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We didn’t need words at that stage.
There would be time for words later.
Time for “I’m sorry” and “Please forgive me”—both on my part.
Right now, it was life or death, and we had to make sure we walked out of here the former as opposed to the latter. Reed stepped up beside the both of us, scanning my body with his eyes and squeezing my hand for a brief second before he slipped away, edging closer to Chad.
Out of the corner of my eye, I noted Karl doing the same thing off to the other side, little by little, moving closer to the danger.
“All right,” Jade announced loudly, holding her arms out. “We’re here. Let’s talk.”
Chad sat back against the table of the booth where we’d just been sitting, the gun in his hand hanging by his side. “Talk? Who said anything about talking?”
The sirens had started, and there was more than one, growing louder and closer. We were about to descend into absolute chaos—police, fire, ambulance, probably SWAT.
Up until this point, other than a few angry outbursts, Chad had been surprisingly controlled, and concern began to twist in my stomach, thinking maybe all the law enforcement about to pull up was going to be the thing to send him over the edge.
But then I saw his eyes light up.
He could hear them too, and it wasn’t fear that was spreading across his features.
It wasn’t regret or surprise even.
It was joy.
Glee.
This was what he wanted.
An audience.
He’d said earlier this was his plan.
“What is your goal here?” Jade questioned, pulling Chad’s attention back to her. She stepped in front of me, still holding her arms out like she was offering to be some kind of target practice. “What do you want from thislittle moment?”
“My goal?” he echoed as several red and blue flashing lights began to dance across the walls of the diner and a handful of police cars pulled to a hard stop right outside the windows. “My goal is to make sure my name is cleared.”
He was here to change the narrative that I’d put out in the world by leaving him at the altar for Reed. If it had happened at any normal wedding, only friends and family would have known. But when the story of Reed and I being married became headline news, so did the story of the guy I left at the altar.
Chad’s embarrassment was online.
It was on gossip channels, podcasts, and social media.
That was the information out there about him, and now, he wanted that narrative to be different. He wanted it to show him in a light he thought was stronger. And he was going to use all of us here, and all the people watching out there, to prove a point.
All because of me.
Because of what I’d done.
“I’ll get you a stage, a microphone, anything you want,” Reed tried to bargain. He was close now, and I wasn’t sure Chad had even realized what was happening. He was too focused on Jade and me and on the people outside—the cops, the cameras, the attention. “I’ll give you the biggest platform in the world so you can explain your side. You simply have to let everyone in here go. Come on, man, isn’t that what you want?
Chad turned his narrowed glare on Reed. “You think it’s that easy to undo the damage she’s done?” He lifted the gun, pointing it across the diner at Jade and me. “Anyone can say words. It’s actions that mean the most. They are the proof of who someone is, and I’m about to make sure everyone knows just who I a—”
Karl and Reed dived at the same time, their bodies hitting Chad from both sides.
Bang.
The gunshot boomed within the small space, the explosion sending sound waves resonating through me, so loud and intense it felt like it was shifting the organs around inside my body.
