I’m not. I’m… overstimulated. For the past so many hours, I’ve been holding on to the fact that today will be the day I finally resume my medication. It’s been three whole days.
And I have made zero efforts to grab them from my office desk—where I left them the day of the clause leak. I should get them.
I should.
I know it’ll be a while before the effects wear off. But I’ve never not been on medication for eight years. It became second nature after a year on Aripiprozole. Then years passed with my dosage being changed—increased. And now I’m on Seroquel.
Maybe I should discuss it with Dr. Reed, about tapering my meds off. Can I go on without them?
I flinch in Levi’s arms again when I hear Mrs. Astor’s wild scream again. She hasn’t stopped for a good few seconds.
But I’m getting more and more agitated about the hold Levi has on me. I can’t even turn to see what’s happening around me and my whole body twitches with curiosity and thisvoraciousneed for information.
My gut burns with a sudden urge to move. And I do. I know Levi won’t restrain me.
That’s when I finally take the scene in. Charles Gaither is grunting and dry heaving, holding his bloodied hand that was a target of a bullet. Odette is staring wide-eyed at Levi and me. Her face looks defeated with the acknowledgment that it’s over.
Gareth and Thomas are squirming and flailing as two agents hold each of them in place.
I didn’t even realize. Someone made sure that the rest of the board was quietly escorted out of the hall.
I spot it a little too late, but I see Sebastian’s hand shifting behind him. The click of a safety being re-engaged is unmistakable.
His expression doesn’t change. He’s tucking his gun away, like it’s an afterthought. Like him disarming Charles Gaither was a tedious detour. Like Charles trying to shoot someone in a boardroom was just another Tuesday for him. He looks so different from the college days when we’d known each other.
There’s a spatter of blood still trailing down Charles’s knuckles, and he’s clutching them like the weight of what he just tried to do hasn’t caught up yet.
Seb doesn’t look impressed. Honestly, he looks… bored. Almost like he’s waiting for the curtain to close on this performance.
No one speaks, for maybe five seconds. Maybe less. But my senses are all glassy and stretched—like the inside of a snow globe that just got upended. Everything is muffled. Everything is…floating.
Until one of the officers from possibly RCMP steps forward. He’s tall, steady, dressed in full tactical gear, but not loud about it.
He holds up a thick folder.
“This is a federal order,” he begins, his voice carrying the practiced sharpness of a polished blade. “Based on the findings of Blackthorn Security, our own audit of over four decades of cross-border financial crimes, and additional corroboration from allied intelligence.”
He turns to the newly decorated felons. “Odette Astor, Thomas Astor, Gareth Astor, and Charles Gaither. You are all under arrest for conspiracy to commit fraud, money laundering, obstruction of justice, unlawful foreign intelligence contracting, and for endangering national security.”
A gasp ripples behind me. Levi.
The officer continues, impassive. “Funds from Astor Holdings Capital Funds Division were traced to shell companies that directly financed human trafficking rings and hostile intelligence entities operating against Canadian and allied interests.”
Odette lets out a sound. I think it’s a sob. It might be a breath. But the horror on her face tells me one thing:she didn’t know the full extent.
She wanted designer handbags and her baubles. She got treason.
I don’t even flinch when Gareth starts snarlingagain. But I do flinch when he sets his eyes on me. That same, venomous look. The one he used to pin me to the wall. The one I once mistook for power. “You…youdid this, didn’t you?” he spits, lunging forward against the agent’s grip. “I told you to stay the fuck away, Cece—”
His words cut out mid-breath.
Because Levi is no longer beside me. No longer holding me in place. I’m no longer warm.
I hear the violence before I see it.
A dull thud, like meat and marble colliding. Levi.
He slams Gareth back against the polished concrete wall, one arm twisted in Gareth’s collar, the other buried in his greying hair. And then he drives his own uncle’s head into the wall.
