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Just as Jeffrey moves towards the backstage area, shots ring out over and over, echoing off the walls and the ceiling and causing further panic amongst the trapped room’s inhabitants. I take Fisher’s moment of distraction, jump up and land my shoulder into his abdomen, tackling him like a linebacker and taking him down hard as his finger presses the trigger of his gun. The shot goes wide, and the gun slips from his grasp and skates across the floor under a table. I rain blows down on his face with the butt of my gun over and over until I hear a crunching sound and he stops trying to fight me. His grip on me goes slack before his eyes roll into the back of his head. Blood is pouring from his nose, mouth and temple, and his face looks like ground hamburger meat. My lungs are filled with fire as I straddle his large body while trying to catch my breath.
A woman hiding beneath a chair cowers before me, her eyes wide and terror across her face. She watches with tears drenching her face and her hands covering her mouth to silence her sobs as I move off of Fisher’s body and crawl towards his gun.
“Get the hell out of here, go! Move under the tables towards the exit.” I pant at her. She trembles like a leaf but follows my instructions, crawling on her hands and knees under the table next to her.
I return my attention again to Fisher lying in a bleeding mess on the floor next to me. He’s still breathing but out cold. The desire to put a bullet in his brain fills me. This fucker came after my little viper and me with intentions of hurting us. I would be doing the world a favor by ending his miserable life. My hand clenches on the gun, my finger tightening on the trigger as another shot rings out across the room and grabs my attention.
Clark is fighting Jeffrey Cain on stage, his fist raining blows to Jeffrey’s head. Just when it looks like Jeffrey will go down, he fires a shot that hits Clark in the thigh and his leg buckles, but not before landing a hard punch to Jeffrey’s temple. The man goes down like a ton of bricks, hitting the floor of the stage with a loud thud. Clark drags his bleeding leg across the stage, raining another blow to Jeffrey’s head. I watch, mesmerized as his head rises and slams again into the floor, and the back of his skull cracks, blood gushing from the wound.
“Jaxon, are you alright?” Clark bellows from the stage.
I move quickly in his direction, my eyes scanning the room for any further shooters. There are injured people all across the space, some begging for help while others try to crawl out of the room to safety. Just as I am about to make my way to the stairs leading to the stage, the hard barrel of a gun is shoved into the back of my neck and has my body stopping cold. Ice-cold fear fills me, fuck did Fisher get up again? I showed the fucker mercy, and look where it has gotten me.
“You picked the wrong woman, Jaxon. Look at all the damage she has caused.”
“Kalista…” The name leaves my lungs in a whoosh of air. My shoulders tighten painfully and rise towards my ears. I can hear my own blood racing through my ears, replacing all the sounds of chaos surrounding us.
She taps the barrel against my neck again, pushing forward against my skin and causing sweat to break out across my back. Her other hand brushes the side of my neck, her nails trailing down my skin, causing the hairs on my body to stand on end and disgust to flow through me. I try to hold perfectly still in fear that she will accidentally press the trigger and shoot me. “You loved me first, Jaxon. I would have given you the world. I would have been the perfect wife to you, but you wanted that whore to grow your empire. Now look at you, you will die here with a bullet lodged in the back of your skull. A name forgotten except when they speak of tragedies. But don’t worry, I am going to make sure that bitch dies a painful death with you.”
I try to turn around, but the barrel of the gun pushes into the nape of my neck more tightly. I’m still holding my gun firmly in my grasp, but there is no way I can use it in my current position. Another shot echoes through the space from behind the curtain, Kalista’s body jumps behind me at the sound, and her gun moves away from my skin. I take advantage of the moment and turn sideways, pushing my gun into her breast as hard as I can. She quickly resets her hold on her own gun, pointing it back at my head.
“Drop your weapon Kalista, or I swear I will blow a fucking hole in your overpriced tits.”
Tears slide down her pale, distraught face, her mascara is in dark clumps on her lashes and running in black rivers down her cheeks. Her hair hangs limply down the sides of her head and looks unwashed and disheveled. Her lips are bleeding and looking ragged and chewed. She looks like she’s lost a ton of weight, her shirt hanging off of her, and bones visibly protruding across her collarbone. She’s a fucking mess and looks deranged standing here holding a gun on me.
“How could you have done this to me, Jaxon? You let her ruin my whole life! She destroyed me! You walked away from me as if I was nothing?” Snot runs down her face and over her lips.
She looks utterly pitiful and a mere shadow of the woman I once cared about. The woman I once thought I might have loved but never understood the true meaning behind the emotion until Stella. Now I know with certainty that I have never loved another person like I love Stella. She consumes every part of me, her being intertwined with mine. Two hearts beating in separate bodies but one in every way possible. She is my heart and my home and this bitch and her father are trying to take her away from me. To shatter with a bullet, my heart’s desire and my one reason for living.
“You did this to yourself, Kalista. You tried to fight a war with a wolf, when you are nothing but a fucking worm. She is a queen, and you are dirt under her feet.” Anger rages through me to pull the trigger, to fire bullets into her body. “It was you that left the chicken and tried to have her stabbed, wasn’t it?” A whimper leaves her lips at my harsh tone. I press the gun further into her large breast, and a look of pain crosses her features. How could I have been so deceived? I thought her incapable of orchestrating this, of going after Stella. I believed her to be too weak, but I guess she found the strength when she had nothing left to lose.
“I wanted you back…I wanted my life…back. She took everything from me!” A shuddering breath leaves her as more tears cascade down her face. “You are mine!”
A snort leaves my mouth and my upper lip curls in disgust, my warm breath trailing over her haggard face. “You are a cunt, and were a plaything, Kalista. Something pretty to stick my cock in. You were never going to be my queen. You are nothing to me. She is my everything, my heart and my soul. I will never return to you, you never had me. It was always her.”
Kalista’s hand trembles, the gun still gripped tightly in her hand and pointed at my head. I take a deep breath, prepared to die here in this moment with the knowledge that I love Stella. That I caused all of this, put all of it into motion the minute I accepted the deal with her father. The minute I forced my little viper down the aisle, I began this tragedy that would be my bitter end.
All my hopes for expanding the Stratford empire, all my original reasoning for doing all of this, was in the end, worth nothing. None of it of the slightest importance or significance in light of the love I have for Stella. Loving her will be the greatest accomplishment of my life and the only thing of value that I leave behind into the world. My only solace is that I will take Kalista with me into hell. Hopefully, if there really is a god worthy of my prayers, he has seen fit to save my little ice queen and get her to safety.
“NO!” Rage crosses Kalista’s face and her finger tightens on the trigger. My eyes meet arctic blue eyes, filled with emotion, terror, and sorrow. My heart is ready to explode with fear and devastation. How could this be our end? The story had just begun for Stella and me. A fucked up fairy tale to end all tales.
I close my eyes, prepared to die here and now, the vision of Stella crossing my mind. How beautiful she is, even when she’s irate with me. Fuck it, especially when she’s breathing fire in my direction. I love her, I will always love her. I squeeze my finger, just as the sound of another shot rents the air around us.
43
Stella
“In a world that wants women to whisper, I choose to yell.” Luvvie Ajayi
Myarmvibrateswiththe bullets leaving the gun. I pull the trigger until it clicks empty and watch as River falls backward to the ground, blood quickly soaking the dirty concrete around him. My ears ring loudly, the sounds of bells in my head so deafening that I feel like they will explode. I shake my head vigorously, trying desperately to clear my vision. I drop the gun to the ground, falling to my knees and trying desperately to catch my breath. My chest burns with the breaths that I was holding back. Tears fall down my cheeks, making my vision blurry again.
“NO!” The scream is loud in my ears from the cunt in front of me. I watch as my husband, my soulmate and the only man I will ever love, closes his eyes as a tear trickles down his high cheekbone. “MINE!” Time seems to stand still and my finger presses down on the trigger, before the gun goes limp in my arm.
He’s dead.He’s lying mere feet away from me dead. I killed another person, another man trying to kill me. When will this all be over? Will they keep coming for me, trying to end my life? Will I ever be safe?I am a murderer…I am a murderer.There will be no redemption for me now. My heart and soul were already stained with the first man’s life that I took, and now another.How many more stains before I am done?
My sightless eyes focus on my surroundings, and the ringing in my ears settles down to a more bearable level. I can hear the shrieking of sirens around me and flashing lights are visible out of the corner of my eye. There are men’s voices loud surrounding me, shouting orders. Ones I can’t make out. Are they here to kill me too? I have nothing left to fight with. My hand moves to the empty gun on the ground next to me. My fingers don’t seem to connect with it, missing its shape by mere inches as a searing cold sensation fills my body, and I force myself to swallow the scream that is desperate to escape my throat.How many more will I have to kill, so that I can live?
“Mrs. Stratford! Mrs. Stratford, ma’am. I need to get you to safety and medical assistance.” My eyes meet dark green ones in a face I vaguely recognize as one of Clark’s men. He’s crouching down next to me and applying pressure on my shoulder. I didn’t even feel him touching me until now. His face is laced with worry, his features stern as he stares at me.
