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“You need to pay your dues first.”
“Do you have a knife on you?”
Corbin frowns and looks at Maxwell, who reluctantly pulls out a knife. She snatches it from their hands, and then I watch in horror as she lifts up her shirt and plunges the knife into her lower belly.
“No!” I try to scream again. I try to kick, to fight, but in my drugged-up state, I can’t do any of those things.
She removes the knife, then takes off her shirt until she’s just in a bra and wraps it around her fresh wound. “Does that satisfy you? I sacrificed my ability to get pregnant. I injected the poison you gave me at the club, and I just stabbed myself in the uterus. There is no way I’ll ever be able to get pregnant.”
Corbin grins, pleased.
“That will do.”
My stomach twists, aching to go strangle the man to death.
Liesel speaks again. “Now I want something first. Take Langston back to his private island and ensure he gets medical help right away. Don’t hurt him or my kids ever again.”
“Very well. Maxwell, take Langston to his island and see that he gets medical help. Assure him that we won’t hurt or take his kids from him ever again.”
I lose consciousness. The next time I awake. I’m on a new plane, alone with Maxwell.
“Don’t worry, Corbin won’t kill Liesel,” Maxwell says. “He won’t kill her.”
The darkness pulls me under once again.
30
Liesel
Now that Langston, Rose, and Atlas are all safe, I’m able to focus on what comes next.
“What happens when we find the treasure?” I ask.
“You’ve realized that Langston isn’t going to be able to help you get the treasure on his own. The way your father set up the game was to make sure you’d fail if you chose to find it with him.”
“Yes, I realize that,” I say.
Corbin sips his whiskey. “Good, so let’s talk. I want the treasure. You’ll help me get it, and then I’ll let you go free. You’ll be free to live your life with the man you love and two gorgeous children.”
My heart sinks thinking about what that life would be, but it doesn’t matter. That would never be my life, no matter if Corbin intervened or not.
“No.”
Corbin frowns.
“Take me instead. Langston gets the treasure; you get me.”
He looks at me slowly. “You figured it out, didn’t you?”
I nod.
“Tell me,” he says.
“In my father’s story, the one with my mother, I was the treasure—the treasure that ruined their marriage, the treasure that wasn’t worth it. The treasure isn’t money or jewels. The treasure is a child, my child. The treasure is Declan.”
Corbin nods for me to continue.
“You never had Declan. You tricked me into thinking you did so I would go after the treasure for you. You just want to hurt me. You want to take all of my kids away from me so I’ll feel the pain Phoenix went through. The pain you all went through because of my father.”
