AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I got halfway when something caught the overhead light. A glint of something shiny. Something familiar.
I glanced up at Chloe before digging my fingers in and pulling out a metal tube with a rounded end, like an elongated capsule. It was connected to a small, plastic device.
Her mouth dropped open. For the first time in I couldn't remember how long, she seemed genuinely surprised.
I won't lie, so was I.
"That fucking asshole," she growled. "He dared to come after me?"
"You didn't seem too worried when you thought it was just me he tried to kill," I said dryly.
She took the capsule for a closer look. "It's more personal when someone tries to kill you. Especially when you didn’t realisethatsomeone hates your guts."
For some reason, her words actually stung.
"I don't—" I started to say.
She glanced up at me. "You can't finish that sentence, can you?"
I pressed my lips together. "Chloe, I don't hate your guts. I hate this situation. I hate that in order to get the one thing I want in this world, I have to step over you."
She opened and closed her mouth a couple of times. "And now Zachary is trying to step over both of us."
"Yes, he is." We could agree on that at least.
"Are we going to let him do that?" She placed the capsule back inside the teddy bear and covered it with stuffing. "We should get rid of this before that goes off. I don't want to assume it failed. It might be on a different timer to yours."
I glanced around the room.
"Open the window."
She frowned at me. "I don't —"
"Open the window!" I didn't wait for her to move. I picked up a chair and slammed it straight into the glass. It cracked, but didn't break. Of course it didn't, the windows here were a couple of layers thick. Not quite bullet-proof, but close to it. Thank fuck they weren't bullet-proof, I'd never get through that. Not with a chair.
I pulled it back and slammed it into the window again. And again until finally a small section broke. It wasn't much, but it would have to do.
I grabbed up the whole teddy bear and shoved it through the hole. It dropped out and onto the ground below. Grabbing Chloe by the wrist, I pulled her down low to the floor. I threw myself down beside her, landing hard on my shoulder. I winced with pain but manage to throw my arms over my head.
"What the fuck—"
Her words were cut off by a bang loud enough to rattle the glass in the windows on the floor below this one. That was followed by a cloud of dust and smoke.
I lay with my face pressed to the hardwood. My heart pounded. My body was damp with sweat. I struggled to get my mind around what just happened.
When I was finally able to speak, I said, "Are you flattered now? He came after us both." I coughed lightly as smoke drifted in through the hole in the window.
Chloe choked on a laugh and managed to sit up. Her usually neat hair was in disarray, strands stuck out all over. She swept it back off her face. "How did you know?"
"I guessed," I admitted. "If there were cameras in your room, when would it be better to let off a bomb? He might have intended it just for you, but when the gas didn't kill me, he had to improvise. He could have taken us both out at the same time."
She looked disgusted. "This just got very, very fucking personal." She leaned her back against the side of her bed. I know we're supposed to be competing with each other, but he's pissed me off.” She sucked in an angry breath.
“Why don't we call a truce until we deal with him? Otherwise, he's going to go on using our animosity towards each other, against us. I don't know about you, but I don't want to fight a war on two fronts. If we keep doing that, we both lose."
She offered me her hand.
I looked at it for a good minute before I finally accepted it and shook. "We can't let him take what's ours." Relinquishing control of the family to her would be difficult enough. Seeing Zachary running it wasn't something I could allow. Even if he was a Bell by blood, he'd done something I couldn't forgive. He'd tried to kill me, twice. That really, really pissed me off.
