Chapter 41 JADE
JADE
They came.
The realization blooms inside me like wildfire, but I force my expression to remain blank. My eyes flick back to Becky's face, praying she hasn't noticed my momentary distraction, the flash of hope that must have crossed my features.
She hasn't. She's too consumed by her own hatred, her own twisted narrative of revenge.
"Any last words?" she asks, the gun steady in her hand.
I need to keep her attention on me. Just a little longer. Every second I can buy is another second for them to get closer.
"He wouldn't want this, Becky," I say, my voice steadier than I feel. "Your father..."
"Don't you dare speak about what he would want!" she snarls, taking a step closer. Perfect. That's it. Keep your focus on me.
"You took everything from him! Everything!"
Behind her, Ethan moves like a shadow, soundless and precise. Declan shifts to the left, a hulking silhouette against the deepening twilight. Mateo edges right, completing the triangle around her.
My heart hammers against my ribs. They came for me despite everything I said, everything I did to push them away. The cruelty I forced myself to inflict to protect them, from this very moment, this exact danger, was for nothing.
Relief and terror war inside me, relief that I'm not alone, terror that I've drawn them into the violence I tried to spare them from.
I catch Ethan's eye for the briefest of moments. His gaze is steady, focused, a silent promise. We're here. We know. We understand.
The air around us seems to vibrate with tension, with the unspoken words between us all. I want to scream at them to run, to leave me, that Becky is unpredictable, dangerous. But the words stick in my throat.
"Drop the weapon." Ethan's voice cuts through the night, calm and authoritative. "Now."
Becky freezes. For a heartbeat, she doesn't move, doesn't breathe. Then slowly, she turns her head just enough to see Ethan in her peripheral vision, gun still trained on me.
"Well," she says, her voice eerily calm, "isn't this touching. The knights in shining armor, come to rescue their damsel."
"It's over, Becky," Ethan says, taking a careful step forward. "You're outnumbered. Put down the gun."
She laughs, the sound sharp and brittle like ice cracking. "Outnumbered? Is that supposed to scare me?" Her finger tightens on the trigger. "I've got nothing to lose."
The pool water laps gently against the edges behind me, a soft, rhythmic sound at odds with the jagged tension of the moment.
I'm acutely aware of its presence, the depth, the darkness, the memories of panic and helplessness.
One step backward, and I'd fall in. Part of me wonders if that might be safer than standing here with a gun pointed at my heart.
"We don't want to hurt you," Mateo says, his voice tight with controlled fear. His golden eyes gleam in the fading light, fixed on Becky but somehow communicating with me. I see his fear, not for himself, but for me. "But we will if you don't drop that gun right now."
My eyes lock with his for the briefest moment. A silent communication passes between us, love, fear, determination. I see in his face how my phone call worked, how he understood. How they all understood.
"Look at this," Becky says, glancing between us. "So sweet. You really think they love you, don't you, Jade? Just like my father loved you?" Her smile is savage. "We both know how that ended."
"This isn't going to end the way you think," Declan rumbles, his massive frame tense as a coiled spring. I can read the subtle shifts in his stance, the slight bend in his knees, the way his weight has moved to the balls of his feet. He's preparing to move. "Put down the gun."
Becky's eyes dart between the three men, her breathing quickening. I can see the calculation in her expression, the desperate search for a way out, the dawning realization that there isn't one.
A breeze ripples across the pool's surface, sending tiny waves lapping against the edge behind my heels. The water glows an eerie blue from the underwater lights, casting strange, shifting shadows across all our faces.
"You know what my father told me once?" Becky asks, her voice taking on a strange, nostalgic quality. "He said some people are just born to be sacrificed for the greatness of others. I didn't understand what he meant then."
I see the change in her eyes before anyone else does, the moment when desperation hardens into resolve. The moment when she decides there's no way out.
"Fine," she says, something shifting in her eyes. Something cold. Dead. "I'll go. But I'm taking what I came for."
Time slows.
She swivels back toward me, arm extending, aim steadying.
"Let's even the odds," she whispers.
Everything happens at once.
Ethan shouts a warning. Mateo lunges forward, too far away to reach her in time. I brace for the impact, for the searing pain that will end my life.
But it's Declan who moves fastest.
His massive body surges, pushing me and stepping between me and the gun just as Becky pulls the trigger. The crack of the gunshot echoes across the water, impossibly loud in the twilight air.
Declan jerks backward, a look of surprise crossing his features.
His dark eyes meet mine for a fraction of a second, wide, shocked, but filled with love.
For a suspended moment, he stands there, swaying slightly at the edge of the pool.
Then his knees buckle, and he topples backward into the water with a massive splash.
"NO!" The scream tears from my throat as crimson blooms across the surface where he disappeared.
I don't think. Don't hesitate.
I dive.
The water closes over my head, cold and shocking.
Panic flashes through me, the old fear, the helplessness, the memory of hands holding me under.
My body wants to freeze, to turn back, to fight against the liquid pressing in from all sides.
But deeper than the fear, stronger than the panic, is something else entirely.
Love. Raw and fierce and unstoppable.
The chlorinated water stings my eyes as I force them open, searching the murky blue depths. The pool lights cast an eerie glow, transforming everything into surreal shapes and shadows. There... a dark shape sinking toward the bottom, trailing wisps of red that bloom and disperse like crimson smoke.
Declan.
I kick hard, driving myself downward. My dress billows around me, tangling my legs, slowing me down. My lungs already burn, but I ignore it. Push past it. Every second counts. Every moment he's under water is another moment closer to losing him forever.
He's almost at the bottom now, his body drifting in the strange, suspended way of things underwater. The pool is deeper than I remembered. So much water between us. So much distance.
I reach him just as he touches the bottom, my hands grasping his shirt, his shoulders.
He's so heavy, so solid, a mountain of a man now pulling me down with his weight.
His eyes are closed, face pale beneath the wavering blue light.
A cloud of red pulses from his shoulder, dispersing into the water around us.
I wrap my arms around his chest from behind, kicking furiously against the water's resistance. We rise a few inches, then sink again. Too heavy. He's too heavy.
Panic claws at the edges of my mind. I can't do this. I can't lift him. I'm going to watch him die, or die with him, right here in the place I fear most.
No.
The word echoes through me like a command. No, I refuse to lose him. Not like this. Not after everything.
I remember his strength, his gentleness. The way he stood between me and every threat without hesitation. The patience with which he helped me face this very fear, this very water.
I adjust my grip, locking my arms under his from behind, and kick with everything I have, every ounce of strength, every scrap of determination. My muscles scream in protest. My lungs burn for air. But slowly, agonizingly, we begin to rise.
Inches. That's all we move at first. Precious air bubbles escape my nose, my mouth. Black spots dance at the edges of my vision. Each kick seems to move us less than the last as my strength wanes.
We're not going to make it.
My vision tunnels. My grip on Declan starts to loosen despite my desperate attempts to hold on. We've risen maybe halfway to the surface, but it might as well be miles.
Then something changes. Something shifts. Maybe it's the water's physics, maybe it's my body finding one last reserve of strength, maybe it's the sheer force of my will refusing to let this man die for me, but suddenly we're moving faster.
The surface grows closer, the wavering light brighter. My lungs feel like they're collapsing, my muscles like they're tearing apart, but I don't stop. Can't stop.
The world goes muffled. Blue-green. My lungs seize with desperate need, but I keep my arms locked around Declan, solid, steady.
One... two...
I feel his heartbeat beneath my hands. Still there. Still fighting.
Three... four...
My chest burns like it's being crushed from the inside.
Five!
We burst upward together, breaking the surface with a desperate gasp. Water streams from my hair, my face, but I barely notice because we've done it. We've made it. I've faced the fear that almost destroyed me, and this time, I wasn't the one being saved.
This time, I was the one doing the saving.
I hear shouts from the edge of the pool, Ethan and Mateo, reaching toward us. But for this suspended moment, there's just me and Declan, his weight in my arms, his blood warm against my skin where it mixes with the cool water.
"Stay with me," I whisper against his ear, kicking to keep us both afloat. "Please stay with me."
And though his eyes remain closed, I feel his heartbeat strong against my arms. A rhythm, a promise, a fighting chance.