The moment that he looked more directly back at her, that sorrow was gone.
But it had been there, and it was enough.
It was enough to cut through the reactionary part of him and to wrap around the logical core of him.
And the moment that his logical core was engaged, he knew that there was some piece to this that he wasn’t understanding, and he knew that Victoria was lying to him.
She was lying to him now—not lying to him before. She had betrayed him by bringing him out here and handing him over to Adele, but she was doing it to avoid something else. Was she on Adele’s side? He wasn’t so sure. Was she on her own side and just trying to get out of this situation alive? It was possible. Was she on his side, and he was supposed to know something that he didn’t know? That was possible, too.
He thought about Olivia, and then he thought about Cade. If Norman was right, Cade went everywhere with Adele. But Cade wasn’t here. And neither was Olivia.
Barrett’s heart thudded in his chest. If Cade had Olivia …
He looked away from Victoria, not wanting to reveal the thoughts that were now all snapping into place. If Cade had Oliva, then Victoria would do whatever Adele said to do. But why would Adele want Victoria to act as though she had been with Adele all along? Why not just get Victoria to bring him out here for some other reason?
That answer was simple, and it fit with Adele’s psychosis. She wanted Barrett to hurt. She wanted to cause him emotional pain. She wanted him to feel abandoned and unloved the way that she had when she’d been cast aside.
It was clear to him now—that’s what was going on here. Cade had Olivia, and Victoria was playing along with Adele’s scheme.
She hadn’t betrayed him. She had trusted him to figure out what was happening.
And he had.
The rush of love that he felt for her in that moment was so strong that it overwhelmed the hate he had for his sister. He wanted to grab Victoria in his arms and kiss her endlessly. Make love to her right here on the grass. Make her promise to stay with him forever.
But he did none of those things. He focused on playing the game with her.
“You never loved me then,” Barrett said to Victoria, feeding into Adele’s psychotic need. “This entire thing has been a ruse from the start. Me and you. It was all for her—for Adele.”
Victoria’s gaze flickered as she met his eyes, as though she was confused by his reaction. She was wondering if he knew what game they were playing and how far to push him. He held her gaze steadily, trusting her to know him well enough to realize that while his face was a twisted mask of pain, his eyes were calm and encouraging.
Go ahead, he told her in his mind, willing her to hear his reassurance. Play the part, Victoria. Let’s give her what she wants. I’m with you—whatever you need.
“I never claimed to love you,” Victoria said, her words too soft at first but then carrying a punch by the end of her sentence as she regrouped. “How could I love a man I’ve only known for a few days? A man whose life could never work with mine?”
“I gave you everything,” Barrett said, holding her gaze. “I gave you my secrets. My trust. My love. I wanted to ask you to become my wife, Victoria. And now—now I find out that you’ve been working with my sister the entire time.”
Victoria swallowed hard, hearing him say that he wanted her to marry him. “This was never about you, for me,” Victoria said, punching out the words. “Adele has made it more than worth my while to help her. I never told you that I was anything other than a single mother who would do whatever it took—whatever it took—to keep her bills paid and her child happy. You’re part of a business deal, Rockwell. Don’t get it twisted.”
He didn’t miss her emphasis on being a single mother and doing whatever it took to keep her child safe. It convinced him that he was right, and it gave him the courage to do what he needed to do.
Barrett turned away from Victoria, everything about his expression and his body language making it appear that he just couldn’t bear to look at her anymore. He focused on Adele, focusing not on what she had done to him and to his family, but on what she was right now doing to Victoria through Olivia. He needed to get her to remove that threat without her realizing that he was on to Victoria’s game.
“What do you want?” he asked Adele, letting his voice crack with emotion. “You’ve taken everything from me. Is that what you needed to do? I didn’t even know that you existed, but you destroyed my life piece by piece. You took the agency from me. You took my reputation from me. You took my father from me. My mother. And just when I thought that I was getting it all back and that I had the perfect woman by my side, I find that you’ve taken her, too. Actually, you couldn’t take what was never mine, I guess. But you gave me the idea of her, and that—that is the cruelest thing you could have ever done.”
He was impressed with himself and with the way his voice wavered slightly. It was easier than he thought to get emotional on cue. All he had to do was think about how he would have felt if Victoria really had been an agent for Adele all along and nothing between them was real.
Adele was basking in his every word, a cruel, twisted smile on her age-lined face. “It’s no more than you deserve.”
“For being born?” he asked, demanding an answer from her. “Is that my worst crime? That I was born to replace you? I was never in competition with you, Adele—I didn’t even know you existed. But the competition we weren’t in—you’ve won.” He held his hands up and stepped away. “Congratulations. You’ve broken me. It wasn’t enough for you to take my job and my family. You had to take her, too.”
Barrett let his voice crack as he stepped back from them, darting a pained look at Victoria, then tearing his eyes away.
“You want the agency? You want the Clan?” he asked Adele, reaching into his pocket. He pulled out his keys and threw them at her. “Take them. I’m done here. I’m just …done.”
Turning on his heel, he stalked away.
Every instinct he had was screaming at him, telling him that turning his back on this woman and walking away was the wrong move. But he quashed those instincts, and he kept walking, hoping that he had sold his pain to her and that she would be satisfied that Victoria had done her job crushing his heart.
But just in case he hadn’t convinced her, when he got to his car, he pulled open the passenger-side door instead of the driver’s side door, and he opened the glove compartment, pulling out the revolver he kept there. Holding it beside his head, he pulled the trigger, letting the sound of the bullet echo through the air.
And then he slumped to the ground.
Chapter 35
Victoria
Victoria screamed when she heard the gunshot and saw Barrett crumple to the floor in a heap. The panic that moved through her was so swift and so powerful that she almost fainted. Her heart was hammering in her chest, and her palms were coated in perspiration. She could hardly breathe, her lungs drawing in air in small, short gasps.
Beside her, Adele’s eyes widened, and then she smiled, a deep laugh rising up from within her. The woman clutched her stomach, her head falling back. “Yes! Oh God, that was better than anything I could have imagined. The look on his face. He must really have loved you.” She lifted her head back up, her eyes locking on Victoria’s with their mad intensity. “Oh, he really loved you. And you stood here and broke his heart to save your daughter. I knew that he would be upset—but he killed himself. Oh God, that feels incredible.”
Victoria felt sick to her stomach. The panic had subsided enough for her to remember what Barrett had once told her—that a bullet would have almost no impact on him. The logical part of her brain knew that he probably wasn’t dead. He had caught on to what she was doing some time ago, and he’d been playing along. This, though—this move was a checkmate move.
She was rational enough now to know that he wasn’t dead, but there was nothing to take away the terror of Adele’s reaction. The woman was almost beside herself
with evil glee, and it made Victoria angry and sick all at the same time to know that there could be a person who would take so much delight in the pain of another—the pain of a stranger to her.
“I did what you wanted,” Victoria said, despite the dryness of her mouth and throat. “I crushed him. Broke him. Like I said I would. Now, call Cade. Tell him to leave my daughter alone. That’s what you promised, and I more than earned it. Call him now.”
Adele chuckled, shaking her head lightly. “You did indeed. You certainly earned it. I’ve never felt the kind of pure joy that I felt just now, watching someone break completely. Knowing that I’m responsible for the break. This is what power is, Victoria, and you and your principled friends—my brother and my family. They have no idea what they are truly capable of. If they just tasted power.”
Adele looked out towards Barrett’s body with a softness about her eyes that should have been reserved for something lovely rather than something horrifying. Victoria couldn’t allow herself to believe that Barrett was actually dead. Her head knew he wasn’t, no matter what the rest of her body was doing as her pulse thudded.
Barrett was fine. Olivia might not be.
“Call,” Victoria said, urging Adele again, her voice biting out the word. “Be a woman of your word and call your brother off my daughter. Please.”
Turning her attention back to Victoria, Adele chuckled again. “I really was going to, you know. You did earn it. But I’m on such a high—I don’t think I can. I’ve never felt this …” She waved a hand, looking around her as though she was in awe. “I want more. I’ll call Cade, but you won’t like what I tell him.”
With a grin, Adele reached for her phone and swiped it open.
Victoria shouted, lunging at her. She didn’t care what happened to her—she had to stop Adele from making the call that would end her daughter’s life. “No!” Victoria screamed, knocking the phone from Adele’s hand. “No—you monster! You psychopath!”
Furious, Adele grabbed Victoria’s hair and threw her to the ground, heaving with her anger and the shock of having a woman suddenly launch herself upon her. Victoria was nowhere near strong enough to actually hurt Adele, but she had annoyed her. And she had knocked her phone into the mud.
Victoria was on her knees after Adele threw her down, and the phone was just beside her left hand. She reached for it, wrapping her fingers around it as she rolled away from Adele’s vicious kick. She had Adele’s phone in her grasp, but she knew that would only last for seconds. Adele had already righted herself after missing Victoria due to her quick movement, and she was coming after her again.
Acting on instinct, Victoria rolled again in the opposite direction, just dodging Adele and jumping to her feet.
When she stood and looked ahead, past Adele, she saw Barrett open his eyes and look at her. There was no time to second-guess herself. She had said terrible things to him, and all she could do was hope that she was right that he hadn’t believed her. All she could do was hope that he would back her now and that he could defeat Adele. Victoria had no idea how he would react.
“Barrett—I need you,” she shouted. “She’s got Olivia! Cade is watching her. He’s going to kill her. Barrett—please! I’m so sorry I said—.”
She stopped talking. Barrett was already on his feet, and it was clear that he wasn’t looking for her apology. She had been right—he had known what she was doing, and he had played along with her. For her.
If there had been any doubt in her mind that she loved him, it was gone. She didn’t know how they would work out some of the obstacles in their way, but she knew that they would manage it. Just like they would manage to defeat Adele now and keep Olivia safe. There was no choice—they had to.
Adele had whirled when Victoria had shouted to Barrett, and she stood there now, looking at her brother, whom she had presumed to be dead, and the fury that twisted her features was darker than any that Victoria had ever seen.
“You’re not half as smart as you think you are,” Barrett called to Adele. “Victoria was playing you, and so was I. Do you really think I don’t know this woman you underestimated? Do you really think that I’d take my own life and let you have it all? This is between you and me,” he said, pointing between the two. “And we’re going to settle it now. I’m coming for you.”
With Adele’s phone still in her hand, Victoria stumbled back as both Barrett and Adele jumped into the air simultaneously, their clothes scattering as they both took their dragon forms. Barrett was bigger, but the vibrancy of their green scales was almost identical. The two dragons flew at each other, their jaws clashing as they gnashed at each other and their wings beating against each other’s bodies as they wrestled and tumbled through the air, each trying to get the upper hand.
In awe and with no small amount of fear, Victoria moved further back, dodging the sweep of Barrett’s tail and jumping out of the way of Adele’s wings. For a moment, she was mesmerized by the battle, but then her hand tightened around the phone she was still holding, and she knew she had to try to do something to help Olivia. Everything that she’d been doing had been for Olivia, and now she had to save her.
The phone was already swiped open, and she tapped the screen just as it was about to go dark, keeping it active at the last moment, so that she didn’t have to bypass a password screen. She clicked on the phone icon, her fingers trembling, and then she went to recent phone calls. There was no name that said Cade, but perhaps Adele was too careful for that. Would she have given her brother a code name?
Victoria didn’t know, but she pressed on the most recent name—Cash—and held the phone up to her ear, running further away from the desperate battle so that she could hear Cade when he answered—when he hopefully answered.
He did answer, almost right away. And very cheerfully. “Hey, sis. I did it.”
Victoria’s heart slammed against her ribs. “Did what? What did you do?”
“I took the girl,” he said, sounding puzzled. “You sound weird. What’s wrong with you? What’s all that noise in the background?”
“Shut up,” Victoria snapped. It was instinctive, but she also figured that it would be fairly typical of Adele. “Are you telling me that you have Olivia in your custody?”
“That’s right. She left school, so I took her. Just like you said. You want me to kill her, right?”
“No!”
Cade sounded confused. “What? Yes, you do. You said so. Your voice isn’t right. Something isn’t right.”
Olivia forced herself to stay calm, standing facing the forest, her back to the battle, her palms sweating, and everything on the line. “Cade,” she said, speaking slowly and mimicking Adele as much as she could. “I want you to let the girl go. I’ve …changed my mind.”
“How come?”
“I just have. Don’t question me.”
“Hold on,” Cade said. “What hotel are we staying at? You said to ask you that, remember? If I ever got confused about if you were the right person. You have to tell me, or I can’t do anything you say.”
Victoria wanted to cry and scream all at the same time. She couldn’t remember the name of the damn hotel—she couldn’t picture it in her head. She had no idea what to tell him to make him believe that she was Adele, which he was clearly clever enough to realize was not the case. “Cade, please,” she said, gripping the phone with both hands. “Don’t kill her. Please? I just—please don’t kill her. Don’t kill Olivia. Let me talk to her. I need to talk to her.”
She held her breath, hoping that he was a compassionate person caught up in Adele’s evil ways and not an evil person himself. But she never got to hear his response.
Something hit her from behind, and she pitched forward, face down in the dirt, the phone flying from her fingers. And then pain stabbed through her back, shooting through her entire body and making her scream in agony. Victoria didn’t know what had hit her, but she knew in an instant that she was going to die from it. There couldn’t be that much pain and then lif
e afterward. She felt sick with the pain. Dizzy with it. She writhed on the ground, tossing back and forth, and trying to claw her way out of her own body, as the pain gripped hold of her insides and intensified to the point that she wished for death just to escape it.
Words were pouring from her—curse words, pleas, and more curse words. Victoria threw up onto the ground, her muscles seized, the pain blinding her eyes and exploding her head. And then it was gone. Disappeared. And only darkness replaced it. She slipped into the darkness, wishing she could run towards it just to have relief from the pain, and she heard Olivia calling her name.
“Mom? Mom? Where are you, Mom?”
It was the last thing she heard.
Chapter 36
Barrett
Adele was more powerful than he’d thought. More agile than he’d predicted. She was holding her own, fighting against him, and he found himself continuously rolling through the air, dodging her swipes and reeling from her strikes. She was a fierce fighter, perhaps in no small part because she was furious, desperate, and psychotic. That was always a dangerous combination. It felt as though she was willing to die, as long as she took him down with her.
All of his senses were focused on anticipating her next move and formulating his response to it before it happened, but then he heard Victoria’s scream, and the world stood still.
He pulled out of a defensive roll and turned his dragon head, seeking Victoria out only to see that she was thrashing on the ground and screaming in pain. He couldn’t see any blood flowing from her, but that offered him no comfort—in fact, it was far worse. It meant that Adele had done something to her that he didn’t understand. Maybe that he couldn’t fix.
Barrett whipped around in the air, charging at Adele and tackling her with the full force of his body. She went plummeting to the ground, landing on her back, her underbelly exposed and her wings splayed out on the ground. Barrett spun in the air, whipping his tail across her face, so that it landed against her eye. He whipped it back, thrashing it against her exposed belly again and again.
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