by Ava Harrison
“Were you always this bossy?”
“Yes,” I deadpan.
“And I still fell in love with you.”
Leaning across the back seat, I seal my lips over hers. “Damn straight, you did. Now be a good little dove and stay put.” With one final kiss, I fling the door open and step out of the car.
Michael is already standing there, waiting for me. We both start to walk, and when we are almost by the door to the building, he stops, turning around to look at me.
“Before I go in there with you, what did you want to talk to me about, Alaric?”
“I’m out,” I say, and his head shakes in confusion. “I’m done. After this, I’m retiring …”
A myriad of emotions plays across his face, and it almost appears as though he might cry. “After Nix’s parents died—” He stops talking and takes a breath. “Her father was my best friend and business partner. It cost him their lives. I should have put her first.” He nods again. “I-I wish I could have seen that then. Thank you for putting—” His words are cut off by a deafening sound, a gunshot. Someone is firing at us. I turn to look at where the shots are coming from. A building next to mine. “What the fuck?”
Michael is quick to move too, taking out his gun and aiming high. “This is crazy.”
“Get to the car,” I shout. Cristian is running in the direction of where the gunshot rang out, and I’m about to follow when I hear Michael shout something back. I don’t register what’s happening until Michael is pushing me out of the way.
Another series of gunfire.
I turn back to where the car is parked on the side of the building to make sure it’s not under fire too. It’s bulletproof, but still. Luckily, it’s hidden from the war that’s currently happening. My ears are ringing, and I try to make out where it was, and then I see him.
Michael.
On the floor, not moving.
I move toward him.
In the distance, I can hear Phoenix yelling. The door is open, and she’s running toward us.
“No!”
Even though I know it’s not good to move Michael, I pull his body behind the cover of the building away from the gunfire.
When I’m sure that we are safe here, I move to look at Michael’s wound.
His shirt is stained red, the spot growing with every second that passes.
“Why?” I ask as I place my hand over the wound.
“Be-because now it is my turn to save you,” Michael gurgles.
That bullet was for me. Michael saved me.
52
Phoenix
Everything happens in slow motion. First, I see Alaric and my father talking, and then …
My heart beats heavily in my chest, the blood in my veins running cold.
There’s gunfire. Someone is shooting, and then I see my father push Alaric out of the way.
Everything stops.
My world stops as my father, the man who raised and loved me with all his heart, falls to the ground.
I don’t think twice before I’m throwing open the car door and running toward them.
The car is parked on the side of the building, so it should be out of range of a gun, but I don’t even care. I need to get to my father now.
As I start to run in the direction, I see Alaric is pulling his body toward me, out of the range of the gunfire.
I’m in front of my dad now, and his eyes are barely open, glassy with unshed tears.
“No,” I whisper as I take in the large wound on his chest. The wound gapes with blood. “No, you ca-can’t—”
He reaches his hand out, smiling a tight and sad smile at me. “It’s my time.” Blood leaks from his lips, and a sob erupts from my mouth.
“You-You can’t leave me.” Tears start to pour down my face like a dam burst.
“It’s my time. I needed to save him. It’s his time to take care of you. To take care of your baby. You allowed me to be your father. You honored me with your love. You taught me how to be selfless. This is my gift to you. For everything. I die happy, knowing you and the baby will live.”
I want to cling to him. Beg him not to leave me. Beg him to stay.
But I can see the light fading from his eyes.
He turns to Alaric and raises his hand. “Teach your child better. Do better.”
“I will. All of my remaining breaths will be for your daughter, for your unborn grandchild.”
“Thank you.” His voice has faded to nothing more than a whisper. He lifts my hand that holds his, and I look into his eyes. A tear slips out, his face paler than a moment ago. “You are going to be the best mother,” he says. “I love you.”
Tears pour from my eyes as he closes his eyes. His chest rises and falls, and then there is nothing.
Falling forward, I clutch him to me. Blood soaks my skin, but I don’t care. I just want him back. “I love you, Dad. I love you so much more.”
Sobs rack my body, and then I feel Alaric’s hand on my back.
“I know you want to stay here, but I need you safe in the car.”
“Where are you going?” I hiccup through my sobs.
“I need to end this, dove. I need to know you will be safe.”
There is no strength left in me to object. I allow Alaric to lift me, but I look back down to my father. “We have to move him.”
“When this is over,” he answers as he continues to lead me to the car.
Alaric leans over and places a kiss on my lips.
“Be safe,” I say, and then he’s running into the building and into the unknown.
53
Alaric
Sprinting toward the building where the shots were fired from, I see Cristian when I enter. He lifts his hand up to his mouth, then motions up.
This building is abandoned too. The stairs are concrete, and they look like a war zone, like it’s falling apart.
How the hell did Grace’s father know to come here? He must have been following us all day. Waiting for the moment our guard was down. If he wanted to get to me, why shoot from here, why not ambush me inside my own property?
The more I look around, the answer is clear. Now I know more than ever that this was a well-thought-out plan. You can die just stepping foot in here. The floors are broken, and not one part of the stairs is up to code. One last trap and I walked us right into it.
I’ve been so blinded by my need for revenge that I didn’t realize I was walking myself into what will probably be my own death.
No.
I shake my head. There will be no dying today. Not when I have so much to live for. Nothing will take me away from her.
I take the stairs two at a time, doing quick work to see where he might be hiding.
Each floor is worse than the next. Open floor plans of mass chaos are what greet me. Something tells me this fucker is all the way on the top. I motion to Cristian to check the other direction while I continue up to the top floor.
There is nowhere else he can be.
When I make it up to the last floor, I see the shadow of a man in the distance. I don’t have a clear shot, so I step closer, getting the angle I need to take him out.
“It’s over, old man,” I say. I lift my gun and am about to fire when the man speaks.
“It’s just like I’ve always said, Alaric … Only the dead have seen the end of war.” He turns to face me, the scar I gave him so many years ago marring his face. A face I thought I would never see again.
I stumble forward. “Damian.”
“Very good, dear brother. Did you miss me?”
“I don’t—”
“Understand?” he asks before I can finish speaking, and then I realize my mistake. In my shock, I never noticed the gun now trained on me. He has the advantage. “Yes, I figured it would raise some questions.”
“You’re alive.”
“Look at you. So smart. Maybe Dad was right to leave everything to you.” He snickers.
“Is that what this is about? The business?”
<
br /> “It was never about the business.” His voice cuts through the air like a dull knife cutting through meat.
My brother is alive …
“It was you?”
“Ding. Ding. Ding. You are finally getting it.” A sardonic smile on his face. “‘How did I escape? With difficulty. How did I plan this moment? With pleasure,’” he says, quoting The Count Of Monte Cristo.
“You are no Edmond,” I fire back, but in his sick, twisted mind, he thinks he is. He thinks this is his revenge. For what? And then it hits me. For her.
This is all for Grace.
I lift my hand to him. “It’s not what you think. You never had the full story.”
“I don’t want to hear your lies. I have plotted this moment for years, since her father showed me the note. He helped me, you know. Helped me orchestrate all this.”
“Ask him. He knows the truth.”
“It’s too late for that.”
“What do you mean?” I ask, knowing the best way to disarm someone is to keep them distracted.
Keep him talking.
“I had no use for Moreno anymore. It wasn’t supposed to take so long, and he was growing on my nerves, so I killed him. But he was the perfect scapegoat, the old fool. This should have been over years ago, maybe he would have lived if the original plan had worked.”
“And what plan was that?”
“I was going to start a war between you and Lawrence, and then while you fought, I would take everything. I wanted you to see what it was like to lose everything you cared about, and since I was all you had, I started with my death. Then I would take my business back. The only snag was Michael went into hiding …” He looks downright insane now. His smile makes the scar across his face look mangled. “But now I have a better plan. I’m going to take Michael’s daughter. I’m going to take the woman you love.”
Without even thinking, I start to run toward him. I catch him unaware because his eyes go wide as I attack. His gun drops to the floor. I go to raise my own, but he’s too fast, and mine falls as well.
Each of us struggles to get control.
Fists fly.
Blood sprays.
I don’t want to kill him. I just want him to understand.
“It’s not what you think.” He punches me again. “Just listen to me, Damian. Grace committed suicide.”
“Yes, because you hurt her,” he spits.
“But not the way you think.”
“You broke her.”
“No!” I shout. “I never touched her. Her father broke her. My father broke her. You broke her.”
He shakes his head at my words, and I use the opportunity to tighten my grip and fling him down.
“She didn’t want to marry you. She killed herself because—”
“The letter,” he fires back, rabid. Out of control. “You’re lying.”
“I’m not. The marriage was a noose around her neck. She came to me. She didn’t love you. She knew she would be forced to marry someone in our family, so she proposed that she marry me instead. She thought she lov—”
“Enough!” he screams, scrambling around to get to me. “You’ll say anything.”
We circle each other. No weapons, just our hands.
“Think about it. Why would I lie now?”
“Because of your precious little dove. Don’t worry, Alaric, I won’t leave her in a cage for long, just long enough to clip her wings.”
That’s all it takes. I’m throwing my body onto his. We twist and turn, the edge of the construction site getting closer and closer.
“Stop!” I shout through our punches, but Damian is a man possessed, and then he’s flying through the air, trying to hit me. I’m quick to step out of the way, but then I hear him scream. He can’t stop, and he’s going to fall.
I run to grab him, my body sliding across the concrete. Skin rips as I move, but my fingers catch onto his.
“I have you,” I say, my torso now hanging over the edge of the building, the only thing keeping my brother from falling is my hand. “Give me your other hand.” I’ll need both to save him.
Damian looks at me with clear eyes for the first time.
“Why are you trying to save me?” he asks.
“Because I love you,” I answer truthfully, and his brows knit together. “Give me your hand.” He doesn’t, and it gets harder and harder to hold on as my fingers lose their purchase.
“Is it true? Is what you said true?” he asks.
“It is. I’m sorry. Now give me your hand so we can move past this.”
He starts to lift his hand up but then stops.
“Goddammit, Damian, give me your hand.”
I see the moment it happens … when his eyes grow wet with unshed tears.
I shake my head. “No, Damian. Please—”
“Too much has happened.”
“That’s not true. Please give me your hand. Regardless of the past, I love you …”
“How can you love a monster like me?” he says, and then he lets go.
“No!” I try to grab him, but it’s too late. My torso starts to slip, but then someone is tugging my leg.
“I got you,” I hear Cristian say as he continues to pull me back until my body is secure on the concrete.
My brother is dead.
This time, for good.
54
Alaric
After what we have both have been through, I decide there is still one more thing we have to do before we can move forward with our lives. Now that I have given the business to Cristian, time is a luxury I have, and I plan to spend every moment with Phoenix and my baby when he or she comes.
Since Phoenix is still fairly early in her pregnancy, this is the safest time for me to take her this far from shore.
We are both still grieving even though it’s been a month.
The first few weeks on the yacht were hard. But eventually, we both found a way for our hearts to heal.
I never did tell her where we were going, and when the island comes into focus, I wonder how she will react.
There is a very important question I need to ask her, and I can’t imagine another place to ask.
The boat stops, and we drop anchor. Since the island isn’t developed yet, we will need a tender to get back there.
“Where are we?” she says from behind me, and I turn to face her.
“You know where we are,” I say, moving closer and taking her hand in mine. I lift it up and place a kiss on each knuckle.
“What are we doing here?”
“I thought you might like to see it. With eyes no longer clouded by fear.”
She inclines her head and thinks about it for a minute. At first, I think she might say no. That it’s still too soon or she needs more time, but then she nods.
It doesn’t take us long before the Zodiac pulls up to the beach. I get out first, and then I lift my hand out to grab her.
The island is exactly how we left it. Still uninhabitable and it never will be. That’s the beauty of the island. It’s not meant to sustain life, just give it. And that’s what it did. It gave me life. It gave me Phoenix, and most importantly, it gave me the baby we will have soon. The island will never be a place that we can call home, but it can be a place that we hold in our memories forever.
A place where all my dreams were born.
Together we walk the grounds, remembering every moment we were together, and then we get to the cave.
So right there, in the cave where I first made love to her, I get down on one knee.
Her mouth trembles as she realizes what I’m doing. Then I take her hand and place an oval diamond on her finger.
Tears stream down her face. “I love you. I want to spend the rest of my life with you. Will you marry me?” I ask, and then stand.
“Yes,” she says through tears and then lifts up on her tiptoes to kiss me. “Where and when?”
“I was thinking back on the yacht?”
“Like now?” she asks.
“Well, we would have to leave. Are you ready to leave?”
She looks around the cave and then nods. “I’m ready to put this part of our lives behind us and move forward with you, wherever that may be.”
“Good. Let’s start now.”
We don’t stay on the island much longer, and before we know it, we are on the deck of the boat.
“Are we really doing this here?” I smile at her question, and she furrows her brow. “What?”
“I actually had another plan.” The look of confusion has my lips splitting wider, and she rolls her eyes.
“You’re enjoying this way too much.” She has a scowl on her face, but I know Phoenix secretly loves this. After everything we’ve been through, she trusts me completely. I would never give her reason not to. She’s the most important person in my life. Her and my baby in her stomach.
I’m still not sure how I got so lucky. Sometimes, I’m afraid this is all a dream because no way after all the shit I’ve done do I deserve her love.
The guilt sometimes creeps in, but Phoenix reminds me that I need to forgive myself. Sometimes I do, other times it’s harder, but she’s always there to help me when the shadows of my past creep in and threaten to ruin everything.
I owe her my life.
From our island, we take the Panama Canal then head down the coast until we reach Peru. Phoenix doesn’t ask any questions, I’m sure she’s dying to, but she knows better.
When we’re finally off the boat and heading to our secret location, on a private plane and then by jeep, she’s done with my game.
“Tell me where we are.” Her hand reaches out and swats me playfully. I catch her by her wrist and turn her palm up, then place a kiss on her pulse.
“What fun would that be?”
Phoenix stares out the window as we drive. The closer we get, the darker it becomes outside. My hope is that by the time we get there, the night sky will be pitch-black except for the stars.
Finally, we reach our destination. I step out of the car first then help Phoenix down. It might be dark, but I can see her eyes go wide.
