Mark’s face turns into a disappointed scowl. “I thought I taught you better than that, Leo. You should always finish what you start.”
I won’t let him see it in my face, but I know what he’s saying is true. I had the chance to end Mark myself at the cabin. When I was standing over him and he was too injured and weak to fight back, I had the perfect opportunity to put a bullet in his brain, but I couldn’t do it.
I’d like to think it was because he didn’t deserve a quick death, but if I’m truthful with myself, I know it was because in some fucked-up way I couldn’t kill my abusive, psychotic father figure in the same way that my actual father was killed. In my mind I was the eight-year-old version of myself watching my real father bleed out on the floor in front of me just before the final bullet struck his skull, and in that moment I panicked. I couldn’t be the one pulling that trigger, even if it was Mark on the receiving end of the bullet he so greatly deserved.
If I had just taken that damn shot, though, we wouldn’t be here right now. We’d never be here again.
My disturbing train of thought throws me off, and suddenly I don’t feel as confident in the gun in my hands. I glance behind me waiting for the cavalry to come in that doesn’t exist. Where is Jack?
“Looking for someone? An old, decrepit doctor, perhaps? Sorry to say he won’t be around to deliver Morgan’s next child.”
My hand starts to shake, and I wish I could will it to stop, but it won’t. “You killed him?”
“It had to be done. At least he was smoking a cigar when he met his end.” Mark tightens his grip around Morgan’s torso. “Ironic, isn’t it? The thing that helped save her before was the weakness that let me into this fortress of a house.”
I can barely wrap my mind around the scene in front of me, let alone begin to process the thought of Jack’s death. All I can think of is how he always felt like family to me. From the gunshot to my arm the day my parents were killed, to the broken bones and gashes I received from Mark and his business, Jack was always there to treat my wounds and give me support. When he realized the love that Morgan and I shared, he even took her under his wing, warning us of Mark’s ultimate plans back at headquarters and planning an escape for us. He played a part in her rescue. He gave us a home to live in. He delivered our child into this crazy, fucked-up world.
The man who did all those things is dead.
“Are you angry with me, son?”
“Don’t call me that,” I warn through gritted teeth, and then I lose it, truth finding perfect clarity in my mind, washing away all the self-doubt that Mark’s comment instilled in me just moments before. “I’m not your fucking son, and you’ve never been my father. You never should have had the privilege of being a father. You beat your own daughter, you fucking vile human being.”
Mark bursts into a short fit of maniacal laughter. “You have the nerve to admonish me about Stella? You’re the one who killed her.”
“I did not kill her,” I shoot back defiantly.
“I saw the look on your face at the graveyard. You feel all the weight of that guilt. You know you put her in the ground. She was your responsibility.”
“She was everything to me!” I yell with an exasperated breath before my thoughts come to a screeching halt. As Mark’s words absorb into my brain, I experience a painful moment of realization. “The graveyard. You were there.” It isn’t a question.
Mark nods with a growing smile on his face.
“You followed me.”
He nods again.
“You found the house.”
The corners of Mark’s lips could not possibly smile any broader. “I could have done this all there months ago, but I wanted revenge on every last one of you. I wanted Robert in prison. I wanted Morgan to have her life back so that I could steal it away again. And you…” he snarls, narrowing his hateful eyes at me, “I wanted you to experience what it’s like to have your child ripped away from you.”
I feel like my entire world is crumbling down around me. I was sloppy. I let myself be followed. I led Mark to us and ruined the perfection that Morgan and I found at that house. Our little sanctuary from the world was shattered all because I couldn’t push past my guilt over Stella’s death.
I ruined us.
Mark’s vindictive glare morphs into a satisfied smile. “An anonymous tip to the FBI about the Whitfords’ involvement with criminals and their visits to the house was all it took, and I knew you’d end up here. I knew you’d come groveling back to Jack, because you’re incapable of taking care of this shit on your own.”
Anger suddenly overpowers the devastation with me, and I take a forceful step toward Mark, tightening my grip on the gun still trained at him even though he holds my family.
“Don’t.” The warning in Mark’s voice accompanies a repositioning of the knife at Morgan’s throat. She winces as more blood drips down her neck.
I stop my advance, and for a moment we stare at each other in silence.
My heart clenches as Mark looks down proudly at the only slightly stirring bundle in his arms. “My handsome baby boy.”
I wish Dante would start screaming and flailing and doing all the things he does to get attention so he can keep Mark distracted, anything to give me or Morgan a chance to attack, but the baby looks generally happy resting in the arms of a monster.
“I will not let you take my family again,” I warn, my voice a low growl.
Mark pulls Morgan and Dante closer to him as his face turns into a victorious smile. “I’m just taking back what’s mine.”
“I was never yours,” Morgan spits at him.
“You were most definitely mine. Or have you forgotten those days at the cabin when you stopped fighting? The days I fucked you senseless without a single struggle from you?”
Her eyes narrow with determination as she looks behind her to meet Mark’s gaze. “Everything you did was hopeless anyway. No matter how many times you fucked me, you were never going to put a child in me.”
“And yet I hold my son in my arms.”
“He’s not your son!” Morgan fires back, and her face instantly whitens.
Everything inside me hollows out at once as I immediately share the sentiment on Morgan’s face that she wishes she could take back those words. If Mark thinks for even a second that Dante is mine and not his, he’ll have no reason to keep him. He’ll use him against us, or he’ll kill the baby and then he’ll start over, getting everything he could have possibly wanted and leaving us even more devastated than before.
Mark looks from Morgan to me to the child in his arms. He seems to contemplate Dante’s face before his eyes grow wide with rage. “You fucking bitch.” He pulls the knife up higher, and Morgan gasps as it cuts deeper into her skin. “You preempted me. You ruined everything!”
“I chose Leo,” she retorts, her voice as strong as I’ve ever heard it despite the knife at her throat and the tears running down her face.
“You chose death for his son.”
In one quick movement, Mark throws Morgan out of his grasp and against the wall. I bolt toward him as he pulls the knife to within inches of Dante’s tiny throat, but something beats me there. Explosive gunshots pierce through the air behind me, and I watch as each bullet hit its target.
My full weight collides with Mark’s chest, knocking the knife out of his hand. I pull the now crying baby to my chest as we all go crashing down to the floor.
I hear Morgan’s strangled cries behind me as she pulls at my shoulder to separate me from Mark. When she takes Dante from my arms and steps away, I feel instant relief, but I have something left to finish.
I won’t do this from a crumpled position on the floor where Mark put me so many times after my childhood beatings. I won’t do this from my knees where he forced me to beg for food and water after locking me in dark rooms for days on end.
I’ll do this standing with my feet firmly planted on the floor that will be his deathbed, my aim steady and my will strong despite everyt
hing he’s done to put me down and destroy me and the people I love.
I raise my arm, the gun a perfect extension of my hand as it has been since the day Mark had my parents killed and changed the course of my life. A million thoughts and emotions and possibilities race through my mind, but only one thing comes out.
A bullet.
It strikes Mark between the eyes, and his body instantly stills.
It’s finally finished.
I drop the gun and turn around, relieved to find Morgan clutching our son to her shoulder even though there is blood on her neck and her entire body is shaking. There’s someone else, though, and I can’t help pausing in complete shock at the sight of him.
“Jack?”
He’s holding on to the door frame with one hand and grasping a gun in the other. His face is pale. His breathing is slow and shallow. There are holes in two places in his shirt that is soaked with blood.
When I rush to his side, he immediately collapses his weight against me. I lower him gently to the floor and pull up his shirt to look at his injuries. Blood is gushing out of two large knife wounds in his abdomen.
“Jesus, Jack.” I press my hands over the wounds to try to stop the bleeding, and Jack gasps in pain.
“Leo.”
In that one word I know what’s coming next, but I don’t want to hear it.
“This isn’t fixable,” Jack continues weakly. “I’ve lost too much blood.”
Despite what Jack says, I press harder against the wounds. “How did you even get in here from outside? How did you manage to do this?”
“Good old fashioned adrenaline.” Jack tries to laugh, but it comes out as more of a gurgled, painful cough. Blood is coming out of his mouth now, and I feel the tightness begin in my throat. I’m losing him, right in front of my fucking eyes.
Morgan kneels down next to us, rocking the calmed baby in one arm and grasping Jack’s hand with the other. “Thank you.” Tears streak down her face as she says it. “You saved Dante’s life. You saved us.”
Jack manages a meager smile. “You’re family.” He coughs again, and any trace of the smile is gone. “I should have ended this a long time ago.”
When he looks back to me, I know exactly what he’s trying to say. Stella. Me. Morgan. He was there through all of it. He knew what Mark did to us, but he didn’t stop him.
I’ll never be upset or angry with him for it, though. The unfortunate series of events that befell Mark’s closest victims ultimately led us here, with Morgan by my side and a son in our arms. I couldn’t imagine life without either of them. It seems I had to have everything taken away from me in order to get something back, and what life gave me–what Mark ultimately gave me–was more than I could have ever imagined. Instead of an endless cycle of misery and destruction for my family, I’ve been given something new, a finished circle, a complete life. I have the family and love I’ve always wanted, and I have it all because of what Mark did and what Jack never stopped.
Jack grabs my arm, forcing my attention to him. “The safe in my office. You need to get in there. Get me something to write with.”
I quickly bolt across the hall to his office and return with the first pen and pad of paper I can find from his desk. He shakily scribbles down something and hands them back to me. There’s a series of random numbers and a phone number.
“Code to the safe. Take the money. All of it. Call the phone number.” He pauses a moment to breathe. “Richard Glass is my attorney. Tell him what happened, and he’ll take care of everything. He knows what to do.”
“Jack, I–”
“Don’t, Leo.” He turns his head to the side and coughs up more blood before looking back at me, the hint of a grin on his face. “Just get me off this damn floor, will you?”
I can’t help the slight upturn of my lips at his request. Morgan quickly gets up and moves to the side while I work my grip underneath Jack’s back and knees and rise to standing with him in my arms. He’s heavy for the frail-looking, dying man that he is, but I manage to get him to his bedroom and settled on his bed without causing him too much discomfort.
Morgan and I settle in on each side of Jack on the bed. Morgan rubs his arm soothingly, transferring her comfort to him like she has done so many times before for me. He smiles at her and the baby in her arms before returning his gaze to me.
His eyes seem to fade in and out of focus until there’s nothing there.
Then he’s gone.
27
His Joy
∞
They often say
light is only appreciated amidst darkness.
Beauty piercing through devastation,
the calm after the storm.
The journey is part of it.
It makes us who we are.
It gets us there,
though shattered along the way.
There is light to be had.
Joyful, beautiful things.
He has seen the darkness.
We all have.
Now we reach for the light.
Embrace it.
And never let go.
∞
There will be no obituary. No wake of remembrance. Not even a private ceremony to lay him to rest. Jack will simply be buried, quietly and anonymously at the direction of his attorney, without anyone there to say goodbye. He was a good man and doesn’t deserve that kind of send off from this world, but those were his wishes. He knew there was no one else to say goodbye, because that’s how he lived, alone and without any attachments other than in his work.
At least he spent his final moments with family. With us.
I’ll never be able to repay Jack for what he did for us, not just because he’s no longer here, but because there is no way to appropriately compensate him for everything he did to help us. There are some acts of kindness too generous to reimburse. For a man who kept to himself all his life, Jack was the most giving man I ever met.
Few knew of the good he did, but I will never forget.
Jack left us all his cash, which was a lot. We opened the large safe in his office to find hundreds of thousands of dollars in neat stacks, more than enough to get us far away to start another new chapter of our lives.
The rest of Jack’s assets, we were told by Jack’s attorney later that day, would be liquidated and donated to charities for child abuse prevention and treatment, a revelation that may have hit Leo harder than Jack’s death itself.
I had to pry it out of him, but Leo said he wished he could have spoken to Jack one more time. Five minutes is all Leo would have needed to make Jack understand that he didn’t blame him for not intervening, that in the end, everything that happened to Stella and him and me led to something beautiful. He wanted Jack to know that he wouldn’t have changed any of it. I told Leo I was confident Jack knew that since the moment he first saw us together. I could see it in his eyes even as he was bleeding out and fading away from us on his bed. He was happy for us and where we ended up.
Richard Glass wasn’t at all the sharply dressed attorney with shiny shoes and a slicked-back haircut that I expected him to be. He was older, wearing a plaid shirt and jeans that made him look somewhat like a lumberjack with his black beard and scraggily hair. He may not have looked the part of his profession, but he was the epitome of someone who Jack would entrust with his finances and final wishes.
Richard told us plans were already well underway to purchase our new home, and he was eager to get us on the road to get there. He refused any help we offered to deal with everything at Jack’s house, not because he wanted to get rid of us, but because he had his way of doing things and preferred to do them himself. As Jack said, Richard would take care of it, and he did. Every single bit of it.
Thanks to Jack rushing the order for our fake papers the day we arrived at his house, Richard was able to bring the new IDs for me and Leo and a forged birth certificate for Dante, and we were able to get on the road less than twenty-four hours after Jack’s death. We thanked Richard
for everything he did for us, and he told us to call if we ever needed anything. I had a feeling we’d probably never see or speak to him again, but it was good to know that there was one person out there who we could call if we needed to.
Leo and I loaded up the Jeep with Dante, our limited belongings, the cash left to us by Jack, and some supplies and provisions that Richard insisted we take from the house. Other than a couple of switchblades, we left all other weapons behind along with everything that went with those weapons in our former life. This road trip was about stepping in a different direction, taking a new path and leaving behind as much of our pasts with Mark as we could.
It took a few days and what seemed like endless amounts of driving, making as few stops as possible and taking turns driving and sleeping, but we finally made it. We left the desert behind, and now we’re here in a completely new environment, hiding away from the world beneath the tree cover in the middle of nowhere.
Hello, Maine.
I gave in. The morning after Leo suggested Maine back at Jack’s house, I realized that he was right. Despite my reservations about being back in the woods, it’s a good place for us to hide. Though our picture going viral on social media means we could be recognized anywhere, the chances are lower in the remote parts of a state like Maine.
“I’m amazed this GPS still has reception,” Leo says as he pulls onto yet another dirt road. “We’re getting close.”
This state is huge. We’ve been driving straight up into it for hours, and we’re just now getting close to our destination. We haven’t seen significant signs of civilization for miles, which only puts me more at ease.
The GPS announces our arrival at our destination, but of course it’s slightly off. We see the turnoff up ahead, and Leo takes it.
The driveway is long, and the further we drive down it, the more I realize how impossible it will be for us to get out of here during the winters. We’ll have to stock up on food and supplies and wait out the storms until the snow is manageable enough for the Jeep to drive in again.
Beyond Revenge (The Ransom Series) Page 20
