Total pages in book: 75
Estimated words: 77039 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 385(@200wpm)___ 308(@250wpm)___ 257(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 77039 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 385(@200wpm)___ 308(@250wpm)___ 257(@300wpm)
Dad clears his throat. “Yes.”
“He was there? But—”
“Let me finish, Ava, if you want me to. Then you may ask your mother about her father.”
I nod, closing my eyes once more.
Wendy didn’t turn around to face him. “I figured you’d show up, Theo. You’re the one person who’s better at covering his tracks than even I am.”
“I learned from the best. Now get that gun off my daughter, or I’ll splatter your brains all over this room.”
“You don’t have the balls,” Wendy said.
Was she kidding? This was the man who’d spent the better part of his lifetime stealing and torturing people—
I clench all over. “Stealing and torturing people?” I gasp out.
No wonder my mother never talks about her father. Just what the hell am I descended from?
“Yes,” Dad says, and his voice is eerily calm. “Theodore Mathias is one of the men who abused and tortured Uncle Talon. Perhaps we—”
I steel myself. I’ve gone too far to back out now. “No, Daddy. Finish. I promise I won’t interrupt again.”
And I vow to keep that promise, no matter what I hear.
According to what Theo had told Ruby, she’d been the reason for his downfall. He should have been thrilled to do her in.
“You have something in place, don’t you, Mother?” I said. “A fail-safe. Something that will take my father and Mathias down if you die.”
She smiled. “I always knew you were brilliant, darling.”
Of course. That was why my father and the others hadn’t blown her head off years ago.
I regarded my siblings. Talon’s face had gone pale. Blankly pale. He’d come face-to-face with the last of the men who’d tortured him all those years ago, and paralysis seemed to grip him. Jade snuggled into him, rubbing his shoulder, soothing him.
But no one was here to soothe Joe. His eyes were on fire, his jaw tensed.
Somehow, I had to stop him. A gun was still trained on the woman I loved, and I didn’t trust the woman wielding it any more than I trusted the man threatening her.
“Mother,” I said as calmly as I could. “If you love me as you say you do, please let Ruby go.”
“My audience is with all of you,” she said. “I will not.”
“You will,” Mathias said.
But before he could strike, Wendy moved with snakelike stealth.
I jumped at a gunshot.
A bullet from the gun previously pointed at Ruby had shot into Theo’s stomach. He fell backward in the doorway, blood gushing from his abdomen. The metallic and raw stench permeated the air.
Did the woman have eyes in the back of her head? He could have easily shot her first.
It dawned on me then. My mother hadn’t been lying when she said she might be the one to die today.
She was ready to go, which made her even more dangerous.
I had to figure out what her angle was. She might be planning to take all of us with her.
Ruby fell to her father’s side and checked his pulse. He muttered some words to her that I couldn’t make out, and then he grabbed her other hand.
“It’s weak,” she said. “I don’t think he’s going to make it.”
Then Joe struck. He swiftly walked forward and raised his foot.
“Joe!” I said.
He lowered his foot, staring at me.
“Let him,” Ruby said, dropping her father’s hand. “His pulse is barely there. He’s as good as dead already.”
But Joe backed off as Talon seemed to reanimate. He stepped forward as well. “You bastard!” he yelled. “You fucking bastard.” He knelt down and pulled up Theo’s left sleeve, showing the tattoo of the phoenix. “Fucking evil bastard.” He curled his hand into a fist, ready to punch.
Joe got a grip then. He pulled Talon up. “He’s gone, Tal. It’s over.”
Talon stood, nodding. “You’re right. This isn’t who I am anymore. Good riddance.”
I kept one eye on my mother. She still had a gun in her hand, though she wasn’t pointing it toward anyone at the moment.
Ruby sat, staring into nothingness. I kneeled in front of her. “Baby, are you okay?”
She nodded, gave a sniffle, but no tears came. “He saved my life.”
“Maybe. I’m not sure Wendy was going to hurt you.”
“I’m calling 9-1-1,” my father said.
That jarred Wendy back into action. She pointed the gun right at him. “You’re doing no such thing. Besides, he’s already dead. I never miss.”
He put the phone down. “All right. We’ll do this your way, Wendy. What do you want?”
She closed her eyes for a second, still holding the gun, and then opened them. “I was always jealous. Even when I was a tiny child, before I even met you, Brad. Did you know that one of the symbols in alchemy for copper is what we know as the female symbol?”
“Wendy,” my father said, “what are you—”
“Did you ever figure it out? The symbol on our rings?”
“The symbol was nonsense,” Brad said. “Now put that gun down, and we’ll talk about this.”