“You stupid boy,” Marcy shouts. “You’re turning your back on me even after everything I did for you?”
I almost feel sorry for Alex. I knew his mother had damaged him, but that damage is beyond anything I could have imagined.
“After everything you did for him?” I ask. “Do you mean everything you covered up for him?”
The faint smile on Marcy’s lips is enough for me to know the answer to my question. I don’t know how many girls Alex has on his conscience, but I know she was involved.
“Ignore my mother.” Alex turns to me. “I’m done with her. I want you and only you, Viola. I still want us to spend the rest of our lives together.”
I see the man I married, the same eyes, the same hair, the same beautiful lips that I have kissed so many times. But my husband is gone. The man standing in front of me is a stranger.
“Alex, be careful.” Marcy’s voice has weakened a little. “If you betray me, you will not have a life to live at all.”
Alex shuts her out and continues to plead with me to take him back. He really thinks I can just forget about the things he did? I can never forgive him for what he did to my father.
His mother continues to speak in the background.
“Betray me again and I’ll have you locked away for a long time. You know I have the legal connections to make it happen, the same legal connections that helped set you free.” She chuckles. “I hold all your secrets, baby. And we agreed that I would say nothing as long as you let her go. That was the deal. We can get rid of her. No one will ever know.”
“No,” Alex says. “I’m done with you, Mother. I choose Viola.” Turning back into the strong man I knew, he approaches her and stretches out his hand. “Give me the gun.”
Marcy steps back, her smile widening as she turns the gun on him.
“You’re nothing without me,” she says, “and you won’t get a cent from me, not even when I’m dead.”
“We don’t need you, Mother. We survived without you.”
“Is that so?” She cocks an eyebrow. “Have you forgotten the times you called begging me for money?”
My body goes cold, and my mind flashes to the time where we decided to try IVF. I said we couldn’t afford it, but somehow a few weeks later, Alex came up with the money. He was in touch with his mother all along. Never once did he tell me that he took money from her.
“It was one time, and it won’t happen again,” Alex says. “Once me and my wife leave this place, you’ll never hear from us again.”
“Well, in that case, I guess this is goodbye, son.”
Many things happen at once. First, there’s a crack of a gunshot in the air, then Alex’s body stumbles backward in my direction. I jump away and he falls to the floor, clutching his stomach in agony.
“Your turn.” Marcy smirks at me without so much as a look at her son.
My body snaps into action. Driven by adrenaline and the will to survive, I charge toward her. My body collides with hers. The force knocks her down, and the gun slips from her hand and flies over the landing. It hits the floor of the classroom with a thud.
I’m shocked that I could disarm her so easily. But I don’t have much time.
She’s lying across the landing and trying to get up.
Before she recovers, I attempt to jump over her. Big mistake.
She shoots out her hand and grabs my foot. I kick back to free it, but when she lets me go, I lose my balance. The next thing I know, I’m falling down the stairs faster than I can catch myself. At the bottom of the steps, my head hits the floor hard.
Groaning, I try hard to keep my eyes open, but they try just as hard to close. They win.
But before I drift off, the sound of footfalls coming down the steps hits my ears, followed by a single gunshot.
Chapter 35
“You’re okay,” someone whispers. A cool hand is placed on my forehead and then removed. “You will be just fine.”
The woman talking to me sounds as though she’s crying.
