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I would survive, and they would learn.
MELODY
A chill ran up my spine when he sat back down.
Ethan was quiet.
His whole demeanor cold and merciless, which was why I couldn’t help but wonder, had he used us again?
I thought back to that night. When I had her in view of my scope, my finger on the trigger, it was so cold and so windy, but I was sure I could take her out with one good shot. However, Ethan had been in the way of the shot, purposely making it hard for me to get a hit. Then, I thought it was just bad luck on her part that she’d turned away from him to talk to some woman. But looking back, that no longer felt like the case.
Now it felt like he had guided me to shoot her where he had wanted me to shoot her. No vital organs, not the head, but somewhere that would force her to stay behind and heal.
“No…he wouldn’t? Why in the world would he do that? There is no way he knew. Right?”
“You…you never meant for her to come along, did you?” Liam whispered as the plane began to move. He also must have been having the same thoughts as me. “You were always planning on leaving her behind but knew she wouldn’t agree.”
Ethan didn’t look at us; instead, he watched the runway outside.
“You were mad at us for not trusting you, but you were also mad at me, not just for firing the shot but for the type of bullet I used,” I said, still trying to piece it together.
“I should have known you’d be that ruthless,” Ethan finally spoke.
Liam coughed. “We’re ruthless? Ethan did you set your wife up to take a bullet—”
“I do not know how many times I have to keep telling you all,” he said, slowly turning back to look at us emotionlessly. “I will do any and everything I need to do to get what I want.”
Dear God.
I didn’t even know what to say.
“There is a line, Ethan,” Liam said.
“Where? Says who? That’s not in the family rules,” he said, still watching us. “Rule forty-eight, Love your wife, above all else. I love her. That does not mean I have to give her everything she wants. That doesn’t even mean that I can’t shoot her. I love Calliope, but it does not mean I will not stop her if she is risking herself and our children.”
I paused for a second.
“Children?”
“She doesn’t know she’s pregnant. I found out after she was poisoned,” he replied, looking out the window again.
And I remembered all the puking she’d done. I thought it was just because she was in pain and pushing herself. She must have thought so, too. That was why Ethan was always watching over. That’s why he was studying plants in his office. The cocaine and drugs were to distract from whatever medicine he was making to give her.
“The fact that she’s been able to hold on to our child this long after everything she’d done was pushing fate already. I didn’t even have time to tell her before. She came to the ball, and when I realized what was happening, when I saw that look on face after she had killed her father, I knew then that I couldn’t tell her about our child,” he muttered, frowning. “She was at the finish line; nothing would stop her. Nothing…or one. When I spoke to you and realized that you were both out there, waiting to take the shot, the plan just popped into my mind. I’d watched you shoot a thousand times, Melody, like all good snipers, you hate the wind, and you have a habit of leaning to counterbalance before you shoot. In a split second, as I walked down those stairs, I knew if I just moved slightly, there was a chance you’d take that shot.”
Once again, he had used me—used us.
“What would you have done had I not taken the shot?” I gasped.
“Exactly as I did now,” he replied coldly. “Because, of course, she would still be stubborn. I didn’t just do it because I wanted to save her and our child. Though I cannot lie, it was a very big part of what made me change our plan. All these attacks on our family so far made me wonder more about her stepmother and father. There was no way they didn’t have a final attack planned for our family. Are they staying in Italy? Why? Killing just a few of us isn’t the goal—they want the whole family. So, what else do they have planned in Chicago? We can’t be in two places at once. The only way to end this is to cut them off at both ends. I need Calliope there. She is the only person who can gather both the Irish and the Italians and the family to fight if need be.”
I had no words.
He loved her, but just like Ethan loved all things, it was in a twisted sort of way. Everything he had simply boiled down to the fact that he didn’t want Calliope to die or abort their child to win, and knowing her personality, she very well could have done both. She had an obsession with winning over Siena. Ethan used that obsession to his advantage. In the end, Ethan wanted the people he cared about under his thumb, in his house, following his rules.
Like puppets on strings.
“Ethan. She may never forgive you for this,” Liam replied, shaking his head. “In her mind, you both were equals, and now you have stomped on her head. You’ve destroyed the trust between you both.”
