The Risk: Kings of Linwood Academy #3

by Rose, Callie

  Fuck.

  If I had thought I might elicit an ounce of pity from this man, I’ve been playing the wrong tactic. And from the way he’s talking, he wouldn’t be swayed if he knew who the guys’ parents are either, knew how connected they are. In his mind, it’ll be easier to deal with the fallout from our murder than with letting us escape this house unharmed.

  My mind churns, feeling sluggish and too fucking slow as I try to come up with something to say, something that can appeal to this man’s twisted business sense. Because this isn’t personal. He might be angry at Hollowell, but he’s not doing this to punish us or out of some personal vendetta against us. Niles D’Amato has simply decided he can’t allow us to live.

  So how the fuck do I convince him otherwise?

  I can’t think of a single damn thing—besides begging, which I’d do in a heartbeat if I thought it would stand a chance of working.

  But in the end, it doesn’t matter. Because we run out of time.

  Before I can open my mouth again, the sound of a car’s engine filters softly in from outside, and I see Judge Hollowell’s beige car rolling up the drive. If he looked through the large living room windows right now, he’d see five people sitting on his couch and another five gathered around them. But he doesn’t, and a second later, his car glides out of sight, headed toward the attached garage on the other side of the house.

  “Watch them. Mitch, with me.”

  Niles jerks his head at us, then at the man standing in front of Dax. The two of them move toward the foyer, splitting up to frame the wide doorway between the entryway and the dining room. I don’t know what’s beyond that, but I’m guessing Judge Hollowell will have to pass through the dining room on his way to the rest of the house.

  My heart thuds hard and heavy against my ribs as I watch the smaller door at the far end of the dining room. The open floor plan of the house means I can see almost the entire dining room and part of the room beyond.

  My gaze stays rooted to it.

  Waiting.

  Waiting.

  There’s the soft thud of another door closing somewhere else in the house, and I think I forgot to breathe somewhere in the middle of this because my chest is tight and I feel lightheaded as I keep staring at that single spot.

  And then Hollowell appears.

  He doesn’t realize anything is amiss at first, doesn’t know we’re there. He walks with the casual, confident stride of someone who thinks he’s alone. But halfway across the dining room, he looks up and freezes.

  A dozen different emotions flash over his face at hyper speed, and then he pivots on his heel to run. But Niles and Mitch are already on him, emerging from their places framing the dining room entry and grabbing him so fast he barely makes it a full step. The one named Mitch is big and burly, even bigger and rougher looking than Niles, and he grabs Hollowell by the neck, spinning him back around and shoving him to his knees. The judge lands with a sharp crack against the hardwood floor.

  Niles and Mitch both level their guns at him, and Hollowell looks up, breathing hard.

  I got my wish.

  This man who always looks so calm and collected, so unruffled, doesn’t seem quite so put together now. His suit jacket is twisted, higher on one shoulder than the other from Mitch’s rough handling, and there’s a glint in his eye I’ve never seen before. I recognize the emotions behind it though.

  Fear.

  And desperation.

  I wanted to see Hollowell come undone. I wanted to see him afraid of something for once in his goddamn life.

  But I can’t enjoy it. Not when the boys I love are sitting next to me with guns aimed at their heads.

  “You know, I thought after all we’d been through together, you would’ve had a little fucking loyalty,” Niles tells the man kneeling in front of him, his voice hard with anger.

  “I do. Of course I do.” Hollowell shakes his head, and he’s already mastering his emotions, the mask of casual control returning.

  “Do you? Because these goddamn kids came to my place of business today with a very interesting story. Do you know what that was?”

  Hollowell’s gaze flashes to the five of us, lingering the longest on me. I can’t tell what he’s thinking, but his expression seems to tighten somehow. Then he shifts his attention back to Niles, charm radiating from every pore. And although I hate the motherfucker, I have to admit he knows how to be charming—how to disarm people with his voice, his words, and his pleasant smile.

  “No, I don’t know. But that girl is the one whose mother was arrested for Iris’s death. So I presume she’d make up any story about me she could think of to try to turn you against me.”

  “Is that what you’d presume?” Niles tilts his head, taking a step closer to Hollowell. “You’ve handled this whole thing pretty fucking poorly, Alex. Iris seeing us together was bad enough, but now you’ve got five more teenagers who know about us? I didn’t tell you to get rid of her just so you could replace her with five more potential leaks. Especially ones you never told me about.”

  “I was handling it,” Hollowell says smoothly, although when his gaze darts to me again, I can see a wild look in his eyes. “I was taking care of everything. Just like I took care of Iris.”

  “I don’t give a fuck about that girl!”

  Niles’s voice booms out so suddenly and so loudly that it makes me jump. Chase presses closer to me, as if he’s trying to lend me strength and keep me still all at once. All three of the men surrounding us tense, their muscles bunching slightly.

  Hollowell shrinks a little as he looks up at Niles, who seems to have grown in his anger, towering over the other man.

  “I give a fuck about the fact that after relying on us for years while you built yourself up in this town, you thought it would be wise to run for office on a campaign promise of wiping me off the face of the earth,” Niles continues. His voice was like a gunshot before, but now it’s as quiet and deadly as the purr of a lion.

  Hollowell freezes. Then he shakes his head, letting out a small, disbelieving laugh. “That’s not true. I would never do that.”

  “Are you sure?” Niles purses his lips. “It would be quite a coup for a new Senator. The kind of feather in the cap of your career I know you’ve been craving.”

  Judge Hollowell licks his lips. The calm is cracking again, his charming half-smile gone. He’s on his knees before the two men, and now he clasps both hands together, making it look so much like he’s praying that it sends a shiver up my spine.

  I’d be fucking praying too.

  He opens his mouth once and then closes it, then tries again, smiling disbelievingly like he can’t believe they’re even discussing this.

  “I…” He shrugs helplessly. “I might’ve mentioned it to a few private donors. In the context of a broader need to be tough on crime. But no promises were made. That’s just how politics go. You tell people what they want to hear in the moment, but no one keeps their word on every campaign promise.”

  Niles shakes his head, taking a step back from the man on the floor. “Oh, you don’t have to tell me about people breaking promises.”

  He lifts his hand, the one holding the dark gun with the silencer on the end, and I see the moment Hollowell registers it, see him open his mouth, see his body lurch forward with desperation.

  But then a small metallic noise sounds as the gun fires, and Hollowell jerks back.

  24

  My body jerks right along with Hollowell’s, shock and adrenaline pouring through me so quickly it’s like getting punched in the heart.

  His head and shoulders hit the ground with an awful sounding smack, his arms not even moving to brace his fall. His legs bend awkwardly underneath him because of the angle of his fall, and thick red blood begins to spread across his chest, staining his suit-jacket and crisp white shirt.

  Fuck.

  Holy fuck.

  Bile races up my throat, filling my mouth with a metallic taste, and I swallow several times to force i
t back down. Everything inside my body wants out, as though if I won’t flee, my internal organs are planning to make a break for it on their own.

  Hollowell’s dead. Or if he’s not dead yet, he will be soon.

  It happened so fucking fast. Between one half-second and the next, a bullet carved its way through his body. Between one heartbeat and the next, he went down.

  I wasn’t ready.

  He wasn’t ready.

  I could see it on his face. Right up until the moment Niles D’Amato squeezed the trigger, Hollowell still thought he could talk his way out of this. That all the bluffing and the mind games and manipulation he was so good at could turn this around, could buy him one more free pass out of facing the consequences of his actions.

  But his free passes have run out.

  There’s a sharp wheezing sound in my ears that I only vaguely realize is the sounds of me trying to suck air into lungs that are closing up, tightening painfully.

  Niles nudges Hollowell with his shoe, looking down at the angled body with disgust. “Goddamn you.”

  Then, as if that’s all the benediction the man deserves, the tall man lifts his head, his demeanor changing entirely, as if his anger at Hollowell evaporated in the same moment the bullet pierced his chest.

  “This was not how I planned on spending my fucking day,” he tells Mitch, shaking his head as he squats down next to Hollowell’s still form. He tucks his gun away and holds out his hand. “Gimme your piece.”

  Mitch pulls his weapon out from where he tucked it in the waistband of his pants and hands it over.

  Niles wipes the dark metal of the gun with a small cloth he pulls from his pocket, then grabs Hollowell’s limp right hand and wraps it around the grip, pressing each finger lightly against the metal to leave a clear print.

  He rises to his feet and returns the gun to Mitch, jerking his head in our direction. “Now them.”

  I feel Chase stiffen beside me, and Linc makes a noise low in his throat. The three men in the living room with us all relaxed the second Hollowell went down, and now one of them steps forward, looking at Niles expectantly.

  Their boss flicks his attention to us, and I see… nothing in his eyes. His gaze travels over me the same way it might move over the stuffed fox by the mantel—with mild interest but no compassion at all.

  “Get ’em up. Spread ’em out. It needs to look like a home invasion gone wrong, not an execution.” He turns to Mitch, who holds the nine millimeter loosely in his hand. “Don’t make any of the shots too clean. Make it look like a scuffle broke out.”

  “Yup.”

  The burly man nods once, then steps into the foyer as the other three men haul us to our feet. I’m shoved roughly into a corner of the living room next to Linc, and he puts his body in front of mine as if he’s trying to shield me.

  No. No. No.

  My hand is shaking as I reach for him, but before my fingers can brush his arm, the man who dragged us here steps back, raising a hand to gesture Mitch over even as he addresses us.

  “Spread out. More space between you.”

  Linc growls again, and I think he’s about to launch himself at the man. But he can’t. He can’t. Death can come so fast and so decisively, but I’m not ready for it yet. Please, please, God, not yet.

  Taking the decision out of Linc’s hands, I move two steps to my right, separating our bodies a bit. I can see Niles’s other men arranging the rest of the kings around the room, spacing them out so the cops won’t find us all on a line in the couch with bullet holes in our heads.

  Niles has already moved on from all of this. He’s got his phone out and begins speaking to someone on the other end in a low voice as Mitch strides over to us. Even though a foot and a half of space separates us, I can feel Linc’s entire body tense, and I know he won’t let them do this easily.

  I also know I can’t let him die.

  We need an opening.

  Just a little window of time.

  Anything.

  When Mitch stops in front of us, he aims the gun at Linc first, and I hear Chase start to yell something across the room.

  “No! You son of a—”

  Now. Now!

  I jerk to my right, making a move to bolt around Mitch. He lets out a startled, angry noise and swings his gun toward me.

  And that’s the opening Linc needed.

  The dark-haired boy springs into action, launching himself at Mitch in a full-body tackle. They grapple for the gun as they go down and it flies out of their hands, skittering across the hardwood floor.

  Linc and Mitch hit the floor hard.

  And chaos breaks loose.

  My aborted motion to the side to draw the man’s attention has left me off balance, and I go to the floor, landing painfully on my wrists. But that fall saves my life.

  A bullet whizzes over my head, slamming into the wall with a dull whap. Time seems to slow down and elongate, seconds stretching beyond meaning as everything happens at once.

  The man who dragged River over to the far corner of the room pulls out his weapon and fires, and River hurls himself to the side, landing hard and rolling behind a massive chair. The bullet meant for him strikes one of the large floor-to-ceiling windows, and it shatters in an explosion of glass.

  Dax makes a grab for the man in front of him, and another gunshot goes off as they wrestle for control. But the man wrenches away and plants a heavy foot in Dax’s abdomen, shoving him backward and raising the gun again.

  A noise like nothing I’ve ever heard before cuts through the air, like pure, soul-deep pain given voice.

  Before my brain can process the sound, Chase launches himself at Dax, shoving his twin out of the way as the man fires another shot.

  Dax stumbles, and Chase’s body jerks backward.

  Just like Hollowell’s did.

  He falls, his body going limp.

  Just like Hollowell’s did.

  No.

  No.

  No!

  Dax hurls himself at the man who shot his brother. The man fires again, but not fast enough. The bullet clips Dax’s shoulder a second before he lands on his attacker, fists flying.

  I don’t hesitate. I’m up and moving, my gaze narrowing to a single point, a single goal. I have to get to Chase.

  As I sprint across the room, something slams into me from behind, and for a second, my stunned brain thinks I’ve been hit by a car. The force of the strike sends me staggering forward, sends pain reverberating through my skull. I hit the floor awkwardly, too stunned to protect myself from the hard landing, and when I roll over, my double vision shows me two versions of Niles D’Amato standing over me, twin guns pointed down at my face.

  I grope wildly around me, but there’s nothing but slick floor and the corner of a soft rug. Nothing to fight with. Nothing to defend myself with.

  Now there’s emotion in Niles’s eyes. Now he looks angry. We fucked up what should’ve been simple, and now he’s going to put a stop to it. He adjusts his grip on the gun, raising it to aim at my head.

  Two high-pitched metallic thwips cut through the air.

  But my body doesn’t jerk.

  It doesn’t hurt.

  My muscles all tensed in anticipation when he aimed at me, and they feel like they’ll never unclench as I watch Niles topple to the floor like a felled tree, the back of his skull blown out by two bullets.

  Beyond him, halfway between the dining room and the large foyer, Hollowell lies on the floor, a messy smear of blood trailing behind him like the track of a giant red slug. He drops the gun and collapses, slumping back down onto the polished hardwood floor in a heap.

  Another thwip of a gunshot sounds above me, and it’s like that sound frees me from the prison of my shock, allowing other sounds to penetrate my rattled brain.

  The man who was shooting at River goes down, screaming as he clutches his leg, and River takes the opportunity to lunge out from behind the chair, aiming and firing again. This one hits the man’s chest, and he goe
s still and quiet.

  The whole room goes quiet.

  For a half-second, I think it’s just that my mind has stopped processing sounds again. But then it slowly dawns on me—no one else is shooting. No one else is screaming.

  Dax is straddling the man who shot his brother, and the guy’s face is almost unrecognizable.

  God. His brother.

  Chase!

  I scramble up—or try too. The blow to my head makes the whole world tilt and darken in my vision, but I don’t stop trying to reach him, crawling across the floor as Dax joins me.

  Judge Hollowell wasn’t dead. He was shot, but he wasn’t dead yet. Maybe Chase isn’t either.

  Whether or not Hollowell is still alive now, I don’t know. And I won’t be the one to find out, not until I know if Chase is alive.

  Dax meets me halfway, and the two of us half crawl, half stumble over to his twin as sirens cut the air in the distance.

  Maybe they’re coming for us.

  Please let them be coming for us.

  Because the pool of blood under Chase is too big. Too fucking big.

  And it’s growing.

  25

  “Fuck. Chase. No.”

  The words are a primal grunt as Dax falls to his knees beside his brother. The two boys who usually appear so alike look as different as night and day right now. Chase’s golden skin is pale, washed out, and he looks thinner somehow.

  Is that possible? Or is it just the slackness of his face that makes him seem that way?

  There is one way they look similar—they’re both dressed in red. The wound in Dax’s shoulder pours blood, and even though he hasn’t lost nearly as much as Chase, it doesn’t look good.

  “Put pressure on it!”

  My voice doesn’t sound like my own as I glance around wildly, but River is already there, pressing the heel of his hand hard to Dax’s shoulder. Dax is trying to get to Chase, but with the way his right arm is hanging limp, he won’t be able to put enough weight on his brother’s wound to staunch the bleeding.

  I lean over the copper haired boy with the too-pale skin, my fingertips slipping over slick red blood as I try to find the bullet hole. It’s high on his chest on the left side, but it can’t have hit his heart. It can’t have. A pulse flickers in his neck, fluttering beneath the skin, and I press both my hands to the place where blood seeps from him.