“Fuck off! I’ll have you killed!”
“Your hitman was a monster, Blake,” I say. “You condemned an innocent woman to a living hell.”
“Who sent you?” he yells, his voice getting hoarse. He’s veered off to the right. There are no exits this direction. I crack a smile. I’d forgotten the simple joy of hunting down someone who deserves it. “I’ll pay you triple!”
“Money won’t save you now, Blake,” I say. My tone is plain, matter-of-fact. I’m less of a person, more of a force of nature weighing down on my prey with each passing second. “How long did you think you could hide behind it?”
“Anything you want!” he blurts, his voice sounding panicked. I nearly catch up to him, and he fires blindly at me again. I feel nor show any fear. “My girlfriend’s a model, you want her? I can get you anything!”
“Are they even people to you, Blake?” I ask, hearing him starting to pant as he runs out of breath. “Your sister? Your father?”
“Is that what this is about? Did that bastard send you?”
“You’re the only one I’m here for, Blake,” I say, a hint of deadly pleasure in my tone.
He’s clearly running out of places to run. I hear another gunshot go off, and I can only imagine he fired blindly into the dark. I decide it’s time to close in on him. I get low and start moving quietly and swiftly, as if I were chasing prey that were really worth my efforts.
All this for Eva, and only Eva.
Because if it were me, I would just end him swiftly and silently.
It isn’t long before I get sight of him again, and I let him see me as I rush toward him. He’s not an athlete, and he’s already sweating and white-faced. He turns and runs full-tilt away from me.
As he does, he comes to a small hill, and in the slick mud of the late night’s fog, he slips.
I watch him tumble down the hill after a few frantic tries at getting his balance back. I hear a howl of pain as he twists his ankle on the way down, and he rolls through mud and dew before coming to a stop under a statue of the Virgin Mary.
I stand over the hill, glowering down at him as he pushes himself up and glares back at me. His gun isn’t far from him, but he can see mine as plain as day. If he has any sense left in him, he won’t reach for his.
After what I’ve seen of him, though, I won’t put it past him.
“What the fuck is this about?” he snarls up at me.
“I know everything about you, Blake Brighton,” I say, taking a few slow steps toward him. “But I want a confession from you. I want to hear what makes your heart so cold that you killed your own sister, a woman who’d done nothing in your life.”
“Nothing but get in the way!” he shouted, but his voice cracked into a thin squeak. “Is that what you want to hear, you fucking psychopath? I’m the one who grew up with Father, I’m the one who deserves this!”
“Your father wants to give her everything,” I say, taking another step. “Why do you think that is?”
“I don’t fucking care what that senile old ass is thinking,” he spits.
“He probably thinks that you’re a monster!”
Those weren’t my words.
Both Blake and I look right, along the base of the hill.
Eva steps out from behind one of the tombstones, a gun in her hand aimed at Blake.
“What the fuck?!” Blake gasps, trying to push himself further away but only backing into the statue. “You—you’re supposed to be dead!”
“He locked me away, Blake!” she shouts, holding her gun tight, a furious look in her eyes. “Your hitman just... just took me! I had a life, and you just took it away from me for... for just being there!”
His face twists into a sneer, like a bratty child’s. “That’s the whole problem! Father saw you and decided he liked you more, for no reason! But you can’t prove anything, anyway.”
I pull out a copy of the thumb drive full of the evidence I’ve collected and photographed over the past few days and hold it up with a smile.
“If we didn’t have evidence, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. You should have invested in better security at the offices.”
His face turns red.
“This is exactly what I mean. I could tell from the moment I saw you that you were always going to be this bitch who got in the way of everything I’ve had going for so long! You and Father have no idea how to make it in the real world. I’m the one who made the connections I had to, and I’m the one who called the hard shots.”
“People like you are the great evils in the world,” I say in a dark tone. “You’re no better than that hitman of yours, preying on vulnerable people because you have the power and can make a quick buck from it.”
“You want to be the bigger man, Blake?” Eva says, scrunching her face up and holding back so, so much anger. “Come in with us. I’m going to take you to court for everything you did. For what you did to me, what you tried to do to our father, for every other person you’ve screwed over.”
Blake is breathing heavily, glaring daggers at Eva. For a moment, I could swear I see his face softening. He clenches his fist and relaxes it again, then looks to the ground before him.
In the blink of an eye, he jumps for his gun.
Eva stands back and aims at him as he picks it up and swings the barrel toward her.
There’s a gunshot.
The next instant, blood is splattered across the Virgin Mary’s plinth as Blake slumps to the ground, a hole from my bullet in his head.
I lower my gun and look over to Eva, who stares at the scene with wide, shocked eyes.
Immediately, I make my way over to her and take her in my arms as she lets hers fall to her sides, stunned at everything.
“He’s…”
“He was going to shoot you, Eva,” I say, and Eva hugs me, but I don’t feel the shudder of sobbing in my arms like I expected. I look at her face, and there are tears there, but she hardens her face and nods, looking at Blake’s body again.
“No, you’re right,” she says, her voice soft but firm. She’s got far, far more mettle under the surface that’s only just starting to come out. “If anyone caught up in all this deserved it... it was him.”
I smile down at her, and she looks up at me with shining eyes that soon give way to a smile of her own. She sniffs and wipes a tear from her eye.
“Is it... does this mean it’s over?”
“He’s gone, Eva,” I say, squeezing her softly, “he can’t hurt anyone again. He was at the head of all this. We have so much evidence against him at this point that there will be no question that we acted in self-defense.” I brush a lock of hair out of her face. “Don’t trouble yourself with that, though. Not yet.”
She nods, fighting to hold back tears as she hugs me one more time. Even in the darkness and gloom of the graveyard, with her right there by me... I feel at peace.
The next moment, it shatters.
A buzzing comes from Blake’s body.
We both look over and see a cell phone half-hanging out of Blake’s pocket, lighting up as it receives a call. We exchange a glance before I walk over to it and pick it up.
“It’s the hospital,” I say, and Eva looks over to me with a concerned look on her face. I hesitate, then answer the phone.
“Hello?”
“Hello, Mr. Brighton? We need you to come down to the hospital immediately to see your father.”
My face goes ashen, and I look to Eva, and I watch just as much dread wash over her as well.
I close the phone.
“We have to go to the hospital. Now.”
20
Eva
“We’ve got to hurry!” I exclaim, reaching to grab Sal’s hand and pull him away from the scene. “Come on! My dad might be in trouble!”
“I’m coming,” Sal says quietly, “We’ll get there as fast as we can.”
The two of us break into a run, leaping over headstones and slipping on the icy, dewy grass in between the graves. My h
eart is pounding and I can hardly keep one thought straight in my head at a time, I’m so overwhelmed with emotion. On the one hand, I’m conflicted about watching my half-brother die in front of me. Should I feel sad about that? Or just relieved?
It’s over, right? I don’t have to hide anymore. Sal is a professional. He can find a way to figure out what to do in the wake of Blake’s demise. There has to be some kind of mafia protocol for covering up a murder like this. But then that reminds me that Sal is on the run, too. And killing Blake surely will put him back in the spotlight somehow. What if the mafia finds him hiding with me? Where do we go? What do we do?
And at the moment, there is an even more pressing concern: what’s happened to my father? I know the hospital would not be calling Blake in the middle of the night like this unless it was an emergency. To be honest, it fills me with rage to know that Blake is my dad’s emergency contact, considering that his own son tried to have him killed while he lay helpless in a coma. I can’t blame my father for that, really, though. I get the sense that he doesn’t have many close allies in his life. Blake was probably the extent of his affection, and even that seems to be somewhat strained.
Strained enough that Dad might try and push me to the center focus of the will and shove Blake aside. I suppose Blake must have royally screwed up handling the manufacturing business to deserve that. And people like Kirk Brighton are all about the money. Blake probably nearly ran the industry into the ground or something. I never got the sense that he was particularly responsible.
I shouldn’t think ill of the dead, I tell myself. Sure, Blake was a rude, spoiled, narcissistic, mildly sociopathic asshole who paid for someone to try and kill his own sister and father. But still, it seems morally fucked up to think so badly of him after watching him crumple to the ground in front of me. Some small part of my heart aches for the loss, but it’s overshadowed by the relief that washed over me the moment I realized he would no longer be able to hurt me or my father. Sal did what he had to do. He always promised he would protect me no matter what it cost him, and he held up his promise.
We finally make it back to the car. Sal throws it into gear and we rumble off down the road, leaving the misty, cold graveyard far behind us as we motor along to the hospital. Sal reaches over to take my hand. I’m trembling all over, and not just from the biting cold.
“Are you alright?” he asks kindly. I shrug.
“I-I don’t know yet. I think I’ll just have to see what’s going on with my father before I can tell you one way or another,” I admit.
“I’m sorry about your brother,” Sal says, glancing over at me with genuinely sad eyes. I give his hand a squeeze and lift it to my lips to kiss it. I force myself to not cry.
“It’s not your fault,” I murmur.
“It is. I shot him, Eva. For that I am so sorry,” he says firmly.
“You did what you had to. You protected me, Sal. You saved my life yet again. He might have been my brother—half-brother—but it’s not like he was ever my family, really. We didn’t knew each other. And besides, I think he kind of burned that bridge when he hired Geoffrey Mink to do away with me,” I explain. “Blake was an awful man and it makes my skin crawl to think that we might have been cut from the same cloth.”
“You weren’t. Blood does not necessarily make a family. Hell, some of my associates within the mafia were much closer to me than any of my real family. I was never close to anyone related to me. We were family by happenstance. Love makes a family. Loyalty makes a family. Blake showed you neither love nor loyalty, so you should not take his passing so hard. Of course, I can’t tell you how to react to such an event. It’s not my place to say,” Sal remarks.
“I’m just so conflicted. I know I should be sad, and I suppose maybe a very small part of me is sad to see him die this way. But overall? I’m relieved. I hate that I feel this way, but I do. I’m glad he can no longer threaten me or you or my dad,” I confess, feeling guilty about celebrating Blake’s death.
I wince, thinking about my father. “And my dad… I don’t know what is going to happen. I’m so scared, Sal. I know he and I don’t have a relationship. Certainly not a father-daughter relationship. I’ve spent my whole life kind of hating him, actually. But seeing him so helpless and fragile in that hospital bed just shook me to my core. I’ve already lost my mother, who was the shining light in my life. I’ve been so alone until you found me. And now I’m about to lose my father, too. I just don’t know how to feel. I was just starting to think I could maybe forgive him and maybe we could move on and build a relationship. But now he’s probably dead and I’ll have missed my chance.”
“You don’t know that for sure,” Sal comments gently. “Don’t give up hope just yet.”
“I have hope,” I reply. “But it’s dwindling. You know how my life is. Things just never seem to work out in my favor. If not for you, I would be dead.”
“Maybe that’s the secret,” he says suddenly.
I frown in confusion. “What do you mean?”
“You said you have bad luck. That your whole life is just bad luck. But maybe you need me to turn your luck around,” he says, giving me a compassionate smile. I chuckle even as tears burn in my eyes.
“Maybe so,” I agree. “But Sal, I’m so scared. I don’t know where to go from here. What if my father is gone? What do we do? Blake is dead, but won’t the police come sniffing around? And what about the mafia? How are you going to lay low? What if they find you?”
“Whoa, whoa. Those are questions for later on, Eva. Don’t worry about that stuff right now. We have other things to worry about for the moment. Don’t worry about me. I can handle myself, I promise. I’ve been in hotter situations than this before—I can work it out,” he assures me. I’m not totally convinced, but at the moment, I have to trust him.
When we arrive at the hospital, the sun is just starting to peek over the horizon. The sky is gray and lilac, the air is cold and still. The snow has stopped falling and is now caked on the icy ground, making the world slippery. Sal and I are both pretty experienced with walking on ice, and still we have to move maddeningly slowly across the parking lot. It’s infuriating, because I’m so impatient to just get into the hospital and go find my father.
Finally, we reach the entrance, and I take off down the hallway with Sal following close behind me. A nurse comes after us, shouting, “Stop! Where are you going? Security!”
Sal swivels around and gives her a venomous stare and she falls silent. We bolt for the elevator and take it up. I tap my foot impatiently the whole way up, and as soon as the doors part open I’m running again. I push past a nurse holding a stack of files and paperwork, causing her to lose her grip on the pile. Papers go flying everywhere and I wince, feeling terrible about it, but I can’t stop moving now. I’m so close to my father’s suite.
I look back over my shoulder and call out, “I’m so sorry!”
Sal is hot on my heels when I get to the hospital room door. It’s locked.
“Sal, it’s locked. It’s locked. What do we do? I have to get in there!” I murmur frantically.
He looks around wildly, then makes a break for the nurses’ station. He looks down at the young nurse at the desk and demands, “This young woman needs to see her father. He’s gravely ill and we received word that he’s in bad shape. Please let her in. Now.”
The nurse looks taken aback by his request, frowning at him. “I’m afraid I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Sal’s losing patience, I can tell. He points at me.
“This woman right here! Kirk Brighton is her father and he is in that hospital bed right now. Eva needs to see him before he… before he slips away. Do you understand?”
The nurse looks positively terrified of Sal, but she quickly hops up and grabs a set of keys from the desk, walking briskly over to the door where I’m waiting. My heart is racing and I can hardly breathe, terrified of what I might see when we get inside.
The nurse looks at m
e with utter confusion and says, “Your father is not dying, Miss. He’s waking up.” I blink a few times, not quite registering what she’s said.
“He’s… what?” Sal asks, stepping forward. The nurse takes a step back, clearly afraid of Sal. To be fair, he is pretty intimidating.
“Yes. Mr. Brighton stirred from his coma about an hour ago. He’s still not quite all there at the moment, but his vitals are good and he’s been mumbling a name. ‘Eva.’ Still, you must be cautious and realistic in your expectations. Are you really his daughter?” she asks, biting her lip.
I nod. “Yes. I know I’m not his emergency contact, but I’m his daughter. I’m Eva.”
She gives me a soft smile, tilting her head to one side slightly. “I can tell. You have his nose. I just never knew he even had a daughter.”
“Nobody really does,” I sigh. “Can I please go in and see him? I’ll be gentle and patient, I swear. I just need to see him.”
The nurse looks back and forth between Sal and me, sizing us up. Between my heartfelt plea and Sal’s intimidating stare, she gives in. “Fine. But don’t get him all riled up. He is definitely improving, but we don’t want anything to knock him off-kilter.”
“Got it,” I say. “I promise.”
“Okay,” says the nurse. She unlocks the door and we burst inside. I walk up to my father’s hospital cot, parting the curtain. At the sound of the curtains rustling, he finally opens his eyes. At first, he only squints at me in confusion.
“R-Rosemary?” he mumbles. My heart jolts at the sound of my mother’s name.
I shake my head. “No, Dad. It’s me, Eva. Your daughter.”
His eyes go wide and a smile crosses his face. He struggles to lift a hand, beckoning me to come closer and sit down next to him. I walk up and sit on the stool, taking his cold hand in mine. My father stares at me, his eyes charting my every feature as though he’s trying to memorize my face.
“I can’t believe you’re really here,” he mumbles in disbelief.
“Of course, I’m here,” I tell him. “I had to see you.”
Abducted: A Mafia Hitman Romance Page 17