Total pages in book: 109
Estimated words: 103620 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 518(@200wpm)___ 414(@250wpm)___ 345(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 103620 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 518(@200wpm)___ 414(@250wpm)___ 345(@300wpm)
A hopscotch grid is drawn on the floor beside the mats.
And lying on the ground next to the questionably named jungle gym is Theo Watson. He appears to be dead.
Appears to be. Because he moans and we realize he is not. At least not yet.
Blood covers the lower half of his body, but it’s not clear from whence it is coming.
I sweep the room with my weapon and that’s when I see another door on the other side of the area. It is open. I run over to Theo as Christine and Danny fan out to offer cover and, upon arrival, I can see that he has been shot in the leg. The upper leg. If his femoral artery has been hit, we will need to speak quickly.
“I tried to stop him,” Theo spurts out through his groaning. “I tried to stop him from taking her again.”
“Where’d he go?” I demand.
“They went that way.” He points at the door I observed on the far side of the room.
“Who’s they?” Danny asks.
“Gorny, Andra, and his man, Anton.”
“Where to?” I ask.
“I don’t know. Everything was… fine. They said… everything was fine until…”
Everything was fine until we arrived. I have an impulse to assume that the fault of this is mine. And, in some ways, it is. But in larger, less emotional ways, I know it is not. This is my father’s doing. This is of Zander van den Berg’s making.
I don’t control everything, as I once believed.
In fact, it’s possible I don’t control anything at all.
“Lize with you?” Theo grunts.
“Where does it lead?” I respond in non-answer, pointing at the door where he says my father and his man have fled.
“Not sure. I think back down to the main entry.”
Zander is on the run. He has abandoned his plan to negotiate for whatever malevolent bargain he intended to make and has decided it is now simply in his best interests to escape. Alexei Gorny—a ghost of a man feared (if he is to be believed) by millions—run from this place by the very people whose will he intended to break.
Zander van den Berg—a ghost of my own memory, a father who I barely knew and who taught me, in our limited time together, to be ruthless and calculating and cruel—driven to flee by the very bond of love he so obviously fears.
And it’s in this moment I recognize, finally, after so many years of not seeing it, that it is not power that has driven his motivations. Not avarice or even want. It is not that which he desires that compelled him to be who he was. Who he is. What he became.
It is only fear.
Fear of opening his heart and allowing in something that might touch him in a way he can’t control.
Where does that come from? His grandparents, my great-grandparents, certainly didn’t have that. In spite of their probable fear of what would happen to them, they faced it down and let their love for one another dictate their reality.
And that means that somehow, somewhere, it’s within me.
There is something I can control.
Myself.
There is something inside me that has the power to make different choices than those I was taught to make.
I can bring it all back around.
I truly can.
“Pigtails…” Theo moans out.
“What? What’re you saying, man?”
“It’s what he calls her,” Danny says. “She told me he calls her Pigtails sometimes.”
I don’t know why Danny having that unique, specific knowledge about Andra and Theo gives my heart a fleeting pop of joy, but it does.
Zander can’t make off with her. Of all the things that may not happen, Zander van den Berg may not make off with my child. He may not take away the future that is possible for her. And unless he is stopped, he will.
I can’t let him get away.
CHRISTINE
Alec sprints in the direction of the door where Theo told us Zander and Andra have gone. I start to follow, as does Danny, but I place a hand on his chest, stopping him.
“What are you doing?” he asks.
“Stay here.”
“But—” he starts to lobby.
“Stay here. You’re… Just stay here.”
“Why?”
“Because someone should stay with him”—I point at Theo—“and it should be you.”
He should be the one to look after Theo because there’s something about Danny that makes you feel safe. Comfortable. Like nothing and no one will ever be able to hurt you, ever.
It’s what’s going to make him an amazing father. Assuming…
Best not to assume anything just yet.
Regardless, there’s no time to get all moon-eyed about what a badass fuckin’ daddy Danny Fortnight is and will become when our kid is born (and this kid will be born), so I can’t spell it all out in this instant.
“But—”
“Danny, stay. Alec and I will deal with… whatever is left,” I tell him.
Alec is pounding down the stairs that lead back to the main courtyard area. I don’t think anything will happen to him, not really—Zander wants me and Danny dead, not him—but you can never be too sure. “I’ve got him. I’ve got it. You stay here, protect Theo in case someone else shows up, and let me… do what I need to.”