“Can we hurry this family reunion up a little, please? I really didn’t want to have to do this, but…” the old man groaned exhaustedly. He paused for a second, rolling his eyes before quickly pulling a handgun from a holster hidden under his cloak and pointed it directly at Kilian’s head.
Grace gasped. “No!” she shrieked, her voice shrill and horrified. “Please, no!”
“That book is worth millions, Grace,” her uncle stated plainly, his hand swiftly flipping off the gun’s safety mechanism. “I’m not fucking around here.” His finger was now on the trigger. “Now...hand it over.”
“Well, since you put it that way,” Kilian sighed, his defensive posture relaxing slightly. He threw the shovel to the ground. “You can kiss my ass.”
In one swift movement, Kilian tossed the book to Grace and dove towards the older man.
“Stop!” Grace screamed, catching the book in her outstretched hands. Mark ran to her side.
The old manfired at Kilian but missed as a bullet ricocheted off a nearby boulder, causing the group to scatter. As Kilian lunged and tackled the man to the ground, he grabbed his arm holding the handgun, attempting to wrestle it free from his grasp.
Mark and Grace stared on at the spectacle in stunned silence before ducking for cover behind one of the monastery’s crumbling walls. Grace started to run towards them to help Kilian, but Mark pulled her back.
“Don’t, please,” Mark whispered. “I don’t know what you and him have going on, but it isn’t worth it. He’s a cop. Let him handle it. You have the book, right?” he asked, breathing heavily as the old man and Kilian struggled merely feet away.
“You don’t understand,” Grace sighed back, holding back tears. She looked down at the book in her trembling hands, tears falling from her face and staining the cover. “We need to help him.” She started to cry, more so in anger and frustration than fear.
As the old man was pinned to the ground by Kilian, he struggled to fire the gun at him, missing and firing into the air. Kilian punched the man in the face, drawing blood and nearly causing the gun to slip from his hands.
“He’s shooting at him,” Grace’s eyes widened in terror as she peeked out from behind the rubble. “It doesn’t look good, Mark. I can’t stand here and watch this.” She looked up at him pleadingly. “If he dies because of this, I don’t know if I can live with myself.”
“Grace, please,” Mark reasoned with her in vain. His expression grew weary as he realized there was no bargaining with his sister; there never was.
As Grace began to run out from behind the wall, Mark held out a hand and stopped her. “Let me handle this,” he said hastily, running towards Kilian and his uncle. Grace looked on, defeated.
In the distance, the struggle continued, the two men fighting for control of the gun. Kilian nearly grabbed the pistol from the man’s hands, but his boot slipped in the rock pile nearby. “Shit,” he whispered, glancing down at his foot, now pinned under a heavy stone.
Before he could wrangle his foot free from where it had become stuck, the old man weakly regained control of the gun, looking up at Kilian through two black and blue swollen eyes and recklessly firing off a series of shots.
“Fuck!” Kilian’s voice boomed, followed by a pained groan and the sound of him falling to the ground.
One of the stray bullets the man had fired in a frenzy managed to hit Mark, too; Mark grabbed his arm and winced, falling to the ground for a moment in a kneeling position. “Augh,” he moaned in pain, quickly ripping part of his shirtsleeve and tying it around the wound like a makeshift tourniquet. He ducked behind a nearby boulder, much to Grace’s initial confusion.
Thankfully, the bullet had just grazed Mark’s skin, but for Kilian, the situation was far more dire. He lay on the ground as blood soaked through his shirt and pooled on the ground below him as he appeared to lose consciousness.
“No!” Grace screamed, darting out from behind the crumbling wall and running to Kilian’s side. She examined him frantically before staring in disbelief at a growing circle of blood staining the side of his shirt. “Oh, my God, no.” She began to step closer but was halted by the sound of her uncle’s voice.
“Don’t make me shoot my own blood, now,” he growled, now on his feet again, stepping closer to Grace and Kilian. Tears streamed down Grace’s face as she stared down at Kilian helplessly.
Just as theold man stepped close enough to raise his gun once more and fire at Grace, Mark leapt from behind and tackled him to the ground, his head banging hard enough against a rock that blood trickled down the back of his head. He lost his grip on his pistol, which fell from his hands and slid down a nearby embankment.
“Oh, God damn it,” the old man hissed, his eyes glazing over, unable to move under Mark’s weight. With one more swift punch, their uncle’s eyes went blank, causing him to collapse limply to the ground, his forehead smacking the dirt with a small thud.
Grace looked on in disbelief, frozen in fear. “Is he…?”
“Kilian?” Mark asked, not answering her question, “He doesn’t look so good.” He pointed weakly at Kilian, who had turned pale and become unresponsive.
22
“Goddammit,”Mark groaned, what the hell was he supposed to do now? His enemy’s son was bleeding to death in front of him, his uncle lay with a gun at his feet, oh, and they were trespassing on some remote island and digging up buried treasure.
“What are we going to do?” Grace sobbed, and his heart ached for sister. He told her that Kilian would be fine, but he wasn’t entirely certain. Sure, he was breathing, but for how long?
Frowning down at the unconscious bodies, he chewed on his lower lip. His uncle would have killed them and dumped the bodies in the lake, he could do the same. It wouldn’t be the first time he’d hidden a body.
Looking around the small island, he pulled out his phone and dialed.
