Chapter 67
The piercing sound of a gun firing meets my ears, just as Varsha yells, “Dorran, no!”
I look towards him, and see that he’s barely missed being shot by my dad.
Mave pulls me back, and when I struggle against his hold, he tightens it and pulls me back further.
“Don’t try to do anything stupid,” he says to me. “Dorran knows what he’s doing; I can’t fucking let you get hurt.”
“I told you not to touch her!” Dorran spits at Dad, then punches him in the gut.
He bends forward, but recovers surprisingly fast.
“Stand the fuck down!” Jayce tells the guards. “Or my brother here will cut the old bastard open before any of you can so much as blink.”
They look unsure, but when Dad nods at them, they step back.
“You forget your place, Dorran,” he says, then groans and places a hand on his stomach. “You forget who has been providing for you and your pets for all these years.”
“For airing your dirty laundry so that your manicured fingers remain clean? Trust me, Chase, I know.” Dorran gets in Dad’s face. “But the thing is: Cignette means more to me than you or your money. She completes me. It’s something nothing and no one has ever had the power to do.”
“She will be the end of you; the end of everything you’ve created for yourself, and everything that you are.”
“Oh, Chase.” Dorran smiles, then chuckles. “Put me in a fucking grave, and watch how I come back to life with the smallest of breaths she takes in my name. Cignette is my beginning, and if she’s to be my end, then I’ll go a happy fucking man, I assure you.”
Dad gives him a once over, then tilts his head to the side. “Not if I kill her first.” He points the Glock at me, and before I know what’s happening, he fires it in my direction.
I suck in a breath and wait for the impact, the pain, but it doesn’t come. What instead happens is far more agonizing than I could have ever imagined the bullet wound to feel like.
Mave has stepped in front of me, and I watch – completely shell-shocked – as he takes the bullet that was meant for me, right in the center of his throat. It exits through the back of his neck, and as a scream rips out of me, he falls onto the floor with a heavy thud.
“Motherfucker!” Dorran yells, and I see a flash as he punches my dad in the jaw, but I’m too broken to do anything but fall on my knees in front of Mave.
In front of his body.
“Mave…” I shake him, but he doesn’t respond to me.
He always responds to me.
My vision is blurry; I’m trembling from head-to-toe. I want to throw up, but I also need him to fucking answer me.
“Mave, please.” I shake him again, then look at his wide-open eyes that are staring into nothingness, and the thick stream of blood that’s pooling under him and seeping into the hem of my dress. “Mave.”
He remains still. So still that it paralyzes me for a minute.
“Mave…” A sob breaks out of me, and it’s loud enough that it rattles me and makes my body tremble harder. “Mave, please… Please, please, please.” I shake him yet again, but nothing happens. It doesn’t wake him up; it doesn’t make him look at me. And that’s because he’s gone.
Mave is dead.
Just like that, he’s been taken from me.
My constant, my best friend. The man who always listened to me, no matter what.
The man who loved me for who I am – flaws and all.
Who made me see things I wouldn’t have otherwise seen.
Who fought for me, and with me whenever he thought I was wrong.
The man who was my shadow, who always stood behind me, even when I asked him not to.
All I would have to do is look over a shoulder, and he’d be there. He’d be there…
Not anymore.
I place a hand over his heart, and mine practically breaks when I don’t feel a single heartbeat under my palm.
“I love you,” I say in between my tears.
“I know I’ve never said it, but I love you, Mave.
I always will.” I briefly close my eyes when I can’t look at him lying here like this.
“I’m sorry. I’m so fucking sorry.” Knowing that he’s dead because of me hurts so much, but I know he wouldn’t want me to blame myself, so I have to try not to.
And even though I don’t deserve a single breath I’m taking right now, I’ll keep on taking them, because they are the reason Mave gave up on his.
And I can’t let his sacrifice go to vain.
Glass smashes somewhere, making me open my eyes. I look ahead, and see that Dorran has tackled my dad on the floor. There are shards of glass and spilled scotch around them, and every time Dad tries to slip away from Dorran, he pulls him back and punches him harder than he did before.
The guards – who only minutes ago were pointing their weapons at me and the others – have now put them down, and are instead looking at Mave with the same amount of pain that I’m feeling.
These men may be working for my dad, but they were part of Mave’s team.
They looked to him for orders, and I’m sure they respected him more than they do my father.
Dorran stands – his arms marred by cuts from the glass – and grabs my dad by the collar before pulling him to his feet. I see that he now has bruises on his face and neck, but they are still nothing compared to what he did to Mave.
“I will take my time with you,” Dorran grits out. “Skin you inch by fucking inch until you’re begging me to kill you. And you’ll see, Chase, just how ruthless I can be when someone messes with me or my family.”
“You’re a butcher,” Dad sneers. “Nothing more, nothing less.”
Dorran jolts him in a way that makes him stumble. “At least I’m not a petty loner, eh?”
Dad groans, and I notice too late that he’s left his Glock on the floor, and is now holding a shard of glass in his hand instead. Before I can open my mouth to warn Dorran, Dad is already raising his arm to slash the shard across Dorran’s face.
The latter lets go of a surprised sound as he moves away from my father, and when he touches his hand to his right cheek before pulling it away, I notice that it’s stained with blood.
“Ledge!” Jayce reaches Dorran, and while he’s busy trying to move Dorran away from my dad, the latter raises his arms and brings the pointed edge of the shard against the side of Jayce’s neck.
“No!” I scream, then stumble to my feet.
This can’t be happening right now. This can’t… It can’t.
“Jay, no!” Alex rushes towards his husband, and Jayce falls onto him. He’s gurgling blood whilst cupping his wound, and his wide, shocked eyes are glazed. He grabs for Dorran, who has gone so pale that I’m scared he’ll pass out.
“Jay…” He kneels at his side and takes his free hand. “Brother.”
Varsha and I join them, and Jayce’s eyes land on me.
“Look after him,” he mouths. “Please.”
I shake my head, and when my tears blur my vision, I swipe at them and move close to him.
“You’ll be here to do it yourself, you fucking hear me?” I tell him. “I’ve already lost one friend today. I can’t lose another.”
Dorran is silent as he stares at Jayce. There’s no expression on his face, but his cheeks are wet with tears. A few of them fall over his bleeding cut, but he doesn’t flinch.
Jayce gasps, and the hold he has on his neck loosens. A second later, his arm goes slack, and then his shoulders. His eyelids flutter shut, and his chest stops moving.
“No…” Alex whispers. His breathing is heavy as he jerks his husband. “Fucking no, goddamn it!” He’s crying now, and so are Varsha and I. But Dorran – he continues to stare at Jayce.
How can a normal, regular day turn into something so catastrophically wrong? How can you have everything you wanted in one moment, and then have it taken from you in the next? It doesn’t make sense.
It doesn’t fucking make sense.
“Jay.” Alex jerks him again, then touches his forehead to Jayce’s as he cries harder. “Babe, please don’t do this to me. Jay… Baby…”
Varsha wraps an arm around him and holds him close, all the while keeping one of her hands on Jayce’s slumped shoulder.
Dad laughs. He’s out of breath, but still, he laughs. “Martyrs, these fools.” He laughs more, then gestures at Mave. “They died protecting those who shouldn’t be alive in the first place.”
Anger boils in me. So much so that all I can see is his smug face, and how I want to wipe the look of victory off it.
I touch Dorran’s thigh, but he remains as is.
So, I slip the thing I want from him, from the front pocket of his jeans, and then let him be.
My dress tangles with my ankles as I get to my feet, but I manage not to fall.
My head is so heavy that I want to sit back down, but I can’t – not right now.
Instead, I make my way to my dad while trying to maintain my balance, and the moment he sees me, he stops laughing.
“Before you decide to do something idiotic, know that I have a dozen guards in here that are ready to tear you apart where you stand,” he threatens, then grins. “And anyone who tries to save you.”
A snort leaves me, and his amusement vanishes. “You really think these men will defend you after you just killed the man they respected and followed?” I blink against the sting in my eyes. “If anything, I’d wager they’ll be more than willing to help me in tearing you apart.”
He glances around us, and what he sees makes him go a little pale.
“You think you’re so smart and powerful, don’t you?” I say to him. “You think that by killing those who meant the most to Dorran and I, you’ve proven a fucking point?” I step closer to him, knowing he won’t answer me. “But all you’ve done, Dad, is written your own death sentence.”
He hums. “Have I?” He chuckles, then ends up wincing and grabbing his stomach. “And who, exactly, will carry out this sentence of mine?”
“I’m so glad you asked,” I tell him, then flick open Dorran’s switchblade.
Dad’s gaze falls to the weapon in my hand, then comes up to meet mine. Something shifts in him, and despite it being drastic, I can’t put a finger on what it is, exactly.
“Do it, then; what the hell are you waiting for, daughter?” There’s a readiness in him, in his posture. It’s like he was expecting this to happen, or more like, he wanted this to happen.
A cry rips out of me as I stab the switchblade right in the middle of his chest.
Dad’s eyes widen at the impact, and his sockets start turning red. His face blotches, and there’s sweat coating his forehead and neck with how much he’s straining himself.
“I wanna count all the things you’ve done wrong today, but I won’t,” I say. “And you know why that is?” I twist the blade’s handle, and he wheezes against the pain I know I’m causing him. “Because I know for a fact that it’ll only make you gloat, even in these final fucking moments of your life.”
There’s utter silence in the foyer, and it’s clear that all eyes are on me right now.
Dad wheezes again, and I see that there’s drool dripping out of his mouth and onto his chin.
“Hurts, doesn’t it?” I slowly pull the blade out of him, and he tries to stumble away from me. I don’t let him, though, and kick him in the balls, which makes him fall onto the chaise lounge behind him.
I step between his spread-out legs, then bend so that our faces are aligned. He seems bewildered and out of it, and his eyes are frantically moving around, but remain unfocused. His breathing has slowed down considerably, and I know I’ve hit him close to his heart.
“Look at me,” I hiss, and when he doesn’t, I slap him and yank his chin forward.
“Fucking look at me, you asshole. I want you to keep that fading eyesight on me. I want you to know that I’m the one who brought you to your goddamn knees; who put a full stop on Chase Adler’s ever-going chapter.
” I push the blade in through the same spot, and smirk when he convulses beneath me.
His legs thrash, his mouth opens and closes as he tries to say something, and then finally, mercifully, he stops his protests and goes fully immobile.
Justice should never be expected – either from life, or from the people around you.
It’s something that needs to be taken, be it by force or by practicality.
But the thing is: people like my father don’t understand rationality.
They’re so used to getting everything they wish for, that they forget about the inevitable consequences of their actions.
They need to be brought down to Earth every once in a while, or perhaps be dragged six feet under.
I scan him from top to bottom, then wipe the switchblade on his t-shirt. “For Mave, and for Jayce. And for letting me be treated like shit by my mother for over two decades.” I straighten and step away from his body. “May you rest in fucking pieces, Dad,” I say, then turn my back on him.