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“Youvärdjas—youbastard! Tell me what the fuck you did to my brother,” Rasmus demanded, “or I’ll put a bullet in her head.”
“Wait. You don’t need to do this.”
“Too late. I already have. If you believed we were just going to allow you to murder my brother and get away with it, you are very much mistaken.”
I glanced around at all the bloodied bodies on the dance floor. Where were my family and my men? They should have all been armed. I spotted Leo huddled on the floor, his body shaking. Fuck, had he been hit? I didn’t know where my mother and father were—had our men managed to get them out of here when the shooting started? My cousin, Sly, was still here, standing by the bar, a gun in his hand. Trouble was, one of Rasmus’s men also had his weapon aimed at Sly.
“I know him,” the man pointing the gun at Sly said. “I recognise him from the port.”
My mind blurred with confusion. What was he talking about? We hadn’t visited the port when we’d made our trip to their country.
“What port?” I asked. “The Port of Tallinn?”
The man nodded. “Yeah, that one.”
I looked to Sly. “What were you doing there?”
Sly shook his head. “He’s mistaken. He doesn’t know what he’s talking about.”
Why would Sly have been in Tallinn without me, and without my knowledge?
“When was this?” I asked Rasmus’s man.
He jerked his chin. “A few weeks ago.”
I stiffened. “When our money was switched.”
Something dawned on me, and I addressed Sly once more. “That’s why you shot Kaspar, wasn’t it? You knew he’d eventually reveal your secret. You weren’t worried he was going for the gun, you wanted to keep him quiet.” Something else occurred to me. “Did you even try to get anything off his phone? Or did you destroy it, too?”
“I destroyed it,” he admitted.
I remembered how I’d phoned Sly the moment I’d realised the money had been switched, and the way he’d acted as though he couldn’t tell there was anything wrong with it. He must have hoped I wouldn’t have noticed somehow.
I shook my head. “You must have thought I was an idiot. How could you betray our family?”
Sly’s entire demeanour changed, going from relatively calm to defensive and angry. “Do you know how you treat me? Like a fucking second-class citizen. You Cornells are top dogs, right? But I’m not a Cornell, am I? I’m a Sylvester, son to Samuel Cornell’s sister. You think you’d treat me like family, but I’m paid no differently to Muphy or Damon. You call a Cornell family meeting, and am I involved? No. It happens behind closed doors, and then you simply tell me what parts you think I should know. Or give me instructions like a goddamned lacky. I wanted one thing for myself, to elevate myself. If you hadn’t treated me like this, I would never have been pushed to this point.”
“You’re saying it’s my fault that you ripped off your own family? You got people killed, Sly.”
He scowled. “Since when do you care about people getting killed?”
“Did you kill Harvey, too? You son of a bitch!”
“No, I swear it. I wouldn’t have hurt Harvey.”
“Why the fuck should I believe you?”
“Because he was always a far better cousin to me than you’ve ever been.”
I was hugely aware of the fact Rasmus still held a gun to Hallie’s head. I’d have sacrificed anything, or anyone—even myself—if it meant she would be safe.
I turned to Rasmus. “Sly is the one who killed your brother. He’s the one you want. He killed Kaspar to protect his secret—that he was the one who stole the money.”
Hallie’s fingers clawed at the arm around her throat. I still had my gun aimed at Rasmus, but now I swung it round. My cousin’s eyes widened as he realised what was going to happen. I squeezed the trigger, and a single gunshot cracked through the air. The bullet hit Sly in the forehead, sending him flying back. He crashed against the bar and then slumped down to the floor, so he was left sitting, his legs spread and his chin on his chest, like a drunk who’d passed out on the street, if it wasn’t for the hole in his head.
I spun back to Rasmus and Hallie. “We’re even now,” I told him. “Sly killed your brother and now I’ve killed Sly. An eye for an eye. Now let her go.”
I couldn’t let Hallie die. My heart would die with her. Still, he hadn’t released her. She stared at me, begging with her eyes, tears streaming down her face. I wanted to roar and scream and start firing, but I had to keep my cool. Hallie’s life depended on it.
