“Silence,” Max hissed. “This was supposed to benefitme, not cause me a huge fucking headache and mess to clean up.” He looked at me for only the second time since he entered the room.
Wes’s eyes darted from his father to Roman before he took the smallest step toward his father.
“I knew I shouldn’t have trusted you to handle something like this. Your obsession with Wesley has always been unhealthy, and it ends now.” He took a deep breath and assessed his sons. “Here’s what’s going to happen.”
Max focused on me again. Wes’s hand slipped from mine.
“I’m going to make sure you’re set for life,” Max said to me, a subtle edge to his tone that made it obvious the conditions of this arrangement.
I scoffed, choking on strangled laughter.
“Wesley,” he said with a deep sigh, his eyes softening a touch. “You will go back to your life, and you will forget this ever happened.”
Wes’s smile lacked even a drop of warmth. He nodded. “And let me guess, Roman will face zero consequences for branding trafficked women with the family crest?”
Max’s eyes flashed, slowly moving to his psychopathic son.
Roman took a step forward. He shook with fury, veins in his face and neck pulsing.
“Andyouare going to put the gun down,” Max barked. “Like I already told you to do. Unless you want to be removed from your position at Wave entirely.”
“The way you look at him,” Roman said to his father, bitterness coating his every word. His chin trembled, his eyes nearly black. “WhenI’mthe one who has dedicated himself to preserving our legacy. All he’s ever done ishate you.”
Max remained calm, angling himself entirely toward Roman. “Son, you need to listen to me.”
It was as if something had snapped irreparably, deep inside Roman, that drove him past the point of reason or self-preservation. He said he’d foreseen every possible path, and he’d won in all of them.
Roman wasn’t going to walk out of this room without awin.
He took another step. Max slammed his right hand down on the table and yelled again.
All I could do now was stare down the barrel of the gun pointed at my head, the gun Roman refused to lower. My vision tunneled; it was the only thing I could see.
Time slowed, voices barely perceivable outside the blood rushing to my head.
“I told you what would happen if you disobeyed my orders,” Roman said to Wes with an eerie calmness.
My breathing was shallow. I started writhing again, trying to break free from my bindings. The rope wasn’t incredibly tight, but I couldn’t slip my wrists through.
Roman focused back on me. “My angel has lost all value.”
I made a desperate, frustrated sound as I tried in vain to yank myself out of the rope. I whipped my head to the side.
Roman pulled the trigger.
The sound of my own scream melded with the shouts from all three men.
In quick succession, two shots rang through the wine cellar.
My eyelids fluttered. My ears rang. Red hot pain exploded in my nerves. Darkness pulled me under.
53
WES
Itook another step, hating that I’d had to let go of Nova’s hand. But the gun was in reach now; I could see it out of the corner of my eye, resting on the table under my father’s left hand.
Roman’s attention wasn’t on me, even as he spoke to me. It was on Nova’s head.
