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“I set up everything at the offices. It’s ready. They should all be there.” Roland spoke in gasps in between manoeuvring the car with a death grip on the steering wheel, sweat beading on his brow.
“Who should be? What’s happening?” Joe’s voice shook. “I never signed up to be involved in anything like this.”
“It’s too late for second thoughts.” Roland smiled grimly as we skidded into a turn, and I recognised the road as the one that led to the Alstone Holdings offices. Zayde was so close now that I could feel the vibrations of his bike, the rear of Joseph’s car reflecting in his visor.
The Alstone Holdings offices were right up ahead of us when it happened.
There was a huge boom, and what looked like a fireball shot into the air. Then, as Roland slammed on the brakes, there was a loud cracking sound, and right in front of my eyes, part of the building collapsed in on itself.
A sound tore from my throat, raw and animalistic. There was no way anyone could survive that.
“Even better than I’d imagined,” Roland said, his words muffled by the ringing in my ears, and then someone yanked my door open.
I blinked again and again, the cloud of dust from the collapsed building obscuring my vision.
“Here.”
Joe? When did he get here? What was he doing in the back seat with me?
He slipped something between my wrists, allowing them to separate, and I wasted no time in peeling off the duct tape. When I was free, I slid across the seats to the open door. I staggered outside, dust drifting through the air and settling on me, getting caught in my hair, my brows, my eyelashes. Frantically wiping it away from my face, I straightened up, ready to make an attempt at running towards the remains of the Alstone Holdings offices. Sirens cut through the ringing in my ears, louder and louder as they drew closer.
I couldn’t breathe.
“This is even better than I’d planned.”
Spinning around, my plan to run abandoned, I saw Roland slumped against Joseph’s car. He was sucking in deep, gasping breaths, but there was a huge, deranged smile on his face that was at odds with his actions.
“What did you do?” Before I knew it, I was right in front of him, squaring up to the man who had once been my parent, the man that had tried to control me for so long. The man that had beaten me so badly and, even now, was still trying to roll the dice in his favour.
“I used what was left of our money to pay someone to plant a story and for someone else to rig the building with enough explosives to cause a collapse. It was laughably easy. Our finances may have taken a hit after what I’ve done, but there’s no doubt in my mind that once people see that the mighty Alstone Holdings has fallen, they’ll come crawling back to Hyde Consultings. It was a gamble that I was willing to take because I knew it would pay off.”
The motorbike roared behind us, and there he was. My avenging angel, a black streak against the devastating clouds of dust, so fast and so powerful. He skidded to a stop right in front of us, jumping off the bike in one smooth movement, his knife already at Roland’s throat before I even had a chance to blink.
“He needs to die,” Zayde rasped, and I hated myself for hesitating. The man was a monster, I knew that. But he was mydad. Or had been, once. And he’d been Tim’s dad, too. Ending his life…would that make me as bad as him?
“You’re all so naive.” Roland laughed, his Adam’s apple moving against the knife. His gaze was fixed on the rubble of the offices, his finger circling the pieces of ash drifting through the air. “Look at what I did. You won’t be able to get them back now.”
“Baby.”
I met Zayde’s eyes, reading the intent in his gaze, swirling with hesitation. He wanted to act, to make Roland pay, but he wouldn’t do it without my permission.
I loved him so, so much in that moment, even more than I had before.
“An eye for an eye.”We both turned to Roland, who was grinning maniacally again, despite the knife digging into the underside of his chin. His gaze fixed on Zayde. “My son died because of your rivalry, and still, you took away everything that mattered to me. Christine. My reputation. My business. I had to even the scales, so I ruined Alstone Holdings. Now you’re the only one left. Even if I die here today, you’ll have to live with the knowledge that you’ve lost everything.”
“No.Youwill die here today. But first, you need to pay for hurting the person that means the most to me.” Zayde moved so fast that Roland’s scream registered before I realised what he’d done. “You used that hand to hurt Fallon, and now you’ll never be able to touch her with it again.” Roland screamed again, and this time, I heard the crunch of bone as Zayde twisted his hand violently and then pinned it up against Joseph’s car window, using his knife to sever the rest of the hand from his arm.
“I’m gonna throw up,” Joseph mumbled, stumbling away from me, covering his mouth.
“You’re going to burn for what you did.” Roland was nearly incoherent with rage and pain, and as I stared at him, I couldn’t find any traces of the severe, composed man he’d once been. I couldn’t recognise this person as my father. He’d…well, he was clearly a desperate man driven to desperate measures, but there wasn’t a single part of me that felt any sympathy for him.
I stepped into his line of sight. “You are a despicable person,” I said, and my voice was steady. “And you arenotmy father.”
His hate-filled gaze flicked to mine for the briefest moment before it returned to Zayde. “Didn’t you hear me?” he spat, his words garbled. “An eye for an eye. You’re going toburn!”
“Do you ever fuckingstop talking?” Creed appeared from nowhere, his fingers flicking out, and a line of scarlet slashed across Roland’s throat.
Roland gasped out a breath that sounded like he had bubbles in his chest. He staggered forwards, clutching his neck, red bleeding beneath his fingers. I took a step backwards as he fell to the floor in front of me.
