“Miss Griffith. What a pleasant surprise. I didn’t know you would be joining us up here tonight. Seems like Deena went a little off script. But I had hoped you would one day take over your sister’s spot on my team,”
“I would never,” I spit.
“That’s what she thought at first, but after seeing the money made from the high-end girls and the freedom she could gain from your father, she changed her tune pretty quickly,” His face always hid something, but now everything looks wrong. The perfect hair and the highly pampered brows, to the pompous way his voice drawls make me feel queasy. “Even started enjoying it in the end. But given your talents for being able to hold your own, I think I might have a higher position for you to fill,”
I open my mouth to argue but gun shots ring out from the forest, not one, but five. Five shots then met with silence. I pray that it had nothing to do with Piper, but I know it doesn’t look good.
Mr. Chapman orders one of the men beside him to go and see what all the noise was, his face lined with rage and his brow covered in a sheen ofsweat. Even though its late, someone at the academy will have heard those shots. Right?
He steps closer to me, raising the gun to my face, mouth open and ready to talk.
In a split second everything flips.
The door bursts open and a tall man dressed in all black, runs in with an assault rifle aimed straight at us. Before I can duck, Mr. Chapman pulls me in front of his body, my back meeting his chest as he places the gun to the side of my temple.
The man before me pulls up his balaclava and I almost cry out with relief.
“Asher,” I gasp as tears fill my eyes, blurring his image before me.
“Baby,” He lifts the rifle to the man holding onto me. “Why are you always hurt?” He questions.
“I fell over again,” I smirk. “Completely on top of that man by your feet and accidentally strangled him to death,”
“Now is not the time you little psycho,” He smirks back.
“Enough!” Mr. Chapman shouts, gun levelled at me. One of his men has Asher in his sights, while the third is shoved in by an angry Daylan, hands raised, gun pressed to his back.
“Gun’s down, fellas, or Ruella loses her brains,” He sneers as Asher growls, reluctantly lowering his weapon.
“You too, Mr. Bandini,” Mr. Chapman snaps.
Daylan smacks the man in front of him across the back of his head, and he crumples to the floor, unconscious. “Oops…slipped,” Daylan mutters as the man drops his gun and raises his hands in surrender.
“Where’s the other one? Mr. Evans,” He demands.
“He was a little preoccupied… killing all your other men for touching my sister,” Asher grins, the edge in his voice making my stomach flip. “He has one more left to get rid of,”
“On your knees, both of you,” Mr. Chapman gestures for one of his men to hold a gun to my head as he stalks through the church, keeping Asher in his sights, pushing him further from me.
“Now… what do I do with all of you?” His steps slow. Panic coils through me, hot and sudden. “There are too many of you to just… disappear from the academy, and you’ve made quite the mess for me outside,”
He backhands Asher across the face. I scream, my heart threatening to tear itself free from my chest.
“Leave him alone! It’s me you want. Let him go…I’ll do whatever you want!”
He chuckles, dark and cruel. “You’d really protect him… the reason you’re here in the first place?”
My brows furrow. Something gnaws inside me.
“Oh, you don’t know?” he laughs. “Do you want to tell her, or shall I?” he asks Asher, and his guilt slams into my chest so hard it nearly stops my heart. I don’t know if I can take much more before I break for good.
“I was going to tell you tonight, when I came to your room,” Asher pleads. “You told me all your truth’s, so I was prepared to give you all of mine. Start again with a clean slate, even at the risk of you never speaking to me again…”
“Ah, this is taking too long,” Chapman’s tone sharpens, like a knife. “Asher… killed Marlowe,”
My eyes widen. My jaw drops.
The shock should have been betrayal, rage at the secret and the lie, but it’s drowned beneath something darker. Jealousy. That he got to make her suffer. Thathehad that pleasure, when I had wanted it all to myself.
