End Game (Games Thriller Series)

by J. E. Taylor

  “Sorry, but I guess it comes with the territory,” Chris said and stood straight, wiping the back of his hand across his mouth. “Where’s my family?”

  * * * *

  “Right here,” Jessica said. Feet shuffled across the floor and then her arms wrapped around him. “I thought I lost you today,” she sobbed.

  “I thought so too, babe.” He lifted his hands to her face and felt for her lips, then leaned over and kissed them, pushing the lion’s share of the power back into her, where it belonged. He pulled away from her lips, tears forming in his eyes. Chris looked down at the floor, seeing nothing but darkness as he waited for her voice and when it came, he closed his eyes letting the tears fall.

  “Ty, I know. I know what you gave up for us.”

  “No honey, you don’t really know.” He took a deep breath. “I had to choose.” He put his head on her shoulder. “I had to choose which one would die so I could come back,” he said and felt her stiffen in his arms.

  “Then you shouldn’t have come back.”

  “Everyone would have died if I didn’t come back, Jess,” he whispered and opened the door to his dream so she could see the alternative.

  Jessica gasped at the image he showed her. All of the kids dead, each by a different horrible method.

  “I even asked them to take Tom instead but they said no, I had to choose one of them. I couldn’t let you watch her torture and kill each of the kids before she killed you. So I made the choice. It’s my fault Emily is dead.” His voice cracked and he pressed his lips together, dipping his head. “I’m so sorry.”

  Jessica closed her eyes. “Why didn’t you offer me up instead?”

  “That wasn’t an option. I had to give up one of the kids in addition to everything else. I gave up eternity with you to come back and save our family. Heaven was laid out at my feet and I could have made that choice instead, but the thought of our children dying painfully...” he trailed off, shaking his head. “The cost was just too high.” He kissed her cheek and pulled away, wiping his face with his hands. “I will understand if you don’t ever want to see me again.”

  He lied; that would crush him.

  “Why her?” Her words encased in a sob.

  Chris closed his eyes. “Because she was given five more years than she was supposed to have. They would have taken CJ if I let them choose.”

  Silence blanketed the room.

  “Did she suffer?” He prayed Christopher had kept his end of the bargain.

  “No, Emily didn’t suffer,” Tom answered. “What happened here today isn’t your fault, it’s mine.”

  “Tom, I made a deal with the devil.”

  Tom laughed. “I married the devil and I put your lives in jeopardy when I walked out on her.” He absently pointed at his wife’s dead body. “It’s a miracle that any of us survived,” he paused. “It’s not his fault Jess, it’s mine.”

  When her hands slipped into his, relief washed through him, erasing the fear of losing her heart.. Fresh tears slipped from his eyes.

  “I should have let you kill her when you had the chance,” she whispered, her voice raw with emotion.

  He hung his head, reaching up to touch her face, feeling the wet tears on her cheek. He felt the pain in her heart and was glad he couldn’t see it in her eyes. “I should have just done it anyway,” he replied and the shivers took hold. “Can you get me my shirt?”

  Tom retrieved both the t-shirt and the top to his karate uniform and Chris slipped them on. Neither Tom nor Jessica said a word when he put the t-shirt on inside out. He pulled the gi on and laced it up. “My belt?” Tom handed him the thin strip of fabric and raised his eyebrows at the perfect knot Chris tied.

  Sirens wailed in the distance and Chris raised his unseeing eyes. “I want to see my family.”

  Chapter 37

  The two boys ran to their father, wrapping their arms around his knees. Chris let go of her hand and gently peeled them from his legs, kneeling down and sweeping them into his arms in a powerful hug. Jessica put her hand on his shoulder to let him know she was still there with him. He reached his hand out for Eric, not knowing where he was.

  Eric took Chris’s hand and closed his eyes. He knew Chris had sacrificed his sister to save them. “Why didn’t you sacrifice me?”

  Chris shook his head and looked in the general direction of the voice. “I couldn’t,” he whispered and clung to his two children and squeezed Eric’s hand before letting go. “My brother made the choice for me and I agreed to it.” He put his head down.

  * * * *

  Tom saw the door at the end of the hall push open enough for the rifle barrel to slip through and he launched himself in front of the bullet path. “Jessie!” His yell drowned by the rifle and their eyes met. The bullet entered his back, shattering his spine, catapulting through his heart and blasting out the front of him, spraying the family with his blood.

  The bullet grazed Chris’s temple and buried into the wall next to where he knelt.

  * * * *

  Jessica jumped; catching Tom’s gaze just before the bullet tore him apart and missed her by mere inches. Her head whipped in the direction of the door and a spark flew from the barrel, announcing another bullet but it never reached them.

  The air rippled and a wall of sheer power thrust down the hallway at mach speed. The force of the explosion blew a hole the size of a dump truck through the building, showering debris a hundred yards into the Hudson at the far end of the warehouse, annihilating the bullet and the sniper in the process.

  Her head swiveled, at first looking at her husband, but the pure shock on his face told her he wasn’t the one to do the damage and her gaze fell on her son.

  CJ stood with his head tilted, chin to his chest and his little fists clenched, the rage bleeding into his muscles, his clenched jaw and narrowed eyes profiling the destructive force coiling inside him.

  Chris tightened his grip on his son and Jessica turned her eyes to Tom’s motionless form, the reality of his sacrifice sinking in. “No,” she screamed and dropped to his side.

  “Jessie,” Chris said, panic lacing his voice.

  “I got him Dad,” CJ said.

  Jessica sobs, peppered with the word no, caught his breath in his chest. Her sadness layering over him like a suffocating blanket.

  “Eric?” Chris whispered.

  “Not me. Tom,” Eric said from close to Chris. “He’s dead.”

  It took Chris a moment to understand. He pulled both Tommy’s and CJ’s shaking forms closer. “Tom?” he asked Eric.

  “He jumped in front of the bullet,” Eric said, his voice farther away, closer to where Jessica sobbed.

  “Jesus.”

  * * * *

  “Freeze!”

  Jessica’s head snapped in the direction of the voice, her brain instantly registered the uniform and she turned toward CJ sending the silent warning. Don’t, it’s a police officer!

  CJ’s chin quivered and the tears sprung from his eyes, he turned and buried his head in his father’s chest.

  The police descended on the gruesome scene like a hawk swooping in on its prey.

  Chapter 38

  Chris sat in the room as the EMT worked on the cut on his temple. He could hear Jessica talking to the police a short distance away.

  “Are you okay?” Chris said, sensing Eric looking at him. He glanced over to where he thought Eric might be, and was off by a few feet.

  “Please don’t move,” the EMT said as he nearly put the needle in Chris’s eye.

  “I will be,” Eric said. “What about you?”

  Chris sent an awkward smile toward his stepson. He wasn’t sure how okay he was, not with everything that happened today. “I’m alive.”

  Jessica was excused by the officer and wandered over to Chris in the same daze as Eric. “They want to talk to us.” Her voice shook slightly.

  “Are you finished?” Chris asked the technician.

  “Just about,” the EMT replied.

>   Chris waited patiently. Jessica could have fixed the cut but Chris didn’t want her to. He wanted a reminder of what he lost today. Even though he would never see the scar, he would feel it. It went from his eyebrow to just under his hairline and it would fade to a very thin line with time but he would know it was there. When the EMT left the room, he looked in her direction. His blue eyes not focusing on anything.

  Chris stood on shaking legs, letting Jessica lead the way and promptly stumbled over something on the ground.

  “Sorry, I keep forgetting you can’t see,” she apologized.

  “You suck as a guide.”

  “Sorry, babe,” she said and led him to the chair at the table in the make-shift interrogation room.

  “Hello Mr. Ryan. My name is Detective Sanders.”

  Chris nodded his acknowledgement in the general direction of the voice.

  “You’ve put us in quite the predicament here,” Detective Sanders said and a chair scraped close by.

  “Is there a problem?” Chris asked after the silence grew.

  “I’ve got a few questions,” he said.

  “I’d like to have my lawyer present,” Chris replied and sat back in the chair.

  “What’s your lawyer’s name?”

  “Sam Trueman,” Chris replied.

  “I’m afraid that will be impossible. Mr. Trueman is dead.”

  Chris closed his eyes, lowering his head.

  “You already knew he was dead, didn’t you?”

  “I was hoping he wasn’t,” Chris said. He thought he heard a rifle shot when he faced off against Sharon, but he wasn’t sure and the only logical conclusion was he got too close.

  “He was the one who called us,” Detective Sanders said.

  That impacted Chris more than the fact that he was dead, it meant that he suffered. “Shit,” Chris said and lowered his head again, wetness streaked his cheeks and he wiped them with his knuckles. “I’m sorry, he was like family. He was supposed to stay back and wait for me.”

  Jessica slid her hand into his. “I’m here, babe.”

  Chris nodded. He took a deep breath and focused back at the detective. “What are your questions?”

  “Do you want a lawyer?”

  Chris shook his head, he had asked for Sam to get information.

  Detective Sanders chair creaked. “That was a very shrewd way to get information.”

  Chris shrugged. “You wouldn’t have told me if I asked outright.

  “When did you get married?”

  “Is it still Saturday?”

  “Yes.”

  “We got married yesterday. Judge Sampson married us.”

  “Judge Sampson?”

  “Yes, he performed the ceremony as a favor to Sam.” Silence settled over the room and Chris waited.

  “Why don’t you have any cuts outside of the one on your head?”

  “I don’t know. Divine intervention?”

  “What I don’t get is how you can you walk out of this unharmed.”

  Chris let a bark of a laugh out. “Unharmed? My closest friend is dead, I’m blind as a fucking bat and my wife lost her daughter. Never mind the psychological damage to my boys. They saw their father beaten and crucified, their sister murdered and their mother shot. My kids have her ex-husband’s blood all over their clothing because someone tried to shoot her and he just happened to throw himself in front of the bullet.” The flare of anger radiated from him. “Unharmed? You have got to be a sadistic son of a bitch.”

  “Calm down, Mr. Ryan,” Detective Sanders said.

  “Calm down?” Chris laughed. “I don’t think so.”

  “You killed that woman.”

  “Self-defense,” Chris snapped back.

  Detective Sanders sat back in the seat. “You had every intention of killing her.”

  Chris didn’t reply.

  “She was going to kill all of us...” Jessica started and Chris put his hand up to quiet her.

  “You toyed with her,” Detective Sanders said.

  “She blinded me; how did I toy with her?”

  “You are a third-degree black belt, Mr. Ryan. She was at a disadvantage even with the weapons.”

  “Normally I would agree with you, however, I couldn’t see her, therefore she had the advantage. Besides, every strike I made was defensive. I never went on the offensive. If I had, it would have been over like that.” He snapped his fingers.

  “Why did she give you the gun?”

  Chris tilted his head, his brain catching up to the line of questioning. “How’d you know she gave me the gun?”

  “Closed circuit video.”

  He raised his eyebrows.

  “What’d you say to her to get her to toss it to you?”

  Chris shrugged.

  “And why didn’t you use it.”

  “For all I know she loaded it with blanks to screw with me.”

  “Then there’s this guy, where did he come from?”

  Chris looked toward Jessica for assistance.

  “The video showed someone taking a dive from the rafters.”

  Chris’s arched his eyebrows. “Huh?”

  “Looks like someone jumped from the rafters,” Detective Sanders replied.

  “Really?”

  “What the hell did you think that noise was?” Detective Sanders drilled.

  “I was too busy trying to survive to analyze the noises I was hearing. I was focused on where Sharon was because if I let myself get sidetracked by anything else I’d be dead now.”

  “Did you kill Sharon Whitman?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you go to the warehouse today with the intent to kill Sharon Whitman?”

  “No.”

  “Did you want to kill Sharon Whitman?”

  Chris took a deep breath. “She killed my stepdaughter, shot my wife and then tried to slit my son’s throat. She had every intention of killing us all slowly and painfully.”

  “You didn’t answer my question.”

  Chris looked square at the detective, giving the illusion he actually saw him. “What would you have wanted if that was your family?”

  Detective Sanders didn’t say anything for a few minutes and then a chair creaked. “What happened to the shooter in the hallway?” he asked. It looked as if a bomb had gone off.

  Chris shook his head and closed his eyes. “I don’t know. I didn’t see anything.” His hand went to the stitches in his temple. “Can we go?” he asked without opening his eyes. “It’s been a hell of a day.”

  “I don’t want you leaving the city just yet.”

  Chris glanced in Jessica’s direction. “When can we take Emily home?” he asked, just saying her name caused tears to sprout. The reality of having to bury her hit him hard and he flashed back to the first time he saw her, scared, pale, shaking in one of Tom’s guest rooms in California. That night he promised to protect her from the evils in this world and beyond... and he failed.

  Jessica squeezed his hand.

  “It will be a couple of days,” Detective Sanders said. “Once the autopsy is complete.”

  “Is my car here?”

  “I’m not sure,” he answered. “What would a blind man want with a car anyway?”

  “It has all of the clothing we need for the rest of the weekend.”

  “What’s the make and model?”

  “It’s a blue Hummer.”

  “We have it. The forensic team is going over it now.”

  “Can we have our bags?” Chris asked. “And can someone call us a cab?”

  Silence draped the room.

  “I can’t see, remember?”

  “Yes, you can have your bags and we will call you a cab. Where can we get a hold of you?”

  Chris gave the Detective the address and phone number for the apartment and let Jessica lead him out of the room.

  * * * *

  Back in the apartment with the boys cleaned up and tucked into bed, Chris stood in the master bedroom with his head down in sh
ame. “This is my fault,” he said and turned to head into the bathroom, slamming his foot into the dresser on the way. He swore under his breath but didn’t stop. He felt for the shower knobs, found them and turned on the water. He stripped and stepped into the shower, letting the water wash the dry caked blood off his back.

  Jessica stepped in moments later. She reached for the soap and ran it gently over his back. Sobs ripped through her with each stroke. “You died twice today.”

  Chris nodded.

  “You came back to me twice.”

  Chris nodded.

  “You saved me again.”

  Chris shook his head. “No, I didn’t save you. Tom did.” He took a shaky breath. “And CJ did.” He put his forehead against the cool tile and the shakes started.

  “Ty, you saved us.”

  He shook his head. “I failed. Not everyone walked out of there alive, Jess. I failed and I lost my soul in the process.” Tears hot and bitter burned his throat.

  Jessica turned him toward her and took his face in her hands, looking into his beautiful sightless blue eyes. “Did you ever wonder why we were soul mates?”

  “Every fucking day of my life.”

  “We balance each other. Your soul is not lost because I won’t let it be.”

  “You don’t have a choice,” Chris said and his hands found her waist. “I told you a long time ago that my nature is much darker than yours and I’m going to pay for my sins whether you want me to or not.” He leaned over and kissed her, feeling her skin under his hands, the feel and smell of her setting him on fire. He needed her more at this moment than he ever did before.

  He opened his eyes and she let out a little laugh. “What?” he asked as he looked toward the laugh.

  “Your eyes still smolder,” she said as she touched his face, her tears mixing with the shower and she kissed him.

  Epilogue

  Chris sat on the end of the dock in cut off shorts, feet hanging over the edge in the cool water, stroking the head of a beautiful German Sheppard as it lay on his lap. The sunglasses on his face were for show; six months after the horror in the warehouse and he still couldn’t see a thing. Chris swished his feet in the lake, reflecting over the last six months.