Chapter 16 #2
“Wait.” Cordelia raised her hands. “You have to listen to me. He’s my father and I wish he wasn’t. I didn’t tell you everything because I wasn’t sure you’d trust me.”
“You were right,” Gideon said. “We don’t.”
“Everything I told you is true. Aaron and I were engaged. I loved him.” Her voice cracked. “I’m getting out of here and never coming back. You have to come with me unless you want to die.”
Mackenzie’s face was as pale as milk. “Bullseye is your father. Did my brother know that?”
Cordelia’s words spilled out in a rush. “When Aaron finally told me the truth about his work, I was horrified. I had to tell him who I was. He promised he’d quit, as soon as he could, and we’d leave.
In the meantime we kept our relationship a secret.
I knew Daddy would never accept anyone in the business dating his daughter.
And especially someone whose sister was going to be a cop. ”
Mackenzie jerked as if she’d been slapped.
“How’s that for irony? We told no one, were never together in public, but . . . but Daddy found out anyway.” Tears flowed down Cordelia’s face, dripping from her chin. “I was stupid to think he wouldn’t.”
Gideon stared, willing her to say it, the terrible fact he feared was coming, one that would detonate Mackenzie like a bomb. “Your father knew about you and Aaron.”
“Yes.” Cordelia looked at the floor. “And he had Aaron killed.”
****
Mackenzie reeled back into Gideon’s chest. She tried to absorb Cordelia’s revelation. Bullseye had Aaron murdered because of his relationship with Cordelia?
She was engulfed by a wave of nausea. But was it the truth? All of it? Cordelia was clearly stricken, but there was no way they could trust her with their lives, not now.
Gideon tugged at her forearm. “Mackenzie, we’re out of here. Hold on to me and let’s go.”
She was shaky as he steered her. She heard the sounds of car doors wrenched open, boots pounding toward the hangar.
“You can’t get away. The chopper’s ready out back. We have to go,” Cordelia said.
“We’re not going anywhere with you.” Gideon urged Mackenzie on. “Faster.”
Rifle shots peppered the steel doors. The weapon now in Gideon’s hand was hardly a match.
All three of them ran to the rear as more bullets plowed into the metal. The fenced area would provide no protection from gunfire. They had minutes, maybe less.
Her mind cycled through possibilities. Cordelia would get on that chopper and when it lifted off, it might be enough of a distraction for Mackenzie and Gideon to run back into the hangar, open the doors, and tear out the front.
Without getting shot? It was no better than a suicide mission, but she could think of nothing else.
Holding on to Gideon, she tumbled past the door and into the fenced yard. He held her close as Cordelia sprinted to the chopper. The rotors were whirling, getting up to speed as the engine whined.
Jake was tight-jawed, working the controls. He called out to them. “Get in! Now!”
Cordelia turned back to Gideon. “You can’t stay here. I’m . . .”
Her words were lost in a roar as a surge of water burst from beyond the field and rolled in a tumbling mass toward the tarmac.
“The dam!” Cordelia screamed. Her eyes were wild.
The water moved so forcefully it shook the ground under their feet. Swirling waves foamed toward them with terrifying speed, engulfing their ankles within seconds.
Gideon slipped and went under, the gun snatched from his grip and sucked away.
Mackenzie yanked him up as the water level rose. The helicopter was their only way out. Cordelia was a pace ahead of them.
Gideon shoved her. “Go, go!”
Mackenzie catapulted forward. Cordelia tripped, splashing face-first near the skids already rising. Gideon grabbed her around the waist and hoisted her through the open chopper door with Mackenzie’s help.
Water sucked at Gideon’s boots as he jumped in after the two women. The split second he and Cordelia were aboard, Mackenzie slammed the door closed, and the chopper rose straight up at a dizzying speed.
“Buckle in!” the pilot shouted. All three of them took the rear seats and strapped in against the vibrations of the aircraft. Within seconds they were flying into the darkness.
They banked left. She caught sight of the shimmering surface below as the floodwater surrounded the hangar. Al and Jerry were nowhere to be seen. If they hadn’t made it back to their vehicles, survival would be out of the question.
She felt unmoored, unable to process what had just happened. Cordelia was Bullseye’s daughter. He’d had Aaron executed. Now they were trapped in a helicopter with her and her pilot.
Jake listened on his headphones and turned to report, gesturing for them to put on their own headsets. “It was only a partial failure. The dam’s still hanging on, but no telling if it’s going to last.”
“How long until we get to Clover?” Cordelia said into the headset mic.
“It’s forty-five minutes north,” he said. “Fortunately, out of flood range.”
Cordelia sighed and slumped back on the seat. Was it resignation on her face? Sadness? Guilt?
Mackenzie stared at her, mind still reeling with the revelation. “You are a liar. I don’t trust you to keep us alive.”
Cordelia’s voice through the mic was slightly tinny. “I know, but the important thing is your brother trusted me.”
“Did he?”
Cordelia blazed a defiant look at them.
“The two of you aren’t dead, so I’ve done what I set out to do.
” Cordelia folded her arms around herself.
“As soon as we get to the next airport, you can do whatever you want. But if you die, at least I can sleep knowing I tried my best to save you. I’m Frank Soliel’s daughter, but I’m not his lackey, no matter what you think. ”
“So you’re going to run away from your father?” Gideon said.
“Yes.”
Mackenzie considered. Could she be telling the truth? Why else would she have plucked them away from her father’s minions? “Aren’t you worried he’ll come after you?”
“He will, I have no doubt.”
“But you’d still rather face that than turn him over to the police?” Mackenzie asked.
“I know how the system works.”
Gideon’s disgust was clear. “It’s easier to hide than do the right thing.”
Cordelia’s eyes flashed fire. “You have no right to judge me, either of you. You don’t know anything about what I’ve endured as a Soliel.
How do you think it feels to know your father had your fiancé murdered?
” Tears sparkled in her eyes. “I’ll be in hiding for the rest of my life.
Anyone new I meet, anyone who shows interest .
. . might be one of my father’s spies. I’ll never have a chance at a normal existence while he’s alive, so you can paint me as a villain if you want, but I’m more of a victim than either of you.
Aaron was the only one who ever understood. ” She gulped back tears.
Mackenzie was stung. Whatever Cordelia had or hadn’t done, Aaron had loved her. Her anger began to dissipate. “I . . . can’t imagine what it must have been like for you with that man as your father.”
Cordelia swiped at her cheeks. “You have no idea. I only figured out what he was into when I was a teen. Up until then, I didn’t understand the meetings, the strange people who showed up to our house, the phone calls.
I thought it was all normal. When I’d ask my mother what Daddy did for a living, she’d say he was a businessman.
She knew, of course, but she pretended not to. I guess it was easier that way.”
Mackenzie understood. She’d dismissed aspects of her brother’s life that she hadn’t wanted to acknowledge. Her love had bordered on hero worship, and it had blinded her. The tight knot of anger in her belly loosened. She and Gideon listened as Cordelia’s story flowed out.
“He wasn’t always like he is now. Oh, he was overprotective and strict, but after my mom got sick, he changed.
He made sure she saw the best cancer specialists in the country, and he flew her all over the world to seek treatment.
He wasn’t able to accept that he couldn’t find a cure to save her.
He controlled everything, everyone, but he couldn’t defeat her disease. ”
The helicopter vibrations thrummed through Mackenzie as she listened.
“I remember when I first realized who my father really was. Three men came to our house, Al, Jerry, and someone I didn’t know.
I didn’t understand why the third guy was so scared.
He was soaked with sweat and shaking. My dad saw me looking and shouted for my mom, who came to get me, but before the door closed, I heard the man say, ‘Please.’ I’ll never forget the way he said it, begging.
” She folded her arms across her chest. “Begging for his life, I came to realize. Mom wouldn’t tell me anything, but from then on I understood my dad was powerful and people were afraid of him.
I listened after that, eavesdropped whenever I could until I was old enough to put the details together.
I should have known from the way people treated us in town, like we were royalty or mobsters, which I guess we were. ”
Gideon nodded, encouraging her to continue.
“My mother died when I was eleven, and he turned into someone else. He wouldn’t let me go anywhere or be around other people unless he was with me or his bodyguards were.
I wasn’t even allowed to go to public school.
There were tutors instead. I had no friends, no community.
My cell phone was policed, and there was a tracking app on it.
My only escape was the horses, if I was accompanied. ”
Mackenzie forced herself to absorb every word, unbelievable as it sounded. This person sitting before her, the woman her brother had loved, was Bullseye’s child.