“No cheating,” she says. “Point that thing at me and I’ll blow your lover’s brains out.” She smiles at Luka and Dante. “Same goes for the two of you, of course.”
She leans back, sliding her hand away. I grip the revolver and the agents behind her shift to point their rifles at me.
I raise the gun and point it at the side of my head.
I love you, Dani.
I pull the trigger and the gun clicks, prompting several gasps by the bar. I hear Dani sobbing again. I look over as she collapses against Lucy’s comforting shoulder.
Marilyn sighs with disappointment as I lay the gun back down on the table.
“It’s your turn, Mr. Lutrova.” She pushes the gun toward him across the table. “The killer of snakes,” she adds mockingly.
Luka glares at her. I look over his shoulder at Sofia on the floor. She sits with her head bowed in prayer but her entire body shakes with silent tremors.
“Ci rincontreremo, Sofia,” he says.
Marilyn smirks.
Luka grabs the revolver and rests the barrel against his temple. He closes his eyes and takes a deep breath, hesitating with shaking hands.
“Do it, Lutrova,” Gio sneers from the wall.
Luka opens his eyes and stares Gio down as he pulls the trigger.
The cylinder turns and clicks again, firing nothing. Gio lets out an angry grunt as Luka drops the gun back down and pushes it toward Marilyn.
“Dante,” she says, sliding it toward him. “Now, you.”
Dante does as I did, taking one last glance at his girl. Lucy’s lip trembles with rage but she purses them, forming a final kiss meant only for him. His eyes linger a little longer on Lilah before he turns back to the table.
He picks up the gun and brings it to his head, pulling the trigger quickly to get it over with.
It clicks again and the girls let out a few more tortured sounds.
Marilyn chews on her lip as Dante defiantly sets the gun back down in front of her but her face lightens as she slowly slides the gun in my direction again.
I bite down hard. Six chambers. Two bullets. Three misses.
Marilyn chuckles and rolls her eyes. “Go on, Fox.”
I put the gun to my head a second time and my life flashes before my eyes. Dani at that Christmas party in that silly scarf my mother gave her. Her walking down the hallways at Belle Academy. Practicing monologues in her room. That first, secret kiss…
My lips tingle as I pull the trigger.
Click.
I open my eyes, looking to Luka and Dante. Only two chambers left. Two bullets remaining.
I slowly set the gun back down.
Marilyn clenches her jaw in disappointment as she glares at me before her eyes shift toward Luka. She folds her hands over the gun and tilts her head.
“Tell me, Luka,” she says. “Does your family still punish those who spill Lutrova blood?”
Luka exhales, his eyes on the table. “Yes,” he answers.
She smiles with respect. “I knew your grandfather. Once upon a time. Viktor.”
He looks at her and blinks.
“I always admired his dedication to his family, his bloodline,” she says, her eyes softening. “There was nothing he wouldn’t do to protect it.
“When I first met him, I was just a child. He was a business friend of my father, Marlow. He’d come over a few times a week. They’d go into his study for hours on end. I’d greet him at the door in the morning, I’d bid him farewell at dusk. Soon after, my brother and I were sent to boarding school and there we stayed for the next several years until...”
Marilyn pauses, smiling at the memory.
“I came home a blushing girl of eighteen,” she says. “One day, I answered the door and Viktor, who’d always looked upon me as nothing but a simple child, suddenly looked at me as a woman.”
Luka turns his head, piqued with interest. I discreetly glance toward the bar, finding Sofia’s grief-stricken face turned up. I look to the others as well. Dani and Lucy lean against each other. Caleb with Boxcar still knocked out in her lap.
And Lilah on the floor with one eye open.
“It began as these things often do,” Marilyn says. “A lingering glance here. An absent-minded brush of the hand there.” Her smile fades. “Until one night, I answered the door. I was alone in the house. My father and brother were away on business. I thought Viktor had gone with them but there he was, rain pouring down his face. I told him he shouldn’t have been there. My father would kill him. He said he knew that, but... he didn’t care.”
Marilyn raises her head and exhales as she looks at Luka again.
“When my body began to change, my father demanded to know who did it to me,” she says. “I refused to tell him, but Viktor wanted to come clean. He said there’s nothing a man like Marlow could do. He would protect me. And his child.”
I look at Luka across the table as his brow furrows.
“It didn’t matter, in the end,” Marilyn says. “The night I gave birth, the midwife swaddled my son and walked out of the room with him before I even got the chance to hold him.” She smiles at Luka. “It was the eyes, you see. Those deep, icy blue-gray eyes. Just like yours, Luka. My father took one look at the child and he knew...” She takes an aching breath. “Viktor was dead the next morning. Two bullets through his eyes. And my father... he told me he drowned my boy, too.”
Luka flexes his jaw.
“I ran,” she continues. “What else could I do? My father killed my lover. He killed my child. Where would he stop?” She shakes her head. “I ran... but I didn’t go far. I waited. I watched. I’d heard... that my brother and his new wife had a child of their own. A beautiful boy with dark hair and icy blue eyes.” Her lashes glisten with unfallen tears. “They thought they could take my child from me. You know how that feels, don’t you, Luka?”
He looks down.
Marilyn nods. “I came back home. I walked right in the front door. I climbed the stairs... and I slit my brother’s throat in his sleep. I stabbed his young wife in the heart. And my father...” She smiles. “I took my time. He begged me for his life. He offered me everything he had. I laughed. I laughed until I could no longer breathe.
“Afterward, I followed the sound of my baby crying to his crib. He had gotten so big...” A tear falls down her cheek. “I picked him up and he went quiet. He looked at me, my baby boy, and he knew who I was. I told him no one would hurt us ever again.
“I turned to leave... and I saw a man standing at the front door. Spencer, he said his name was. He worked with my father. He saw what I had done, and he admired it. That’s when he told me of what I’d just inherited.” Her smile returns as she touches the snake pendant around her neck. “I died that day… but I became so much more. I raised my son to follow in my footsteps. He was the best agent a mother could have asked for, but then...”
She looks at me and squints.
“You happened.”
I shrug a shoulder.
Marilyn sneers at me with contempt. “My son adored you.”
“He wasn’t my type,” I joke.
“And you killed him.” She turns to Luka again. “Mercer, my baby boy. He was a Lutrova. Fox Fitzpatrick has spilled Lutrova blood.”
I look at Luka to find him glaring at me across the table. “Luka, she’s lying,” I say.
“Which part?” she asks. “The story of his grandfather’s demise or how you murdered his uncle for your own selfish pleasures?”
I lean forward as Luka’s expression goes dark. “Don’t listen to her, Luka,” I say. “She kidnapped some random baby from a crib and called it hers. She’s insane.”
“I can prove it, of course,” she says. “Though, I do think I won’t need to. The Lutrovas are extraordinary lie detectors. Tell us, Luka. Am I lying?”
“No,” he answers with defeat in his eyes. “She’s not.”
I exhale hard. “Luka—”
Marilyn slides the gun toward Luka. “The next
bullet is yours,” she says. “But if you kill Fox Fitzpatrick now… I’ll let you and your wife go free.”
Gio pushes off the wall. “Wait—”
Casey shoves him back into his place with one hand.
“Marilyn,” Gio seethes.
“Sit down, Giovani,” she says, her eyes still on Luka. “The adults are talking.”
Luka stares at the gun, his face heavy and cold.
“Luka,” I say.
He looks up at me with a flash of anger in his eyes. Before I can say anything else, he grabs the revolver off the table and points it at me. His finger slowly grips the trigger as he ignores Sofia’s muffled cries.
This is my bullet.
The one that’s been chasing me down my entire life.
I love you, Dani.
Luka’s arm twitches toward Marilyn and he pulls the trigger.
It clicks again.
Marilyn’s eyes flare in shock. It should have gone off this time.
Dante shoves the table forward, knocking Marilyn backward off her chair. I follow his lead, diving down to push the table into the agents behind her. They pull their triggers out of reflex, popping holes into the table as we rush toward them.
Dante cries out in pain. A bullet struck his right thigh, but he keeps moving, throwing as much of his weight into the agent on the right as possible.
I lift my chair as I move, raising it up and crushing it against Gio as hard as I can. The chair splinters to pieces and he falls against the other agent, knocked out by the sudden, hard blow to the head.
I kick the agent in the gut and yank his rifle out of his hands before he can manage another shot. He tries to lunge at me, but I dodge out of the way and fire a shot into the back of his head, putting him down.
I drop to one knee and scan the room, locking onto Casey as he disappears into the upstairs office.
“Fox—!”
Dani.
I aim in the direction of her voice and my heart stops.
Marilyn stands behind her at the far end of the bar with a knife pressed against her throat.
The room goes quiet. Dante sits on the floor with Lucy pressing a torn-off piece of her dress against his leg wound. Luka and Lilah have already taken out the other two agents and moved Sofia, Caleb, and Boxcar away from the bar.
It’s just us and her.
But Marilyn keeps her focus on me.
I look into Dani’s fearful eyes and Marilyn laughs.
“Does this feel familiar to you, Fox?” she asks.
Chapter 26
Fox
“It’s over, Marilyn,” I say. “Let her go.”
Marilyn stares at me, the majority of her face obscured behind Dani’s head. “Do you think you’ll try it again?” she asks. “Will you risk her life to take mine?”
I look at them over the rifle’s sights. They’re standing neck-and-neck with each other in front of the wall. I only took that shot against Mercer because Dani’s shoulder aligned with his heart. I could take him out before he shot first, but I can’t guarantee I’ll be quicker than Marilyn’s wrist.
“No,” I answer.
“Do it, Fox,” Dani says.
Marilyn digs her knife in deeper and Dani winces as blood seeps from the side of her neck.
I shift forward. “Don’t…”
“How many more times must she bleed for you, Fox?” Marilyn asks.
I look Dani in the eye. She gazes back at me with just as much love as she always has.
Marilyn’s eyes flick to my left. “I wouldn’t do that, Lilah,” she says.
I glance over at Lilah as she halts mid-stride, her knife ready at her hip.
“Not unless you want to see how far I can make her blood spurt from her artery…”
“Lilah…” I urge.
She eases back a step but keeps a hold of her knife.
Marilyn looks at me again. “You didn’t answer my question, Fox,” she says. “How many more scars do you think will be enough… before she dies because of you?”
I clench my jaw.
“Because that’s how this story will end,” she continues. “I’m not going out unless I take one of you with me. Who shall it be? Would you take her place now, Fox? Do you wish to die today so that she can live?”
“I do,” I answer.
“How about you, Dani?” Marilyn turns the knife, slicing another line into the side of Dani’s neck. “Do you wish to die today so that he can live?”
Dani takes a deep breath and smiles at me.
“I do.”
Her body tenses, a split-second away from action.
I lunge forward. “Dani, no—!”
Dani jolts backward, elbowing Marilyn in the gut. Marilyn keeps her knife hand hooked around Dani’s neck, yanking her back as they both fall against the hard wall.
I rush faster, dropping the rifle as I reach out for Dani.
They hit the floor and Dani lets out a painful scream.
“Dani!”
She rolls forward and I see the top of her white dress stained red.
No.
Marilyn sits up and raises the knife above her head, ready to stab Dani in the back.
“Fox, down!”
I fall out of the way and Lilah throws her knife at Marilyn, striking her in the shoulder.
Marilyn shrieks and drops her own knife as Dani crawls away from her.
I scoop Dani off the floor, my mind buzzing with worst-case scenarios. Fresh blood coats my hands, streaming down from her neck, but I can’t tell how bad it is yet.
Please.
Please, don’t make me go through this again.
I set her down on the nearest card table.
“Fox,” she whispers.
“Don’t talk, Dani,” I say, shifting her onto her side to get a better look in the light.
Caleb joins me with several cloths from the bar and a bottle of vodka. I grab a cloth and hold it against the wound, soaking up as much blood as I can so I can see what I’m dealing with.
The knife dug in deep, carving a line from her collarbone to the edge of her shoulder, but…
I exhale with relief. “You’ll be okay,” I say. I guide her onto her back, collapsing down to rest my forehead against hers. “You’ll be okay…”
Dani lets out another quiet sob as she touches my face.
I kiss her cheek, tasting the wet tears on her face before I stand up. Dani sits up with me, moving slowly as I keep firm pressure against the wound.
“Why did you do that?” I ask her.
“I thought…” She pauses, breathing a laugh. “What would Fox do?”
My lips twitch. “Never do that again.”
“Trust me. I won’t.”
I embrace her again, never wanting to let go…
But there’s still one more thing to do.
Dani slides off the table and we follow the sound of Marilyn heaving on the floor, her back pressed against the wall. The knife sticks out of her shoulder, untouched.
Lilah stands over her with a pistol pointed at her. Dante hobbles over with Lucy nestled beneath his arm, keeping him from putting too much weight on his wounded leg.
Dani takes a quick step closer to Marilyn. “Give me your hand,” she says, her voice hard.
When Marilyn doesn’t obey, Dani bends down and forcibly grabs Marilyn’s left hand. She yanks the engagement ring off Marilyn’s finger and steps back behind my shoulder again.
“That’s mine,” Dani says.
I extend my hand toward Lilah and she gives me the gun.
I release the magazine from the pistol’s grip. Marilyn watches with curiosity as I slide each bullet out, leaving only one remaining in my palm.
“When I was first deployed, my sergeant said something that always stuck with me,” I say, pinching the bullet. “He said that somewhere out there, there’s a bullet being made just for you. The sooner you accept that, the easier this job will be. That’s what life is for people like us, Marilyn.”
“And who is that one for?” she asks, looking at my fingers.
I slide the single bullet back into the clip. “It’s yours,” I answer.
Her eyes roll. “Going to put me down like a sick, old dog, are you?”
I toss the clip into her lap. “Not us.”
She doesn’t reach for it. Instead, she lets it sit there and she laughs. “If you think I’m taking the easy way out, you’re all dumber than I suspected.”
I lower to one knee to look her in the eye. “In ten minutes, the authorities will be called. FBI. CIA. They’ll come running when they hear your name.”
Marilyn smiles, unworried. “Is that so?”
“You think you’re invincible.”
“I know it for a fact.”
“Snake Eyes wasn’t the only thing I exposed,” I say. “I exposed every client you’ve ever had. Powerful people, big and bigger. Every last one of them is looking for a scapegoat to take the blame. If not you, then who else?”
“They wouldn’t dare.”
I bite my cheek. “Are you sure?”
She doesn’t answer as her eyes fall to the clip in her lap.
I stand up. “We’re done killing for you,” I say. “We’re not going to let you take any more of our humanity… but we’ll allow you a final act of mercy.”
I drop the gun to the floor beside her and leave it there.
“Goodbye, Marilyn,” I say.
We all turn away from her. Lilah positions herself beneath Dante’s other arm and she and Lucy help him toward the entrance. Caleb and Boxcar follow close behind them. I take Dani’s hand, happy to see her engagement ring back in its rightful place. Luka hoists Gio’s unconscious body onto his shoulder while Sofia lingers beside them.
We walk away. We leave without turning back.
We make it to the end of the parking lot before we hear the bullet.
Chapter 27
Fox
I pull the stitch taut and Dani flinches on the motel bed beside me. “Did that hurt?” I ask.
She smiles, her forehead glistening with sweat. “Yeah, but it’s okay.”
“Halfway done,” I say, measuring her wound by eye. “Just hang in there. All right?”
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