Chapter 30

Corrin

Sevina’s rustling dissolves my mother’s face. “Where’re you going?”

“Gotta pee.” She produces a blanket and tucks me in. Grasping the sheet I let out a content growl. Mom used to do it. Just like back home—safe and sound. Sevina’s hand dips into my hair and my eyelids slide shut.

She’s never tucked me in before…

I tear my eyes open, a carpet of dead bodies fading away, and, holding my blanket next to my chest, bolt up straight. The room is vacant but for capos girl, who sits on the sofa with a cup of tea in her hands. “They’re gone,” she says in her frayed voice.

Sevina’s going after Will.

“Oh, fuck.” I scramble to my feet. “For how long?”

“Twenty minutes?” She shrugs. I squat for my holster and a gun I left under the mattress.

“You keep your gun under the mattress?” A shriveled cough mars her chuckle.

“It’s a personal preference.” My hand grasps air. Sevina took it.

I put on my parka and fish out my cell from my pocket. Dial. An anxious buzzer beeps seven times before I end it. “Do you have a weapon?”

The girl points to the cabinet beside her sofa. I find a black pistol in the drawer, with two bullets in the mag. “Thank you.” I throw the sheet on her shoulders before I exit.

I prepare to use the gun the following minute when I enter capo’s room, but the man’s asleep, sprawled on his sofa. I tiptoe closer and inspect his littered desk. A few bundles of keys lie here. I grab all of them and back out of the room, then bolt downstairs into the garage where by the capo’s car I curse at myself. Besides the car keys the door of this vehicle requires a palm scan or coding. I never thought nor noticed this old thing had this installed…

I swing away and with the handle of my gun shatter the window. An alarm erupts into my ears. Angling my arm over the glass, I crack the door from the inside, sit into a glass-peppered seat and fiddle with the keys until I find the right one. Then, just as I hear capo’s shouts grow in volume, I speed out of the garage, tapping the console screen for the map. I remember the address.

I dial Sevina’s number again and immediately end it. Moron. If she has a plan in mind a call could jeopardize it.

What the hell am I going to do if she gets herself killed? What if Father kills her? I’ll kill him…

I squeeze the wheel, erasing the thought from my head. No. I’ll never kill again. I’d rather die.

But if it’s for her, to save her? I will have no choice.

I have to face him.

Sevina’s not going to die. This shit won’t roll that far downhill for the girl I’m indebted to to die. The girl I swore to protect throughout this quest. We helped each other, but our deal isn’t settled. Yet how can I protect her if she left me herself? Does she even need my help?

I pull to a stop a few blocks away, get out and pry open the trunk. It’s no surprise when I find an array of weapons, almost like in Will’s car. Among the weaponry my eyes latch onto a familiar shape—a blaster. I could use it if I run out of bullets. Hastily, I stuff it into the back of my waistband, then switch the magazine in my pistol and grab a taser.

Once I remove my parka morning chill bites through the long-sleeved black shirt I’m wearing, but I stay uncovered as extra layers of clothing will get in the way.

I shut the trunk and jump back in.

The place I arrive at among the endless maze of warehouses is a collection of buildings. Rolling down the window, I drive up to the gates.

“Hi,” I say to one of my father’s men.

He frowns, staring. “I thought you were dead.”

I chuckle. “Really? Was I?”

The man puts his finger to his comm. “Boss, Corrin Kaynes is here.” My heart skips a beat while the longest second of my life follows. The man waits and it seems there’s no reply. “Get out,” he orders.

If I exit the vehicle he’ll retrieve my weapons and it’s finished.

My hand jumps on the gear and I launch the car backward, screeching to a stop a dozen feet away from the wired gates. They don’t look particularly sturdy, not even automated.

Oh, I hope they’ll break.

I slam the accelerator and the vehicle pitches forward. The wired gates tear open right in the middle and I’m in the territory, racing to the front of the biggest hangar. I turn the wheel sharply, skidding right through the bay doors.

The people further in the hangar turn their heads at me; more than two hundred feet away stands Dan, Quint, seized by two men, and my father, surrounded by his security, with my silver gun trained at Sevina’s forehead.

My vehicle skids to a stop and I spring out, brandishing the gun and training it on my wide-eyed father. Only a second later, after two of my father’s men train their weapons on me, I realize that in my frenzy I pulled the blaster instead of a bullet gun.

The silver weapon still on Sevina’s head my father’s eyes twitch at Dan, his wrinkled face filling with agony and the same expression I last remember dancing across his features— disappointment. Out of excuses, Dan hangs his head. Both of my Father’s sons failed him now.

“Here, I completed your trial. No matter how much you hated me, I’m here,” I hiss with despise, watching my Father at the end of the sights. “Your own son you wanted to murder. And you ordered his brother to do it.” The blaster is on and activated, but I can’t imagine myself pulling the trigger.

“Lower your weapons and let me talk to my son, you idiots,” Father snaps at his two men who have me at the gun points. They comply. “Are you going to kill me? After everything I did for you?”

“You did nothing for me!” I erupt, the blaster in my palms aching.

“Oh, you have no idea,” he chortles, mad, “I gave you a future and you flushed it down the drain you ungrateful brat.” I clench my jaw. Oh, how much his words hurt. “So, what do you want?” The light bounces off of the silver weapon when he nudges Sevina’s forehead. She’s trying to breathe evenly and snatch a glimpse at me. “Spare her? Kill me?”

“Step down,” my voice is hard, yet my heart is in my heels and only because of Sevina and Quint I summon the bravery to talk. “Dan’s to take over.”

“Daniel?” Father recoils, all but laughing. “Who failed to kill you, who betrayed me, and you.”

“He didn’t betray me.”

“No? Then why do I know what’s so special about this bitch.”

“What?” I gape at Dan. He just looks at me blankly. “You told him?” God, he was the last person I trusted in this family. Sevina was right and he did betray me. So much for a brother who saved my life and agreed to help me.

“I guess we’re all disappointed,” my father says.

“Then I’ll take over.” The tone of my voice is resolute to say the least, a forced display of strength. Inwardly, I almost gag at how I loathe doing anything with our family anymore. “You are a tyrant, and like all tyrants do you will fall.”

My father gazes at me and I can’t understand what goes through his head. There’s hate but there’s also pity and sadness. It’s as if he failed.

His body jerks and his face twists, as if he ruptures inside. Deliriously, he chuckles, whipping the weapon at me. I pull the trigger and I think I hear a simple shot drown in the electric whizz that escapes my weapon.

My Father’s growling scream echoes through the warehouse as he drops to his knees, panting over his shot hand. But I shot his leg. A gray suit and hair come into focus behind him— Marty with a gun directed at my father.

Sevina reaches for the silver gun and aims it at my father as well, just as seven security men brandish their weapons, all on Sevina and Marty. I don’t fail to notice how reluctant their actions seem to be.

Seeing that Sevina has her weapon on my heaving Father, Marty bellows. “Don’t shoot!” He pivots, his sights landing on Dan. “Or I’ll blow his brains out.” My brother stands unmoving, observing us.

I’m thankful for whatever made Marty change his mind.

Steadily, exchanging glances with each other the men comply. And I figure, just how Dan said, that half of them are unhappy and uncaring nor for Dan, nor for my Father. At least not enough to engage in a firefight over Dan when the boss is already shot and at the gunpoint. They’d rather support Marty, who’s third in charge.

I sigh.

Now Marty has control, and maybe I won’t have to take over and he will. Or maybe, I’ll manage to come to some kind of terms with Dan and we’ll decide what to do.

Either way. It’s finished. Elated, I glance at Sevina who’s watching my panting father, then I turn my head at Dan, unable to believe that nobody in the standoff died.

A shot rattles the air.

My father’s body succumbs to the ground and a trail of faint smoke dissipates from my silver gun. My silver gun in Sevina’s hand.