“What? What the fuck are both of talking about?” Bastian growled. “I check with the security officers for updates and I don’t know how to write code because it’s not something I’m interested in or have ever been interested in.”
“Why do you need updates on my security system?” Ramsey demanded. He didn’t believe him. It didn’t make sense.
“When I’m here I check on everything,” Bastian snapped. “It may be your house but I grew up here too!”
Ramsey almost snorted his disbelief.
“I saw your laptop, Bastian.” Vince was speaking again. “For someone who doesn’t know code, you wrote thousands of pages worth of it in the past years.”
Bastian didn’t answer and Ramsey nodded. They had him. He had no other excuse, nothing to say.
Ramsey was opening his mouth to speak when Bastian snarled, “Fuck both of you! If you’re going to kill me, kill me for something I did. I didn’t betray you, Ramsey. You don’t have the right to kill me for that. I neglected my daughter because I was afraid of the truth. When I finally faced it, I was too miserable with my life, but never her.” He nodded and dropped to his knees. “I betrayed Lily. If you’re going to kill me, kill me for that.”
He’d heard enough. Ramsey drew his semi and leveled it at Bastian’s head. It would be messy, and it was too close to home. He’d been warned against murders in the home but his finger was itching to get it over with. Put this part of his life to rest, just as he’d put Lily to rest.
Bastian closed his eyes. His throat worked for long seconds before he spoke, “Tell omma I love her and that I was killed far from here. Tell her it was one of your enemies. Don’t tell her it was you. It’ll break her heart.”
Ramsey placed the gun directly to Bastian’s head. His brother didn’t so much as flinch. All he had to do was pull the trigger. The attached silencer would contain the sound and it would be easy to move Bastian’s body from the premises as long as he knew where the women were. The men, shadows and security guards, wouldn’t blink at the sight of a body bag. Releasing the safety, he slowly caressed the trigger. One bullet. For Lily.
He couldn’t. Not yet. “Who told you I slept with Sarah?”
His brother’s lids flickered before dark, haunted eyes stared up at him. “She didn’t have to tell me. It was staring me in the face.”
“She?”
“Sarah?” Vince asked from behind them. Ramsey looked to Vince, whose face had paled.
Cool fingers snaked down Ramsey’s spine. “Who uses your laptop, Bastian?”
“Whoever needs it.” He sighed. “I don’t lock it.”
“Does Sarah have a laptop?” Vince queried.
“Yes…no. She gets viruses so she uses mine.” Bastian suddenly frowned. “Sarah doesn’t use laptops or computers often. She doesn’t understand them.”
Ramsey shook his head. Sarah? He looked back to Vince, whose eyes were narrowed in contemplation, his face an impenetrable mask. It made no sense. Sarah…
***
Jezebel stepped from the bathroom and smiled as Sarah moved to allow her access to the bed. She’d had to relieve herself, as she always had to do, and it had been so insistent she’d almost mowed Sarah over in the process.
“You wear pregnancy well, unni.”
As the other woman helped her sit up on the bed, Jezebel chuckled. She doubted it but it was sweet of Sarah to say so.
“You think I’m lying?” Sarah queried so seriously Jezebel couldn’t help the smile to ease the slight tension of the other woman’s statement. After having such a deep conversation with Sarah, Jezebel wanted to change the subject. It was obvious that talking about Lily upset the other woman and while Jezebel encouraged the conversations, Sarah had been with her for over an hour now.
“I’m pregnant, Sarah. I don’t expect to look glamorous.”
She smiled. “You look much better than I did at over 6 months.” Sarah sighed. “Pregnancy was horrible for me. I was always splotchy and throwing up, and I was fat, and my ankles were swollen and my back constantly hurt. It was awful.”
Jezebel nodded. She hadn’t had the splotchiness, possibly due to her complexion, or the swollen ankles…yet, but everything else she’d experience. Was it awful? Absolutely. “But it was worth it?”
Sarah’s direct stare and her lack of answer made Jezebel ill-at-ease.
“Sarah?”
Instantly, a smile appeared. “I’m sorry. I just had a thought…a bad one. What did you ask?”
She chuckled with less humor than she felt and repeated the question.
“Was it worth it?” Sarah stated. “I’m not so sure. I gave birth to a beautiful child who died eleven years later. I probably should have saved us both the pain and aborted her.”
Jezebel didn’t know what shocked her more, Sarah’s words or the little smile that accompanied them.
“You’re wondering how I could possibly say something like that?” At Jezebel’s confused expression, Sarah only stated, “I’ve had months to think about it and well, I should have aborted her. She wouldn’t have suffered and I wouldn’t feel so guilty at what I had to do.”
At what I had to do.
Jezebel froze. What did she mean by that? Something was off. She’d felt it the moment she’d returned from the bathroom, but Sarah’s words…
“Don’t look so confused, Jezebel.”
She was. Confused and terrified.
Reaching for her hand, Sarah clasped it between her own, much like Jezebel had done before. “You’re a powerful woman, Jezebel, a smart woman. You’ve never needed a man in your life to validate your existence, so you could never understand me.” She patted her hand as if talking to a child. “I did what was necessary to ensure that I become powerful, like you.”
Jezebel was quick, but in that instant, she wished she wasn’t. At what I had to do. “You murdered your own daughter?”
Sarah scoffed. “No. I could never murder my own child. Pregnancy was horrible but it was eight and a half months of a life inside me, eating what I ate, drinking what I drank. I could never be so heartless as to kill my own child.”
“You had her murdered.” It wasn’t a question. Jezebel felt numb. Poor Lily. The child never had a chance. “You paid someone to murder your own child.”
The woman, whom she’d labeled as “sweet” lifted both of her thin shoulders in a shrug and looked unconcerned. “Greatness calls for sacrifice, doesn’t it, Jezebel?” She smiled as if imparting something Jezebel knew. “You went to Ivy League schools all your life. You spent more time with books than with anyone else. You had no social life in college, business school, your first years working. You sacrificed too.”
“I never murdered anyone,” Jezebel hissed.
“My father is the head of the Seven Star Mob,” Sarah reminded. Her eyes were cold and unfeeling as she stated, “Death doesn’t faze me.”
“You had your own child murdered!” Jezebel tried to pull her hand away but Sarah was much stronger than she looked. Her grip tightened, quelling Jezebel’s resistance.
“Play nice. I don’t want to get nasty.”
Intuition told her that Sarah Stone didn’t intend to be anything but nasty from here on out. If Jezebel left the room alive, she was guaranteed to go to Ramsey and Sarah wouldn’t want that. Sarah planned to kill her, kill her unborn child. If she could murder Lily, her own child…
Jezebel remembered the gun. After being kidnapped weeks ago, she’d demanded a gun and Ramsey had complied. It was between the top of the mattress and the headboard, stashed close enough that she could get it if necessary.
“Don’t even think of screaming. I can kill you before you even open your mouth.” Sarah sighed. “This isn’t personal, Jezebel. I like you. You’re smart, like me, but you got involved with the wrong man.”
“Ramsey?”
“He’s mine,” Sarah told her with conviction.
Jezebel frowned. “You’re married to his brother.”
“Ramsey wa
s promised to me when I was fifteen. I’m an heiress, did you know that? I’m the first child born to my parents. Were I a boy, I wouldn’t even need him.” Bitterness poured from her before she shrugged. “It no longer matters. With him at my side, I’ll have the power I should have had were it not for my unfortunate gender. We’ll be the most powerful couple in South Korea, Ramsey and Sarah Stone, The Dragon and his wife.” She sighed in a way that was almost dreamy.
“And Bastian?” Jezebel kept her talking, knowing she needed the time if she were to get the gun.
“Bastian’s a traitor,” Sarah dismissed. “He betrayed Ramsey. He’s always been jealous and well, Ramsey found evidence of it.”
“Evidence?”
“That laptop.” Sarah indicated it with a flick of her head. “It’s got all the evidence necessary to show that Bastian is responsible for every bad thing that happened to this family. Lily’s death, he organized. Both attempts on your life too. And he’s been in contact with the FBI. There really is nothing left to say. Sebastian Stone is a traitor.”
“How did you manage to do all of those things, Sarah?”
She smiled wide. “As I said, I’m smart, just like you. Your forte is in investments and startups, I dabble in different things: code, chemistry, my IQ allows it.” She sighed. “Had we grown up in different worlds, I might have been you: a CEO or the owner of some company, but we didn’t. I didn’t go to your fancy college or university, but in the end, I still found a way to learn everything I needed. I was groomed to be the wife of a powerful man, and I will be.”
Jezebel forced a laugh, which succeeded in dulling the mad light in Sarah’s eyes. “Ramsey’s not stupid. He’ll know it was you.”
“He’ll never figure it out. I’m timid, and shy and so very respectful. I’m always in the background, never in the front.” She smiled, clearly proud of the persona she gave off. “Plus, he blames himself for Lily’s death. He’ll point a finger at everyone but me.” She shrugged again. “And even if he does, there’s always Plan B. I’m always prepared.”
“What’s Plan B?”
Sarah blinked, black lashes fanning her pale cheeks as her lips curved upward. “Kill them all.”
“Them?”
“Ramsey, Bastian, Vince, Jax. The Dragon doesn’t have to be one of them. There are others, uncles and cousins who’d leap at the chance…” She released Jezebel’s hand to rub her flat belly. “I’ll give the Double Dragon an heir worthy of the title.”
Glad to have her hand back, Jezebel pretended to shift nervously, moving her arms further back to get the gun. “You’re not pregnant, Sarah.”
“Only because I don’t want to be. I can find someone willing to fuck me until I conceive. It’s not very hard.”
This was shy, timid, Sarah, Jezebel thought with disgust. She’d played them all from the very beginning.
“Your plan isn’t going to work.”
“I have many plans, Jezebel.” A tittering laugh escaped her lips. “One has to work.”
“What are you going to do to me?”
“You’re not stupid, Jezebel. I need you and that bastard in your belly gone.”
“There’s a guard down the hall.” Ramsey had stationed one there after the kidnapping. “He’ll know you were here. How are you going to explain my death?”
Sarah seemed to contemplate it before she grinned. “Aconite.”
“Aconite?”
“Aconite,” Sarah began with an indulgent, almost professor-like nod. She reached into her sweater. Jezebel’s horror only intensified as she removed as small syringe with a green cap over the needle. “Also known as monkshood or wolfsbane, causes arrhythmic heart functions that result in suffocation and death.” Placing the cap between her teeth, she pulled, exposing the deadly point of the needle.
Jezebel made a decision then. Her shock diluted as her fight reflexes kicked in. She’d heard of wolfsbane, and knew it was a deadly poison. Sarah had likely researched just how much was needed to kill someone her height and weight. If she got the needle in Jezebel’s body, she was dead.
As Sarah leaned forward, syringe heading to the vein over her elbow, Jezebel prepared to duck and launch herself at the smaller woman. It didn’t happen.
There was a commotion in the hallway. Sarah jumped up and turned to the door with a frown, giving Jezebel the necessary time to scramble for the gun. She stuck her hand between the bed frame and mattress, prepared to feel the tight press of the gun. Nothing. Where was it? She tried again.
Fingers gripped her hair and her head was yanked around. The black nozzle of Ramsey’s gun stared back at her. “I’m not stupid either.”
The doorknob began to rattle. Sarah had either locked the door when she’d come in or when Jezebel had gone to the bathroom.
“Jez?” Ramsey yelled. “Jezebel? Are you in there?”
Sarah’s lips thinned before curling down in a sneer. “Tell him you’re fine.”
When Jezebel hesitated, Sarah turned the safety off. “Do it.”
With a nervous inhale, Jezebel called, “I’m fine, Ramsey.”
The rattling stopped. “Then why is the door locked?”
“You were sleeping. Sarah must have locked it when she left.” Sarah’s eyes narrowed. “I won’t hesitate to shoot you if you don’t do exactly as I say.”
Jezebel repeated the words.
“Sarah’s not in there with you?”
Sarah stole a quick, angry glance at the door. “No.”
Jezebel repeated it.
“Open the door, Jezebel!” Ramsey hissed. “NOW!”
Sarah lifted a brow. “Looks like Ramsey’s smarter than I thought.”
“You should run,” Jezebel advised, praying that by some miracle Ramsey found a way into the room in time to keep this crazy bitch from hurting her.
“Your concern is touching,” Sarah snarled. “Come on, Jezebel. You just became my ticket out of here.”
***
As soon as the door opened, Ramsey barged in, gun drawn. Vince followed behind him. The slight quiver and seriousness he’d heard in Jezebel’s voice coupled with instinct, told him that something was wrong.
A quick survey of the room revealed rumpled sheets but no Jezebel or Sarah. A whimper had him spinning around.
Pressed against the door, a gun to her head, was Jezebel. Stark fear shone out from her brown eyes. Sarah stood next to her but everything about this woman was different from the one he knew. She chose that moment to smile.
“Hi, oppa.”
“What the hell are you doing, Sarah?”
“Clearly, you’ve all figured it out, so I won’t bore you with the details.” She pressed the gun further into Jezebel’s temple. “Guns down. Slowly.”
He complied. Vince did too.
“And the ones in your jackets.”
Vince reached into his jacket and removed two more guns, which he lowered to the carpeted floor.
“Good.” Sarah nodded. “I want a car to the airport in the next fifteen minutes. I’ll be taking Jezebel as insurance, you understand.”
“I’ll give you a car if you let her go.”
“Do you think I’m stupid, Ramsey? Do you think I’d trust you to let me go when you’ve been killing all of my associates, one after the other, in your quest for vengeance? No, your precious Jezebel and your geomdung-i baby are going to come with me to the airport. Once there, I’ll let them go.”
“No you won’t.”
She lifted a brow. “I give you my word.”
“You killed your own daughter.” His fists balled at his sides, itching to get them around her throat. “Your word is shit.”
Her face tightened. “Well it looks like we’re at a stalemate. So, you’re going to kill me, but I’m going to blow her head off before you do. Maybe that’s justice enough. You backed out of an oath to marry me and now I’ll take the woman and child you love so much. Karma?” She nodded emphatically. “Sounds like karma to me.”
As he watched, she
tightened her grip on Jezebel’s hair, and slowly made her way past them, over to the cordless phone on the end table. Holding the gun to Jezebel, she made a phone call as they watched.
“Aboji…” Her voice was low, whiny, the Sarah he knew again. She’d called her father. “Forgive me…I tried but they won’t let me…I can’t take it anymore, Aboji. He hurts me. He hurts me every day, every night…he makes me do things with other men…no, please Aboji…Oppa does it too, hurts me too…I’m scared…help me…I can’t take it anymore.”
She hung up and smirked. Ramsey scowled. In her twisted mind, this was her way of ensuring that she lived. Kwan Min-Ho would be heading his way, expecting to find his broken, abused daughter, and if she was dead, there would be a war. He’d remember her last message and nothing else. It was a bold move, a smart move…
“Let her go, Sarah. I can’t kill you now so put the gun down and walk out of here.”
Sarah laughed. “I might have fooled you into thinking I was stupid for many years but we both know I’m not.” She tapped the gun against Jezebel’s head. “She’s my insurance. Now get me a car.”
“Why’d you kill Lily?” He wanted to know but he also wanted to stall her. Hopefully, she’d slip, move the gun, and either he or Vince would be able to take her out.
“Because she has no part in the life I deserve,” Sarah snarled. “It pained me to do that. If she was yours, she’d still be alive, but Bastian, Sebastian Stone, that weak, stupid man.” Contempt oozed from her pores and Ramsey felt his rage build as she demeaned his brother. “Do you know how easy he was to manipulate?” She lifted a brow as if awaiting an answer. With a little laugh, she stated, “On our wedding night, I called your name. When he rolled off, I apologized, and pretended to be ashamed. I told him I was pure before you…” At Ramsey’s look of contempt, she laughed. “Of course he drank and whored. He was weak. He needed something to make him feel strong.” She clucked her tongue. “Did you really think taking him in your place was an equal trade? The only thing your brother has going for him is his face, his body and his cock, and that was just good genetics.”
Ramsey curled his fists at his sides. “Bastian loved you.”
The Dragon (G.O.N.Y. - Double Dragon) Page 24
