She took it for me.
Saved me.
“Nooooo!” I screamed.
Blood spurted from her lips.
I tried to move. It was so hard with just one arm, but I moved to her, pulling and sliding until I got to her. Tag started to laugh.
“Millicent. No…”
“Amelia, I’m sorry.” Her voice was just above a whisper. Soft and searching. Barely there. Blood covered the whole front of her pink cardigan.
“Stay with me,” I begged.
“It’s my fault. All my fault. I didn’t mean to. I didn’t mean to. They were going to kill my husband. I love you, sweet girl.”
I watched the light and the life leave her eyes. It literally was like someone had switched something off. Something deep inside her.
I screamed and tried to wake her, but nothing. “No, oh God. No. Please.”
Millicent…
She’d been so dear to me. Always. In my mind I could see her with me as a child. She’d always been there. From as far back as I could remember. With her milk and cookies taking care of me.
She’d been there when I’d brought home my first leotard, there to pick me up when I felt down. She’d cleaned up all the things I broke in the house as I practiced my moves, and covered for me because my parents didn’t like me prancing around the place for that very reason. She’d been the only person I’d told about the first guy I crushed on, and my first kiss. My parents would have gone apeshit at me, and things like that had best been reserved for Millicent.
She’d been there when the letter came from Julliard, accepting me. It had been the two of us who were the first to know and celebrate.
She’d been like a mother to me.
Now she was gone.
“Pity, pity. I really wanted her to see me kill her husband. It’s no fun now that she’s dead. You people are so fickle. I can almost guess your price. Haven’t you heard about guarding your secrets with your life? Or rather your weaknesses. With her, all I did was threaten to kill her husband. That was her price, and look where it got her. Never did like her though. Always, she stuck her nose where it didn’t belong. Damn nosy bitch.”
“You bastard! Why did you drag her into this mess?” I could barely see him through my tears.
“Dear old Millicent here was the one who gave the game away. She was the rat, the person who started this whole show. She notified me of your father’s knowledge of my affair with your mother, and from that, I realized what happened years ago. Your father set me up. He’s to blame for why you don’t have a mother and, of course, your current predicament.”
“You take no blame, none whatsoever. You had an affair with your best friend’s wife. That is the cause of all of this. Youuuuuuu!” I bellowed.
His face flushed red, and he rushed to me with the gun and pressed it to my head.
“Don’t you speak to me like that.” He snarled, nostrils flaring and eyes blazing.
“Kill me. Go ahead. I don’t care. Just know this. It was your fault. All of it. All of this. You, the disloyal friend who broke a family apart. Things could have been different. My mother would be here if not for you.”
I swore he was about to pull the trigger again, but he stopped when one of his lackeys burst into the room.
“Boss, Dino said he saw one of Raphael’s men on the second floor.” The guy blurted in a hurried babble.
Tag straightened up in fury and growled. “What!”
I looked at the guy. He was scraggly looking with a scar on his chin. If one of Dad’s men was here, then that meant Luc was here.
My heart squeezed at the prospect. I didn’t think he would have been able to find me. I didn’t know how he had.
“That’s fine. Go after them,” Tag ordered. “I don’t know how your people found us, but they’ll pay. Let’s change things up and take this to the roof. I’ll bet you’ll look just like an angel hanging from it.”
