Chapter 26
KILINA
S eeing her was a risk. It was commencement day. The deadline. I should’ve stayed on the estate, but I couldn’t let go. Laney might not understand my reasons, but she understood who showed up. It was going to be me, if no one else. At least that was what I was banking on.
That was before the first shot rang out and nothing but regret coursed through my veins. I should’ve known something would happen here and now. I’d hoped it would be contained at the estate.
The second shot was much worse.
A warmth spread on my side. When I touched it, my hands came up sticky, and when I looked at it, all the blood drained from my face. This was bad.
That’s when it started to burn. The echoing sound of my whimpers filled my head, no other sounds managed to penetrate through my skull.
I held my hand over the wound, the blood loss forced my thoughts to run into overdrive. It’s just a bullet graze. You’ve gone through worse, Kilina, grow up. The thoughts circled in my father’s voice. Get up. Keep moving. That one sounded like my brother’s voice. Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god. I didn’t recognise that one. It wasn’t in my memory. Kil, move now, bitch. Lennon. My friend. Oh my god, Kenna, oh my. Kenna? Kenna.
“Laney, get the fuck away from me.” It sounded more aggressive than I intended as reality faded back into view, though, my eyes stayed glued shut. Still, I knew it was her.
“I’m not leaving you,” she said.
“Silly girl.” I chuckled and coughed. With no vision, I clambered into a seated position from where I’d lain slumped on the floor. My knees had caught most of my weight. I pushed away the hand she rested on my arm. She needed to be gone. Anywhere but here right now. “Go!”
“Don’t move.”
Only when I got to my feet could I open my eyes again. Laney crouched low to the ground where I had been laying. Chaos was all around us. Feet were stamping in every direction, the quick motion blurred my vision. What was happening?
I looked down at the gun in my hand. I was meant to hit Richard. That was the plan. I did that. So, how did the bullet find me?
Laney pounced, then standing firmly in front of me. I took a deep breath. Her smell intoxicating. It didn’t help me keep a clear mind, but it soothed my heart. My breathing slowed.
When I looked up, I found Neenan standing in front of us, and we were staring down the barrel of a smoking gun. I couldn’t decipher the words they said, unless I really concentrated and when I did, they were arguing.
“She’s a Karstein, Laney, how can you defend her?”
She had her arms out wide. Sinking her knees a little, she pleaded for my life. “Gunfire is not going to solve this. There’s another way, Neenan.”
But the bullet hadn’t come from him. I knew it. It came from the man that stood behind him. Olive skin. Dark hair. Carved wrinkles.
Aldo Novelli.
He was being held back by some guards, his gun must’ve been thrown to the floor as it lay scuffed and ten feet behind him. His bucking was fruitless, but he was screaming at his usual elevated volume. Over and over. I didn’t miss this.
“I knew it. It was her!” He commanded. “Shoot her. At once.”
I looked down at my side and back at him dumbfounded. My brain lagged like I was trudging through a humid fog. Sweat formed on my forehead. I had to grab hold of Laney’s jacket to stay upright. My weight made her shuffle forward.
“Sorry.” I whimpered.
“Enough!” The ricochet sound of heavy boots approaching boomed from behind me. A man dressed in tight leather and black straps around his legs walked between Neenan and Novelli, and Laney and me. He looked at Neenan before us. “Sir, get Novelli back to base.”
The young guard tried to protest but before a single word came out his mouth, he was silenced by Grant’s stern face. With the wave of his gun in a haphazard way, Neenan guided the guards with Novelli to a truck that idled to the side of the street. Then, Grant spun to Laney, not daring to meet my eye, but speaking to us both. “And you.” His pointed chin directed at us. “Meet me in my office.”
“How about the hospital?” Laney contended.
“Office. Now.” Then he flicked two fingers in the air and firm hands grabbed my arms pulling them behind my back. The cold of handcuffs clicked around my wrists, the position of my arm grinded into my side, causing a flame of hurt to cascade through my entire body. I groaned as they yanked my body with them to another nondescript van around the corner. Away from Laney and away from Grant. No, Norman. It would take a minute to replace his name in my mind.
Out the corner of my eye I saw their faceoff. But it was less of a faceoff than I expected. He draped an arm around her shoulder and whispered something to her. Her face transformed into shock horror, and she ran with Grant behind her.
A click of a car door distracted me and the rough hands that pulled me into the back of the car had me seeing stars. I couldn’t see the driver but the second the door shut, they pressed on the accelerator so hard, all the air in my lungs left me.
I groaned.
“You alright back there?” A familiar voice made me pause. It couldn’t be. Blood rushed my brain causing my head to droop with the weight. “Cat got your tongue?”
“I think the cat got her tongue.” Another voice confirmed.
Deep breath in. Deep breath out. “You can’t be here.” I announced.
“Oh babes, we’ve been here for a while.” Pulling myself into an upright position, I could finally see what I feared.
I shook my head.
“You had a deadline, Kil. Mamma told us to.”
“Goddamn it.” I groaned. And not from my injury. “She couldn’t just trust me.”
“This job has taken you longer than most. Honestly, she was more worried about you. You do like to go MIA.”
“So, she sent both of you?”
“She’s here too!” He said. My jaw was almost on the floor. “Somewhere.”
“What? But she shouldn’t see action. You know this.”
“Have you tried to stop that woman? We gave up.”
“You… gave up ?” I was shocked. “Idiots.” I spat under my breath.
“The time is now.” Thing One said. Terrence.
“Isn’t that exciting?” Thing Two responded. Malachi. My brothers.
No, no, no, no. We’re not prepared enough. We’re not prepared enough. “We’re not prepared!” I all but screeched as Terrence hit a curb and my vision flashed. “And slow down!”
“Aw, little sis, you worried about me?”
“You do know I got shot, right?” I peeled my red stained fingers from the wound, showing it to them as proof.
“Looks like just a graze to me.” Malachi butted in with a shrug.
“Ugh. We need more time.”
“No,” Terrence’s tone was serious. “Think about it. This is the right time. It’s everything we’ve been building up to, Kilina. You should be excited, the time has come. The last piece of the puzzle.”
“You’re the crux!”
“What are you so chipper about, Malachi? I’m bleeding out here, shut the fuck up.”
“Someone doesn’t like my optimism.”
“Malachi,” Terrence said in jest. “She’s bleeding in l-o-v-e. ”
“Oh yeah, Mama mentioned a girlfriend.”
“A cute one, apparently.”
“Terrence.” I sat up too fast at the same moment the car hit a speed bump. “Shut the fuck up. And drive better!”
I laid back down on the back seat. My side was bleeding less now, I had to stomach the scene at the estate yet. I wasn’t done yet. The pitfalls of the Ravencroft security haven’t been addressed yet. I took out their main defences by undercutting their alliance with the Novelli dynasty and we cut the head off the Ravencroft snake, fracturing leadership. God knew Richard was useless.
My mission was to play reconnaissance on the Ravencroft Estate and kill him too. But once I saw Laney again I couldn’t anymore. Her only parent and without her grandfather? I’d lead her into a chamber with no air holes, and I’d have to leave her in her complete solitude, just to watch her struggle to breath. Mamma always told me to be ruthless. Father taught me how to.
Father is going to be so mad when he sees that I’ve failed.
But that’s when it hit me.
What was striking to me most of all was who was missing through this entire ordeal.
Richard Ravencroft was absent.