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“Penelope.” I said, slowly turning from the sink to look at my baby sister where she stood by the door, staring at me with anger and contempt in her eyes.
“I’m going to need to ask you ladies to leave.” She said loudly, drawing confused looks from the other women in the room as they froze in place, unsure of what to do. Anger flashed in my sister’s eyes momentarily before she reached into the pocket of her sleek full skirt and pulled out a gun. “What part of that did you dumbasses misunderstand?” She roared and the women in the room sprung into action, running over each other to get out the door. As the last woman ran out the door, she briefly looking over her shoulder at me with scared eyes. Penelope locked the deadbolt on the door and took a menacing step towards me. “Finally. A moment alone with the precious and pompous Mrs. Jones.” She sneered.
“Pompous?” I grit out between my teeth, “That’s rich coming from you.” I said, refusing to show an ounce of fear as she took another step towards me. The rational part of my brain told me that Gunner was right outside the door and would soon be breaking it down to get to me after the alarming way those women ran from the room. But with each second that passed, the doorway was suspiciously empty.
“You just couldn’t leave well enough alone could you?” She said, taking another step as she waved the gun in my direction. I tried desperately to remain calm and strong but my skin crawled being this close to a gun and I ached to cover my stomach with my hands but didn’t want to tip her off to my condition.
“What do you mean?” I asked, stalling.
“You got what you wanted, you got Maverick Jones. Did you have to take down our entire family in the process? I never did anything to you, yet you’ve set out to destroy me just as easily as you will them.”
“I haven’t set out to destroy anyone Pen!” I rushed out, “Maverick wants his revenge against our parents and Jake for the lies they’ve spun to him over the years, but he’s never spoken ill of you, not once. He doesn’t intend to come after you.”
“Even if he doesn’t directly ruin me, he’s ruined the Valentine name! We didn’t all marry billionaire playboys Cora! My family won’t weather this storm unscathed.”
“So what are you going to do?” I asked her, once again eyeing the gun as she waved it around in her agitation. “Shoot me? Kill me? Will any of that make it any better for you? What about your kids?”
“Don’t you dare talk about my kids!” She screamed and rushed forward, jamming the gun into my chest as she grabbed a handful of my hair to hold me still. I grabbed her arm as I tried to find something, anything at all, familiar in her eyes to prove to me that she was the same girl I’d sang to every time there was a storm or let have all of my popcorn at every movie theater because it was her favorite treat. But I saw nothing but my father looking back at me. “My kids will never get a fair chance at life thanks to their dear Aunt Cora.”
“You’re wrong!” I rushed on, trying desperately to speak to the compassion in her as my skull burned from her grip in my hair. “You’re the one ruining their futures. Doing this, right now. Pen, please just put the gun down and we can work this out, you and me. I know for a fact that you weren’t treated right over the years by them, anymore than I was. If they were evil to me, they were evil to you too. We can find common ground here!”
“Shut up.” She snapped and pushed me backwards until my hips bent backwards over the porcelain sink. “Shut the fuck up. The money from the insurance policy will protect my kids from your husband’s wrath, I don’t need anything else from you.”
“What policy?” I asked angrily, feeling my blood start to boil at the absurdity of this. “What are you talking about?”
Where was Gunner?
Or Maverick?
“The life insurance policy Mom and Dad have on you. They took it out years ago and all you had to do was walk the fuck out into traffic like a good fucking girl and we never would have had to resort to this.” She sneered, jamming the gun up under my chin and pressing my head back further. “But you couldn’t even die like you were supposed to, big shocker there. You were never capable of doing anything right, not even keeping a lovesick boyfriend that had already committed ten years to you. You went and fucked that up too.”
“Fuck you.” I bit out, shoving at her, but she was bigger than I was, and had better leverage over me leaving me unable to dislodge the gun from under my chin. “You hired the truck to mow me down?” I accused and sneered at her. “You say I fuck everything up, but you couldn’t get that right, could you?”
I didn’t see it coming, but she swung the gun out wide and back towards my face, whipping me with the but of it and pain reverberate off my skull and left me dazed and staggering. I brushed my fingers over the spot that she’d hit me in my hairline and felt the gooey warmth of my blood spilling. Nausea rolled through my system, and I fought back the urge to throw up and tried to focus on her face and more importantly the gun. My vision was blurry and distorted as I blinked trying to see clearly.
“They were so right about you, you know?” She sneered, leaning forward until her face was right against mine with her hand still locked in my hair and the gun pressed back under my chin. “Selfish doesn’t even begin to describe you. This world will be better off when I rid it of you.” She said and pulled the hammer back on the gun menacingly as I tired to push her arm away, but my head was swimming still and making it hard to connect. “Any last words you want me to tell your doting husband after I make him a widow?”
“Yeah.” I gasped and blinked again, swallowing down the bile in my throat. She paused as I tried to focus again, and I knew this was my chance. “Tell him you’re as big of a cunt as our sister-in-law.” I growled and shoved her with all of my strength, dislodging the gun from my chin a second before it went off.
The bullet ricocheted off the wall behind me, shattering the mirror and raining glass shards down on us. The noise was catastrophic, and my right ear exploded in vibrating pain, but I couldn’t focus on that at the moment. We each had both of our hands wrapped around the gun fighting over it where she held it pointed directly at the ceiling. It went off again as we struggled, the bullet shooting out the light above us but neither of us would let go.
I knew I was going to run out of stamina and strength before she did thanks to the size difference between us and that I needed to make moves quickly. I brought my knee up hard against her stomach and she groaned and doubled over in pain. “Bitch.” She spit and headbutted me, sending more stars forward to dance in my vision as my arms lost their leverage against her. The barrel of the gun was pointed directly at my face as I shoved her again.
“Cora!” Maverick screamed from the other side of the door as a loud crashing noise vibrated through it, like it threw himself against it trying to get it open. The sound of his voice empowered me, and I screamed as I pushed her hands away from my face with all of my strength. Four more shots rang out from the gun as we battled, peppering the stalls and mirrors around us as she slammed me into the wall and tried to get her foot against my stomach to kick off of me. “Cora!”
Maverick screamed again as he repeatedly slammed himself into the door, I looked at it out of the corner of my eye and noticed it barely budged with each hit.
Fucking thing was steel, and I was running out of time.
“Get off me.” I growled reaching forward with my mouth and latched my teeth into her arm, biting down hard until I felt my teeth sink through her flesh as blood spilled into my mouth.
The nausea rolled through me again at the metallic taste, but I didn’t let go, even as she screamed in agony and tried to shake me off. “I’m going to fucking kill you.” She sneered and threw me onto the ground, straddling my waist as she leaned her chest against the back of the gun and pushed my arms down until the barrel was aimed directly at my chest. She laughed maniacally as the door behind her exploded open and then gunfire rang out through the room again, shot after shot echoing around me as I waited for the pain to come.
But it didn’t.
My sister’s eyes widened before her arms went limp and she fell forward, covering my body with hers and pinning the gun between us as I gasped under her weight. “Help!”
“Cora.” Maverick swore as he ran to me and lifted Penelope’s body off of mine, throwing her across the room in a heap before lowering himself down next to me, “Oh God.” He gasped and I clawed at him, desperate to get off the floor and into his arms.
