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“There’s always a choice.”
“Is there a choice for you?” he asks. “I tried to hurt Luna. I was going to kill her. Do you have a choice in what happens to me next?”
No. He has to die. There is no other way.
Dr. Jenkins must see the answer on my face. He nods sadly. “That’s what I thought. There is no choice, Yakov. Not when it comes to the people we love. I had to try to save them. He has them. Pavel. He has my family held hostage. To get them back I had to… He wanted me to…”
“You were going to kill Luna.”
His head sags between his shoulders. He stares down at the floor. “I didn’t want to, but I didn’t have a choice. I’m sorry.”
“You gave her something to put her to sleep. So what is this?” I press the point of the syringe into his neck.
He flinches back with a whimper. “Please.”
“Answer the question.”
He squeezes his eyes closed. “Something to stop her heart. She wouldn’t have felt a thing.”
My hand is shaking with the restraint it takes not to plunge this syringe into his throat. Not yet.
“What about the babies?”
“I’m sorry,” he sobs. Snot and tears pour down his face. “They all had to die. Luna and the babies. It was the only way Pavel would give me my family back. He wanted me to take yours. But I didn’t want Luna to suffer.”
“How long were you planning this?”
“Since the night the ambulance came to the safehouse. I—I never wanted to—” He swallows, his throat bobbing against the point of the needle. “I never wanted any of this. He forced my hand.”
“All the times you tried to get Luna to go to the hospital, it was so you could carry out your plan. It was so you could get her alone and then escape without being seen.”
“I’m sorry!” he moans. “I’m sorry. I didn’t want to. I didn’t want to do any of this.”
“Is that why you helped the attacker get into the mansion? Because you were too much of a coward to do it yourself?”
His lack of response is enough of an answer.
I lean in close. “If you had asked me for my help, I would have saved your family.”
“He said he would kill them if I told you. He said?—”
“I would have saved them,” I repeat, pulling the syringe away.
Dr. Jenkins’ eyes go wide. He can’t believe it. I’m letting him go.
“I would have saved them and you’d be alive to see them again. Instead…” In a flash, I empty the syringe into the base of his skull, hiding the injection point beneath his hairline. “Let’s see if this medicine is as painless as you claimed.”
He gasps, but the drug is quick. His eyes roll back in his head as his legs give way.
I look down at him, meeting his eyes one final time before they close forever.
60
LUNA
My head is swimming before I even open my eyes. I feel like I’m swimming towards consciousness, fighting against a current that wants to drag me back down. I’m so tired. Maybe I should let it. I’ll sleep a bit more and then?—
“Luna?”
