RAIN
Chapter fifty-five
“I’m counting at least four,” Blade says, peering out the broken window.
Blade’s gaze slides to me. “The fuck is he talking about?”
I adjust my position, peering out the small window of the front door, noting the top of a head hiding just beyond the porch. “I may have stolen a few….hundred thousand from him from the time I learnt what he was doing until we moved to London.”
“And you call me an idiot.”
I lift a shoulder and shrug. “I made it look like it was his paedophile buddies stealing from him. You know, pit them against one another.” I wave a hand to a now-dead Graham.
“If there’s one thing we’ve learnt, it’s that you can’t trust corrupt organisations, and I gave all the money away to charities. ”
I lock eyes with Blade and motion to the door, holding out a finger. He takes his position beside the door. Sweat trickles down my neck as I climb the stairs and plaster myself around the corner at the top.
Balde's breaths stay even as he swings the door open. Bullets pound the staircase as I raise my rifle, the thud of my heart and approaching footsteps eating the sudden silence.
A brown boot inches into view on the other side of the door.
I line up my scope with their foot and take a deep breath, curling my finger around the trigger.
Their foot inches further out, and the shot jolts through my body.
A scream follows, their body falling a little further forward.
Blade raises his rifle, and blood splatters the front door as their body falls through the threshold.
“Fucker,” Blade smiles.
“What do you want, Ezra?” I call out. “Cash, check, wire transfer? We both know you’ll spend your life running.”
A manic laugh booms beyond the door. “You made Weston & Myer quite secure, Rain. I’d always tried to get in there but never could. My sister almost had our $500 million, but your prick of a father did what he does best and bought out our colleague.”
My eyes clash with Blade’s. “Why not have me killed? Kidnap me again?” I shout. “You had many opportunities.”
I’d dug into his background when I found out what he was doing, but for someone like Smith, it’s easy to erase who you were and start again.
“Your school laptop was useless,” Smith laughs. “Everything you used to hack was at home, wasn’t it?”
“You didn’t want me,” I conclude with a smile. “You wanted my father to suffer. He killed your brother and your sister. I saw her body when my father was carrying me out of that warehouse.”
He brought me on as his assistant, hoping to plant something on my laptop that would gain him access to The Weston.
Even at twelve, I knew I needed to use independent servers for the business so they couldn’t be hacked by external devices.
Any programs relating to Weston & Myer are only accessible from company computers, and I need to authorise access.
That’s why he never applied for a job there.
He said it himself, he couldn’t get in. He knew I’d have a fallback if he tried to hack the accounts internally.
He wasn’t teaching me about computers. He was deciphering what I knew.
“My uncle,” I shout, gripping the gun tighter. “He was the one who set up The Westons’ cybersecurity. He didn’t die because he beat the house. You killed him because he wouldn’t tell you how to get in.”
“Your father lies and steals!” Smith yells. “He takes from people for his own personal gain. You know that first fucking hand Rain—you help him do it! He blackmailed my mother into taking a deal that paid far less than the land was worth, all so he could build his first fucking hotel.”
This sick fuck jerked off to and sold photos of kids. He certainly has no grounds to play the morality police.
Keeping my rifle raised, I take a deep breath, the pungent smell filling my nose.
Gas.
“You smell it?” I ask Blade.
He nods, moving toward the back of the house. “Better run, brother.”
I push off the wall and enter the master bedroom across the hall, throwing the door shut as I swing my gun onto my back and open the window.
Adrenaline pounds my heart as I grasp the window frame and lift myself up.
The explosion kicks me forward, replacing my hearing with a piercing ring and sending hot pain through my body.
Could have waited a few more seconds, Xander.
I blink hard and work my jaw, trying to rid the annoying noise.
“Find him!” Smith orders from the front of the house.
If he wants into Weston & Myer, he can’t kill me. That doesn’t mean he won’t wound me or kill Blade and Xander in the process, though.
Resting my gun on my shoulder, I keep my finger on the trigger and step onto the pitched roof. A shot fires from the left, a scream following. Another shot, another scream.
The chilled breeze whisks past as I step to the top. Smith’s blue eyes find me immediately, the burning house reflecting off the side of the SUV he’s using as a shield.
Coward.
I raise my rifle and squeeze the trigger. Blood explodes from his right shoulder as he tries to escape into the driver’s seat. I follow in my scope, but my finger freezes when a figure steps out from the tree line.
The passenger window shatters, Smith’s brain matter painting the driver’s window from Dad’s bullet. Smith’s bloody, brown buzzed strands lay against the window.
I shiver through the adrenaline, wobbling a little on the tile. He’s dead. Finally fucking dead.
Another shot rings through the air, and excruciating pain explodes in my lower back. I stumble forward, losing my footing on the roof tiles.
“Rain!” Blade screams, as my shoulder hits the roof, the starry sky and orange glow blurring into a spiral.
Agony cracks through my padded chest and across my back when I hit the second roof.
I gasp in a painful breath, clawing at my surroundings to stop myself falling into the flames licking the edge of the roof.
Warm blood continues to pour from the wound, soaking my shirt and jeans as I fight my depleting strength to lift myself onto all fours.
“Rain!”
Rome?
I draw a ragged breath and push off my right leg, the left now almost useless. Through my hazy vision, a dark figure emerges from the window before me. He reaches out, and I scream through my teeth, clasping his veined, tattooed forearm.
“Should’ve kept rolling, brother.” Blade’s smile and icy eyes emerge through the thick smoke.
Heat engulfs me as he pulls me through the window. Even when I’m wounded, the fucker isn’t gentle. He throws my body over his shoulder, and I grunt as flames lap against my already sweltering body, his arm coming around my legs then over my back, his hand colliding with the wound to keep pressure.
“Idiot,” he spits, hastily walking out of the room and down the burning stairs.
Smoke, thick and heavy, coats my lungs. “Wh-who was it?” I cough, then wince at the pain it elicits.
He barks out a cough. “I don’t know.”
The night breeze slaps my dripping face, and warm blood pours under my vest as Blade throws me over his shoulder into the trunk of an SUV.
“B-baby?” I cough, looking up into wet, green eyes hovering above me.
“Rain,” Rome chokes.
The god that is Rome Aston finally admits he loves me, and now I get shot. Great.
“Breathe, baby.” Rome’s tears drip to cool my heated face, the faint sound of a trunk door closing echoing, and I sway a little from the car taking off.
Pain sears my back, and I seethe, burying my face in the carpeted floor when someone—I’m assuming Blade or Kieran—rolls me to my stomach and shoves something against the wound.
“I need an ambulance from Princess Margret Hospital toward Woodside. Now!” I vaguely hear Dad ordering directions.
Rome shakes his head as he lays beside me, and I latch onto the feeling of his hand squeezing mine, the other holding my face. I unstick my heavy tongue from the roof of my mouth, trying to swallow back the copper liquid filling the back of my throat.
Rome’s soft lips coat mine with tears. “You aren’t leaving me,” he whispers against them. I use all my strength to squeeze his hand, a tear rolling onto my nose.
He’s warm, so warm, and that kiss seemed to subside the pain. My head’s spinning, and I feel like I’m fighting with my eyelids, trying to keep them open.
“Hurry up,” I faintly hear Rome bark in a choked voice. “He’s going pale.”
I’m thankful when the burn in my lungs disappears, and I reach for his face. His tears continue fall when I lose the battle with my eyes.
I can’t die, Smith may be dead, but Rome’s just made a deal with my father, and I need to stop it.
“Rain!” I faintly hear Rome’s addicting voice. “Please, no. Baby…can you hear me? Please…please! Rain!”