“Alex, go,” I plead. “This was always between your father and me. This has nothing to do with you.”
“This has everything to do with me.”
Cain has a glint in his eye: unhinged, crazed, a man with nothing left to lose.
He says he’d shoot Alex to get to me, and in that moment, I believe him.
I take a step to the right. Cain has a clear shot. Alex is none thewiser. The authorities must be close. If I can just keep Alex alive for a moment longer—
A gunshot cracks through the air, and I wait. Wait for the agony, wait for the blood, wait for the red-hot fire of a bullet in my skin.
And yet …
At the end of the hall, Cain slumps to the floor, a puddle of blood forming beneath his left leg.
With a high-pitched ringing in my ears, I look for a gun in Alex’s empty hands, he looks for a gun in mine, and then we both look up in slow motion.
At the end of the clinical, white hallway, Fleur lowers her weapon.
Chapter 25
ALEX
“You know, this is kind of fun,” I say, putting one of the minuscule spokes on the train wheels with a set of tweezers.
My dad leans back in his chair, admiring our handiwork. “Of course it is. It’s a waste of time. Everything that’s fun is a waste of time.”
Dad’s been increasingly … not himself this past year. It started off with tense dinners, conversations on eggshells and too many refills of his wine glass. Now we’re lucky to see him at dinner at all. The twins seem to be the only thing that stops him from flying off the rails lately. Their second birthday party last week was the first time I saw him smile in … months, actually.
“It’s not often your only son turns eleven,” he says. That infinitesimal hint of pride in his voice has me feeling ten feet tall.
“Unless the new baby is a boy.”
His jaw tenses. I’ve said the wrong thing, somehow.
His palm lands on my shoulder, so hard that if he wasn’t so volatile, I’d tell him it hurt. “I started joining my father in the office on weekends when I was your age.”
“Oh, I …”
“You’ll be fine. You’ll make a fine CEO for Green one day.”
“I … well …”
Another clap on the shoulder, hard enough this time that I realize he knows exactly what he’s doing. “I know you wouldn’t let me down, boy.”
“ALEX.”
I jolt awake, startled by sounds and smells that are so familiar now after the year my mother has had. My breaths are rapid, my dream about my father a memory I’d almost forgotten.
I open my eyes andshit, since when is operating an eyelid this painful?
“Hey.” A gentle hand lands on my shoulder when I try to sit up. I trace my blurry gaze up one thin, tanned arm.
“Fleur?”
And just like that, it all comes back to me. The fight in the elevator, my father’s fist, Ophelia’s appearance, Fleur shooting dad.
Fleur shooting dad.
