized that it wasn’t that I just didn”t like you. I didn’t love you either. Not like a father should love his son. Those feelings never changed.”
I can’t hide the flinch that time, and I hate him even more for it. “I was only a child. How could you hate a child?”
He shrugs. “I didn’t want you. I didn’t want kids at all. Your mother was the one who made the decision to adopt you.”
My mother. My sweet… hanging on by a damn thread mother.
I don’t miss the way he glances in the direction of her sleeping body with a sneer. “Your mother, the useless fucking lump who does nothing. I never grasped how she could love you like you were her own. She wanted children so badly and refused to lay it to rest. It destroyed our marriage. I tried to give her what she wanted, but I failed. Nothing was ever good enough for her.”
Part of me is worried he is oversharing to stall, and another part of me wonders if he’s lying just to fuck with me. Could be both.
I wave my gun at his face. “If you hated me so much, then why didn’t you just leave? Why beat me? Why stick around for years?”
“It’s simple really. After a while, I came to the conclusion that there was no getting rid of you. I decided then that it was my responsibility to toughen you up. I couldn’t change that your mother wanted you, but I could make certain you turned out to be the man I needed to take over the family business when the time came. Unfortunately, you proved over and over again how useless and pathetic you were. I held out hope until that trashy little slut came into your life.” His gaze shifts to Bel, along with the muzzle of his gun. “Hopefully, your shot is as good as you think it is because if you don’t kill me with one bullet, I’ll make certain you get to experience firsthand the ways I plan to make her suffer.”
Bel’s entire body shudders beside me, and she wraps her arms around her middle like it’ll hold her together. I want to say something to comfort her, but doing so would only draw his attention to her further.
I shake my head. “No, you don’t want her. You want to kill me. Haven’t you been dreaming about that day as long as I have? It’s not just because I’m not your biological son.”
His gaze swings among Bel, Sebastian, and me. “Whose death would be the most impactful here?” He shifts his stance, one foot behind the other like an old-west gunslinger.
God, if he goes for Bel, this is over. I’ll have ruined both mine and Seb’s life, whether we walk out of here or not. I shift to match his position, inching closer to her so if he decides at the last second to shoot her I can try to jump between. I notice Seb doing the same, his knife somehow gone, two guns drawn now. One on either guard. When did he get so good at this?
I force air into my lungs and focus my attention on my father. This is my only chance. One shot to take him out and end this all for good. Inside, questions linger. I want more answers. To ask who my real parents are and find out why they put me up for adoption. And unfortunately, the only person with answers at the moment is the fucker standing in front of me.
“Well, are you going to pull the trigger?” my father snaps.
Seconds tick by. All I can hear is my own heartbeat in my ears. Why am I hesitating? I tighten my grip on the gun, the sweat clinging to my palm.
He lets out a long sigh when I don’t immediately take the shot. “Just like I expected. So fucking pathetic and weak. I think this is the real reason I always hated you, because you have no concept of what it takes to survive in this world.” He raises his gun and points it at my face. “Let me demonstrate.”
I don’t breathe.
I don’t blink.
In an instant, I’m assaulted by emotions that are soon drowned out by the deafening bang of the gun as the shot echoes through the room.