Chapter 39 Eva
EVA
For an infinite moment, I stand frozen, staring at Jack, waiting for the next move, next hit, or whatever comes next.
But he just stands there like a statue, not even a single muscle twitching, while every inch of me quivers with hot rage, itching to lunge at him.
Why? Why would he hurt the family he has spent decades protecting? What could we have possibly done to him?
A knock on the door ends the long silence.
“Come in,” Jack calls, eyes fixed on me.
The door opens, and a bald man walks in. My breath hitches. He is the same guy I saw with Mason in 99 that night.
“All clear,” the man grumbles, half-bored as he glances down at Jonathan, unconscious on the floor.
“Get the cars ready. We leave in ten minutes,” Jack orders.
Panic blooms in the air as Caden, Grace, and I exchange worried glances. Finally, Jack turns to me with a devious smirk I don’t recognize. “What did we remember?”
“Everything,” I spit, unable to bite the poison in my voice.
“Impressive.” He grins wider. “For someone with a half-functioning brain, anyway. You did well that night. It takes a strong will to watch your father die and not scream.”
My jaw clenches so hard my skull throbs. A tremor snakes through me before I can stop it, and then I lunge toward him, but Caden grabs me halfway and pulls me back.
“Easy, princess.” Jack snorts. “You don’t have your caveman boyfriend or your rich brother to protect you today.”
I stare at him in disbelief. It’s impossible to imagine he is the same man who I trusted to protect me.
The man who destroyed my family, the one responsible for our agony, was right beside me, watching, enjoying my pain.
And that drives me fucking mad. But I hold back the scream of fury ripping me apart, because my friends’ lives depend on my silence.
My eyes flash to Grace, who stays quiet by Jonathan’s side. How is she so fucking calm? Is she in shock? But then I see what’s in her hand, under Jonathan’s head in her lap, her phone, seconds clocking up, and my heart starts racing.
Jack doesn’t miss it. His eyes track mine to Grace, but before he can take a step toward her—
Thud.
The door groans open with a tortured squeal, and something heavy hits the floor with a sickening thud. Blood spreads across the bald head and drips on the carpet.
Mason steps over the body, shoulders squared, carrying a bloodstained bat like a loaded gun. His amber eyes lock onto mine, and my heart sinks back into my chest. My body reacts before my mind can catch up, as it always does for him, and I sprint toward him.
But Jack’s faster. His hand shoots out, catching me mid-step, gripping my hair and yanking me back.
“Let. Her. Go.” Mason’s voice rips through the air like a thunderclap as he storms toward us.
“Stay the fuck back, Grant, or I’ll put a hole in your girl.”
My breath catches when the cold metal is shoved into my windpipe.
I purse my lips to bite back the cry. Mason looks like he could tear flesh from bone with nothing but his bare hands.
A hint of pain on my part will take his shackles off.
And if he comes for Jack now, at least one of us is ending up dead. Me, him, my friends or….
I gasp when Dan walks in, followed by Kane. Jack’s grip on my head tightens, drawing blood from my roots.
“Big fucking mistake, goon,” Mason growls, his fingers twitching at his side, demanding violence. “You are going to lose that arm for touching her. If you want to walk away with the rest of you in one piece, let her the fuck go.”
Daniel steps in front of Mason, in a blue shirt. He places a hand on Mason’s chest, then stalks toward us, slowly. Are they working together now? Grace fidgets on the floor; Jonathan still unconscious; Caden frozen on my right, where I left him.
“Hi, Bean,” Dan tilts his head to scan my face, as if I were a child.
“Hi, Dan,” I murmur, eyeing him suspiciously.
“Heard you were having a rough day. Karma is a bitch, right?” He forces a smile. My eyes fly to Kane and see the bandage on his arm. He looks well. I’m not sure I’ll survive a hole in my face.
“Fuck you,” I mouth to Dan. His lips curl up in a condescending smile.
Satisfied I’m not having a mental breakdown, he finally turns to Jack. “I’m really confused here, Jack. I approved your application for leave this morning. What are you still doing here?”
“Change of plans,” Jack says coldly, pulling me back as Dan takes a deliberate step forward. Mason takes one in sync. “Careful now, sir,” Jack warns. “You don’t want to lose what’s left of your family, do you?”
“If you were going to hurt her, you’d have done it already, Jack.
” Dan barks a laugh, taking another step toward us.
Is he trying to get me killed? “How hard is it to kill someone under your twenty-four seven protection? You tried to find all possible workarounds. Convincing me Fort was responsible for the accident, then carefully managing Eva’s admission to Kingsden so you could keep a close eye. You even tried to eliminate him.”
Dan motions toward Mason, and my heart falls.
“Using my name no less, not that I’m complaining,” Dan shrugs, “but Eva’s the only one who saw you. Getting rid of her should have been the easiest decision for a serial criminal. There was just one problem, wasn’t there?” Dan’s mouth lifts in a dark smirk. “She looks too much like my mother.”
Jack’s grip shakes in my roots as Dan’s words get under his skin and choke my throat.
“It’s why you couldn’t kidnap her even when she was a child, right?
” Dan’s eyes flare. “Robert Berkeley didn’t pick up a blond girl instead of a brunette based on a name tag on a child’s school bag.
You gave him the wrong photo. You knew Mum would pay for Grace, too.
But my grandfather wouldn’t waste his resources digging the earth to find you for Grace’s sake. Clever, I must admit.”
Jack drags me farther back, my feet sliding on the cold floor.
“And you almost got away with it. Only my father wouldn’t let it go.” Dan edges closer.
“Richard deserved what he got,” Jack spits, shaking with anger. “He was supposed to come alone. It was supposed to be just him. It’s his fault Lizzie is dead. He earned that bullet for taking her from me. Again. Like the swine your father was, he fucked everything up.”
Each word he utters feels like a sharp piece of glass driven into my flesh, tearing me open and leaving me raw. The pistol drops from my neck as Jack waves his gun toward Kane, who stands close to Mason like a fly on the wall, attentive but unaffected.
“No offense, mate,” Jack deadpans. “Robert was one of our best, but you were in the wrong place at the wrong time. Perfect cover, though.”
“None taken,” Kane mutters. “It’s not like it worked.”
“It would have.” Jack aims his gun at Dan.
My pulse spikes, fingers helplessly twitching to do something, anything.
“If only the rich boy had the insight to follow the breadcrumbs I laid out for him in a straight fucking line. Guess the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.
Now, get the fuck out of my way.” Jack pulls my head into his chest, starting toward the back door.
“Your father took Lizzie from me. I’m taking her as consolation. ”
That does it.
Before Jack finishes the sentence, Mason detonates.
“The fuck you are,” he thunders and leaps for Jack, but Dan beats him to it, the gun still aimed at my brother’s chest.
“No!” I fight Jack’s arm, but recoil when I feel the kickback.
My heart stops at the sound of the shot. Dan’s shoulder jolts, crimson spreading on blue.
Then—Crack!
I am wrenched out of Jack’s grip as Mason tears Jack’s arm off me, dislocating his shoulder.
The room blurs when Mason whirls me away. “I’ve got you, little dove,” Mason whispers in my hair, shielding me from behind.
When I look back, Jack’s on the floor with one limp arm, Dan towering over him, holding Mason’s bat; Kane braced with another gun that I assume is his; and Caden standing by the wall, holding Jack’s weapon like a dead rat dangling from his fingers.
“Grant,” Dan hisses, without taking his eyes off Jack.
Mason digs the keys from his pocket and throws them at Caden. “Powell, help Barbie get her father in the car.”
Caden drops the gun and catches the keys. Then the ground vanishes beneath my feet as Mason lifts me. My eyes lock on the bat in Dan’s hand that’s still dripping red, braced for the next victim.
“No. Dan, No!” I reach toward Dan, but Mason tightens his hold on my waist, lifting me higher, while I fight against him. “Dan, don’t. Dad wouldn’t want you to. Please!”
Dan doesn’t turn. Mason doesn’t budge.
“Grace!” I ask for her help, but she’s staring at Jack, white as a sheet.
“Let’s go, Eva,” she says without emotion. Caden and she lift Jonathan with one arm and carry him out, braced on each of their shoulders.
“Mason. Now,” Dan barks.
“No!” I shove at Mason as he takes me away. “Stop him. Call the police. Please, Dan can’t do this.”
“I’m sorry, princess. I gave him my word,” he whispers.
Fuck his word. I claw at him with both hands, striking wherever I can as he drags me outside, where two more bodies are sprawled on the red-brick driveway. Grace and Caden get into a car and drive off, while Mason takes me to the third. Not listening. Not letting me down.
“I have to stop him, Mase.” I block the way with my arm when he reaches for the door.
“You can’t stop him. We tried.”
“Let me try,” I plead. “Dan’s hurt. He needs to go to A&E."
“Kane will take care of that.”
“Dan isn’t built for this, Mason. It’s going to break him. I’m going to lose what’s left of my brother. Take me back, please.”
“You’re not going back there,” he roars. “You’re never going anywhere.”
“If you take me away now, you’ll lose me forever.” My voice cracks on the last word. “I mean it.”
Mason’s stare bleeds into me, and I know I’ve lost before he opens the car door.
“I hate you!” I cry as he puts a hand on my head and shoves me in.
We blast down the south coast as a series of sirens blare in the opposite direction. Every ache in my body withers into a cold, hollow sting, as if the warmth has been dragged out of me. The loss, the pain, it's too unbearable.
Spots dance at the edges of my vision, my eyelids fluttering close to streaks of blue lights flashing past my window, before darkness drags me under.