12. Chapter Twelve #3
She didn’t deny it. “Someone else got to him, someone who isn’t me, Jack! I know I have the fucking reputation, but I would never hurt anyone, I’m not my father, I want you out of business, I swear to God I don’t want you fucking dead…!”
A fist clutched my heart. “Dead?”
I turned and looked out the window. Caroline made her way down the drive in no hurry, moving with a bit of extra pep in her step from the night’s activities. My gaze traveled from her to the McLaren, and that’s when I saw him.
The butler.
Making his way quickly but unhurriedly up towards the house.
Caroline passed him, glancing to the side with an inquisitive expression. They locked eyes, and two things happened.
The first is that the butler took off like he’d just been made.
And the second was that Caroline double-timed it in the direction of the McLaren.
She thinks he broke in or something, I realized. She had no idea that—
I don’t want you fucking dead.
Oh God. Oh God, oh Jesus—
“Don’t go near the car,” Victoria said, relaxing as if she’d just realized I was still inside. “Jack, I swear it wasn’t me, I will make peace with you today, I’m sending people to clean this up, just stay inside the house—”
I dropped the phone and ran.
“What’s got him in such a hurry?” Tallulah snarked as I passed.
Marcie was already starting to understand. “Jack? What’s wrong?”
I couldn’t explain. There was literally no time to explain.
I threw open the doors of the mansion. The butler stood at the bottom of the steps, and for a single second our eyes met and the thought of running him down and tackling him filled my head.
The version me who lived in Stillwell, what felt like a lifetime ago, had done just that when someone tried to mess with my car.
I didn’t even notice when he turned and fled. I didn’t care about catching the bad guy. I didn’t even care about my fucking car.
I cared about the woman.
“Caroline!” I roared, reaching the bottom of the steps. “Caroline, fucking STOP!”
I’d take a bullet for this family.
She stopped. She couldn’t hear the specifics—of course she couldn’t, she was too far away—but she heard the tone and saw me, and that was enough.
She was at the bottom of the drive, maybe a stone’s throw away from the McLaren, her arm already pointing towards the car with the keyfob in her hand.
The same fob Samantha once used to distract a would-be arsonist from lighting the gasoline he’d poured into my sports car and setting it ablaze.
It was never just a job for me.
She smiled, her brows furrowing together. She cupped her free hand around her mouth. “Hey, you! What’s up?”
My heart lurched into my throat. I kept running down the drive.
“Caroline, don’t move!” I shouted, as loud as I could. “Back away from the car—!”
She took a step towards me. One single, hesitant, confused step.
And as she did, as if by reflex, her thumb clicked the button that started the sports car’s engine.
Welcome home.
I didn’t hear the blast. There was a bright, blinding flash, and suddenly my face felt like I’d shoved it directly onto a hot stove and the hand of an invisible giant picked me up and tossed me.
I don’t remember the fall: one second I was airborne, the next I was on my back, flat in the grass.
Bits of broken glass rained down onto me—the big bay window of the parlor had shattered.
Something was wrong with my suit jacket.
Get up, I told myself. They need you.
My body refused to move.
Oh fuck. It wasn’t just my face that felt warm anymore. Something’s wrong. My chest is not supposed to feel like that…
“Jack!?” Marcie’s voice sounded like it was coming from the bottom of a deep, dark well. Sound was slowly making its way back into the world. “Jack, oh God! Jack!”
Babygirl, I thought. You’re alive. I tried to make my lips form the words, but they weren’t obeying me.
“—help, somebody help, please, he’s—” Her face lifted, scanning the yard. “Caroline, I need—Caroline, help me get him up…”
Her voice broke. Through vision that was growing increasingly blurry, I saw a look of horror fill her.
“—wait. Wait. Oh God, no, no, no no no where is Caroline!?”
Somehow, I managed to turn my head.
At the bottom of the sloping lawn where my McLaren had been stood a churning pillar of smoke. Flames poured from what was left of my car, reaching like grasping fingers towards the pale morning sky.
I looked for her. I waited for her to join Marcie next to me, to tell me the butler had spooked her, to clutch her crystals and go oh God that was so close but everything’s fine and help me up. I looked for any sign of her between me and the flames.
Nothing.
No, she was right there. The words moved with a slowness that scared me. She was standing right there—
My vision dimmed. A high, piercing note filled my ears, almost like a voice.
If things go south with Tallulah, I’ll sing. She’d promised me that on the drive up. Laughed when she said it.
Was that what was happening now?
The last thing I saw was a tongue of black smoke across the pale morning sky.
The last thing I managed to think was her name.
Then the note faded, along with the light, and I sank into the darkness like a stone.
END OF BOOK EIGHTEEN