28. Rory
28
RORY
Lara’s screams pierce the air and rage washes over me as I wrestle with the third assailant.
He’s trying to take my gun, and I shoot it, over and over.
I’d thought it was over when I killed the guy trying to get to us, but there are men everywhere. It’s an ambush.
How they knew we’d be leaving the mansion is beyond me.
I don’t recognize them, but then again, I’ve been out of the life for years. I can’t tell what clan they come from, have no idea if it’s Lara's family trying to save her, and right now, it doesn’t matter.
What matters is Lara.
Rage rushes over me when I hear her scream my name, and I sweep the assailant’s leg from under him.
He goes down on one knee, and his kneecap cracks loudly.
He cries out, and I shoot him in the head, panting, unable to even process what I’m doing.
I have to get to Lara.
When I turn around, she’s being dragged backwards by a big man, his arms iron around her as she fights and yells.
I can’t focus on his face, just looking at Lara, my heart racing, my stomach clenching as I try to get a good shot. After a moment, though, when he grunts as she steps down hard on his instep, I can see his face clearly.
Dougal McDonnell. My father’s best muscle. At least, he had been. He’d retired when I was a teenager, before I left the mansion... right after my mother’s disappearance.
He freezes when I point the gun at him, but he doesn’t let her go.
“You can’t shoot me without hitting her, boyo.”
I curse under my breath.
Lara’s eyes are wide and terrified, looking at me to protect her, to save her.
Bruises bloom on her arms where he’s grabbed her, and the sight of them makes rage wash over my vision.
I don’t know what I’m going to do until I do it, rushing him, tackling him around the waist and taking him and Lara both down with me.
Lara yelps but manages to get away, sprinting back toward the car, and Dougal wrestles with me, his forearm against my throat.
I can barely breathe, wheezing in little breaths through my nostrils as he presses down harder, constricting my windpipe.
I briefly wish I’d wrestled in high school instead of playing soccer, my head feeling light on my shoulders from the lack of oxygen.
“Stop!” A voice rings out as my vision starts to blur around the edges. “The boss said to?—”
“He needs to be put down,” Dougal rasps, pressing even harder, but then he’s rolling off me, having been tackled by someone.
I gasp in painful breaths, looking up at the stars for a moment while I get myself together, and then I get up quickly, grabbing my gun from the ground where it fell when I tackled Lara’s attacker.
I stalk toward the two men, who roll around in the grass on the shoulder of the road.
The street outside my father’s mansion is private to us, so I should have known that he did it. I should have known that he wouldn’t want us going out.
What had I been thinking? Why had I trusted him even the slightest amount?
I lift the gun to shoot into the air, and the two men freeze before separating, one rolling over onto his back and the other scrambling up into a standing position, facing me with his hands out, like that might convince me not to kill him.
“You’re not a killer, Rory.” Dougal chuckles.
He turns his back to me, walking back toward the car, back toward Lara, and I shoot him in the back. He jerks, turning around, his mouth in a small “o” of surprise, and then he drops to the ground, clutching the hole that’s appeared on his chest, the bullet went through and through.
The other man, smaller, one I don’t recognize, starts to run, but I’m close enough that I grab him by the back of his shirt, ripping the collar as I jerk him backward.
I hold him as I press the gun into the small of his back.
“Tell me why he sent you after me.”
“W-We were supposed to attack you. Take the girl, stick her somewhere temporarily on the grounds,” he spills instantly. “Then we were to report back to him.”
I hum.
My father didn’t think I’d kill them. He didn’t think I had it in me.
To be honest, I wasn't sure that I did, either, at least until now.
But the threat of Lara being taken, hurt, even killed... Most of the attack I don’t even remember. It’s all just a blur, just a want to keep her safe.
“Guess he’ll never get that report.”
I pull the trigger, and he merely grunts before dropping to the ground, clutching his wound. I look down at him coolly as he rolls over, his mouth open and gasping, eyes glassy with shock.
It’ll take him hours to bleed out from that wound, hours lying on the shoulder, staring up at the sky.
I move my gun to his head.
“Wait—” he gets out before the bullet pierces his skull.
I may be a killer now, something I’d told myself I’d never be, but I’m not a monster. I’m still not like my father.
I put the gun back into the sheath at my lower back, under my shirt, which has come loose from my pants, probably when I tackled Dougal.
I thought maybe I’d feel something when I walked back toward the car, toward Lara. Thought I’d feel guilt or something , but even though I step over dead bodies to get to her, I feel nothing. Empty.
Lara stands with her arms crossed over her chest, leaning her back against the car, shaking like a leaf. She breathes out my name when she catches sight of me, running and jumping into my arms.
I breathe out against the skin of her throat, my shoulders finally relaxing after all the adrenaline rushing through me.
“Are you all right?”
She nods before putting her head on my shoulder.
I hold her there for a moment, the way she feels in my arms making me feel more grounded. While the fight was going on, it felt like I wasn’t me, just watching myself do all those horrible things from the sidelines.
She lifts her head, and I let her slowly back down to the ground.
It’s eerily quiet now that all the fuss is over, and everything that I’ve done tries to crash down on me.
I take a shuddering breath, and Lara frowns, even though she’s got to be just as traumatized as I am.
She takes my hand. “We need to get out of here.”
A bitter laugh comes from deep in my chest. “Where do we go? He’s responsible for all of this.”
“We have to go back to the mansion.” She tugs my hand, starting to walk toward the gates, which are about a mile away. We hadn’t traveled far at all on the road before the attack. “The walk will clear our heads.”
I look around at the devastation, the wrecked cars, the broken glass, the bodies and blood. My stomach churns.
I did that. I had to. To keep her safe.
I know that my father will have the cleaners here soon, and Lara’s right, we don’t want to be here when that happens.
Even though I hate the killing I’ve done, there’s still rage bubbling deep inside of me, and I’m not sure what I’ll do if I see more of my father’s men.
I squeeze her hand, and we start the walk, on the shoulder of the road even though there are no cars in sight. I guess both of us are a little gun shy about cars at the moment.
“You think your father did this?” Lara’s voice almost surprises me because I’m so in my own head.
“Don’t think. Know.” My voice sounds a little raw, and so does hers.
“Why?”
I shudder, keeping a tight grip on her hand as we walk. “He wanted to test me, I guess. See where my loyalties lie, or maybe see how far I’d go to protect you.”
“I guess he got his answer.”
I don’t respond for a while, staying quiet as we continue the trip back.
“This all makes me more and more certain that Bree’s right.”
“About your mother?”
I nod slowly. “I never questioned it.” I scoff at myself. “When she disappeared, I thought my father hung the moon.”
“Of course, you did. Every kid that age does.”
I exhale through my nostrils. “Maybe, but every kid that age doesn’t have a monster for a father.”
“No one knows their parents have flaws until they’re older,” Lara argues, frowning up at me when I glance over at her. “I love my da to pieces, but he doesn’t always make the right choices, and I know that, now. But as a teenager? You couldn’t tell me that man wasn’t a superhero.”
“Your father is a good man.”
Lara sighs. “Maybe he’s a good man for a gangster, but objectively, he’s done bad things. He’s hurt people. Destroyed lives. It’s all subjective, Rory. And you had no way of knowing that your father might have hurt your mother. There was no reason for you to doubt him at the time.”
“I should have later,” I insist, angry at myself. “I should never have run away, should never have left Bree alone with him?—”
Lara cuts me off by yanking at my hand to get me to look at her.
When I turn toward her, she reaches up to cup my face in her hands, forcing me to lean down and look into her eyes.
“This isn’t your fault,” she says fiercely. “None of this is your fault, Rory.”
I hate the tears that prick at the backs of my eyes, but I take a deep breath, trying to calm myself. Not trusting myself to speak, I nod slowly, and after a moment Lara seems satisfied and lets go of me, walking toward the gates, which we’ve finally approached.
Suspiciously, there’s no one guarding the gate.
I figure my father planned to take Lara through here, didn’t want any witnesses.
I punch in the code for the gate, and the gates creak open slowly.
Lara walks right in and starts up the driveway before she turns back to me.
I hesitate at the gate, looking at the flowered iron.
I’d been so sure that my father loved my mother. I’d been so sure that she was the one who’d left us. Now, I can’t be sure of anything at all.
I sigh and walk through the gates like I’m walking to the gallows.
Chapter Twenty-Nine