Chapter Thirty-Five
Scarlett
The silence stretches endlessly and eerily. Every so often, it’s interrupted by a soft impact that rumbles the ground beneath my feet—some sort of explosive, I assume—but besides that, everything’s still.
In the quiet, I have nothing to do but think, ruminate, and fear. I think about the hundreds of possible ends I’ll meet today—most of my nightmares involving my father. I think of the nightmares I’ve lived through, some of which eventually delivered me contentment. Even happiness.
I think about Eric, who I pray will get here sooner rather than later.
I think about my mother, who was too soft to survive in this cruel world.
And I think about the very real possibility that Greyson will fail, the Nighthawks here to protect the fortress will die, and then I’ll die a painful, gruesome death.
My father’s here—I’m sure of it. I can feel the pungent stench of his energy permeating the air. The flat, dissonant sort of darkness that fills every building he steps foot in.
I sit behind Greyson’s desk that I struggled to overturn, clutch my phone for dear life in one hand and a gun in the other, and await my doom.
It comes sooner than expected, and in a much different form that I expected.
A blast caves in the front door to the apartment—an explosion that shakes the ground and even rattles the air. I stare at the cracked-open door to the office, panting yet frozen with fear.
I should run up to it and close it. I have to go to it… but I can’t. The terror my father instilled in me every day of my childhood holds me in place, reducing me to the little girl who wasn’t strong enough to fight back.
I have no fancy tricks to rely on. No training. I can shoot a gun, and that’s about all I’m good for. None of the weapons in Greyson’s hidden store are familiar to me—I only ever learned handguns and shotguns, not even AR’s or semi’s.
I’m a sitting duck, and as a single set of footsteps travel closer to me, pushing me nearer to the end of my life, a soft sob gets trapped in my throat.
I drop my phone and clutch the handgun as the door to the office creaks open. Then, a voice fills the air.
“Come out, come out, wherever you are,” a familiar, cruel, horrific man says. “Come out, little Scarlett. It’s time.”
It isn’t my father—it’s someone who’s quite possibly worse.
James. Dad’s second in command. A man I’ve spent my life fearing as much as my father. Someone who always stared at me in ways that made the hairs on the back of my neck rise, and who delivered beatings when my father ordered him to… and when Dad didn’t.
He’s the only other person who was present when my father killed my mother. James had a small smirk on his lips as he held me in place, forcing me to watch the life leave her eyes.
My fear is overtaken by blind, seething, simmering rage.
Of all the terrible ends I could meet, I refuse for it to be this one.
I peek out over the top of the table, glimpse James, and fire off a shot.
By some miracle, it connects, and he jerks…
but that isn’t enough to kill him. I’m not that lucky.
He sprints straight for me. I fire off two more shots, but neither land before he leaps over the desk. Blood from his wound, one I can’t see, splatters on my face as he lands on his feet, grabs the collar of my shirt, and smashes the side of my head against the desk.
Stars burst behind my eyes and a scream tears from my chest, which quickly turns into a low moan. Then, his hand is around my throat, cutting off my breathing and putting me face-to-face with death.
Not like this.
I force myself to find strength despite the crushing weakness threatening to drain me.
I disregard the nausea, the ringing in my ears, and try to scramble for the gun—but I lost it.
I don’t have a chance to find it before James presses me to the ground, brown eyes alight with rage, blood leaking down his bare arm and dripping onto me.
My arms flail around my sides, blindly searching the floor for my lost weapon. This can’t be the end for me.
“That wasn’t a very kind reception,” James hisses. His tone is coated in malice. His eyes scream his wish to murder me. “Little fucking bitch.”
Not. Like. This.
My hand grasps the barrel of the gun. I call on every drop of power left in my prone body, angle the gun, and shoot.
James falls off of me with the rabid roar of a wounded beast. I gasp, eyes watering, throat swelling, breaths rasping. Through the agony setting my chest alight, I lift my arm, aim the gun at his head, and fire.
He drops flat to the ground. Body limp, eyes emptying of life, face stuck in an expression of agony and fury.
Before I can regain my bearings, a bone-chilling voice whispers, “Hello, daughter.”
And the nightmare I’ve spent years running from ignites.
Dad’s hand tangles into my hair, wrenching my head back. I hadn’t even heard him come up behind me, but then, he was always a quiet man… until it was time to get loud. That’s when he was able to bring entire armies to his knees with his voice alone.
There’s no need for him to be loud now. No need for any threat beyond the barrel of a gun he presses to my temple as he drags me from behind the desk. I fight to the best of my waning abilities, but he swiftly subdues me and wrestles an arm around my throat.
“You’re supposed to be dead,” he hisses quietly in his gritty, cruel voice. “Several times over, now. The death you faked shortly after your escape was so convincing… and then, what do you know. A cockroach from the Nighthawks calls and tells me you’re still alive.”
“Father—”
He slams the butt of his gun on the crown of my head, dazing me, and telling me to be silent the way he always would in my youth. There were never any warnings with him—only actions reminding everyone in his vicinity to obey his commands, both spoken and unspoken.
I fall forward, but before I can faceplant, he yanks me back by my hair again. I moan at the pain inside my skull and outside of it—the pounding, roaring headache, the nausea, and the stinging tug of my hair nearly being torn from the roots.
The weakness and lethargy is setting in. I’m positive I have a concussion.
I don’t think I have any strength left to fight him with.
“I thought the cockroach would kill you and spare me the effort,” Father goes on.
“But you have more of your mother in you than I assumed. Do you know how many times I came close to killing her… but couldn’t?
” He chuckles. “Ultimately, the ungrateful children she gave me led to her death. So I have you to thank for finally breaking her hold on me and allowing me to exterminate her, once and for all. Thank you for that, Scarlett. It’s the only good thing you or your brother have ever done for me. ”
He pauses, running the gun down my temple, across my cheek, and positioning it under my chin. Tears stream freely from my eyes.
This is it.
I know it in my bones. I survived long enough to kill Luther’s bastard second, and that’s all I had in me. My father was right all the times he’d call me weak… but ultimately, I didn’t prove entirely useless.
If Greyson’s still alive, I at least took out one man for him. God, he has to be alive. Even if I die, he has to live. I can’t stomach the thought of his death… I can’t bear to lose another person I love.
“You’re thinking of the man you enslaved with what little charm you got from your mother,” Father whispers.
“He’s probably dead. And if he isn’t, I’ll drag him by his hair up here so he can see your corpse before I put a bullet in his brain.
” A cruel laugh escapes him. “Maybe I’ll keep him alive long enough to skin him.
See how long it takes before his heart gives out.
How far do you think I’ll get, dear daughter?
I always start from the bottom… the feet.
Then the legs. Most die before I get to their torso, but Greyson Blackwell,” he chuckles again.
“I think that cunt might survive out of spite. That’s alright—it’ll give me more time to have fun with him, and I will have fun.
” His tone goes flat. “The two of you have made quite a mess of things. I have a lot of anger to work out… and I’ll start with this. ” He cocks the gun.
A loud thud sounds from the apartment, and I turn my head just in time to see Greyson rushing into the room. My heart drops into my stomach as Dad’s gun disappears from beneath my chin, and my father takes aim at the man I’m in love with.
I slam the full force of my body into his legs, souring his aim, but the shot he fires off still makes Greyson jerk.
It doesn’t stop my Monster, though. He charges forward like a bull running at a flag.
Dad shoves me aside; I take the third hit to my head as it slams to the floor; Dad fires another shot point-blank just as Greyson slams into him and takes both of them to the ground with a resounding roar.
My eyes flutter as I watch them start to grapple, but the motions are blurry. I can barely see, and I can barely hear over the ringing in my ears.
I know I need to move. Greyson’s been shot, twice, while my dad remains uninjured. I have to fucking move, but my body won’t comply.
My vision sharpens as Dad rolls on top of Greyson, wrapping his hands around Greyson’s neck and squeezing.
I have to move.
Greyson’s face turns red. Then, it slowly darkens to purple. His hands fall limply to his sides, swaying on the ground—no. Not swaying, reaching for something.
There’s a gun two feet away from his hand. Just out of my reach.
I have to fucking move, or we’re both dead.
I muster the mental and physical fortitude that I didn’t know I had. I pull on the sheer hatred I have for my father, and the clawing fear of Greyson dying in front of me, and I force my body to comply.
Dad’s too lost in his rage to see me push to my hands and knees. He’s too far gone to notice as I crawl forward, inch by painstakingly-slow inch, and reach for the gun.
My hand closes around the cool grip, and I use both hands to lift it and aim it. It feels like it weighs a thousand pounds, but I manage.
My index finger shifts to rest on the cold trigger.
I don’t waste time or give my body the chance to fail. I fire a shot into my father’s back. The kick of the gun sends me back to the floor, but it also sends my father rolling off Greyson with an animalistic shout of pain.
That bullet’s for Greyson.
I get a glimpse of my Monster without Dad’s body obstructing my line of sight. There’s a pool of blood around the man that I love. His breaths are shallow—he’s incapable of fighting back.
It’s my turn to fight back.
I slowly shift my gaze to my father, who’s writhing on the ground. His lips are moving, he’s saying something, but I can’t seem to hear anything.
Instead of giving Luther Sharpe the chance to plead, I do what my brother promised me he would. I find it in myself to haul my ass to my feet, and I stumble up to my father, panting.
And I do what Eric failed to, because my father is a tricky fucking bastard.
Firing the gun once sends me to one knee, and Dad shouts in raw agony as a bullet lands in his useless dick.
For Mom.
My arms lift of their own accord, and the next shot has me slumping, but it lands true in the center of his chest.
For Eric.
I brace myself on one hand, gasping for breath, trying to see the black spots overtaking my sight…
“Scarlett,” Luther rasps, voice cutting through the ringing in my ears, blood sputtering from his mouth.
I fire a final round into his head.
For me.
The gun clatters to the ground beside me. I slump forward, useless, as my vision swims and the pounding in my head wins over. I manage, somehow, to reach forward, grasping for Greyson’s hand. He doesn’t move, and I can’t see his face.
He’s probably dead.
I’m about to die.
Perhaps it was always meant to end this way. Us, lying in his blood and my pain, dying side by side after defeating the final, true monster that’s haunted our lives.
At least we do it together.