“I don’t need to survive. I just need all of you to disappear.”
He had escaped during a hospital transfer after claiming chest pain. An accomplice had left the weapon and device in a restroom ceiling.
That accomplice, we later learned, was Conrad Pike.
The creditor Julian believed he had bribed.
The same man who had quietly sold the debt to me.
Julian backed us toward the open French doors.
“You ruined everything, Vivian.”
“No,” I whispered. “I revealed it.”
His arm tightened.
“You were supposed to sign the papers.”
“And then drink poisoned tea?”
“You always made everything difficult.”
The absurdity of the sentence nearly made me laugh.
To Julian, my survival was an inconvenience.
My intelligence was betrayal.
My refusal to die quietly was cruelty.
He raised the detonator.
Adrian stepped forward.
“Take me instead.”
Julian’s smile widened.
“You’ve been dead for twenty-three years. You’re worthless.”
The word hung in the air.
Worthless.
Useless.
That was how men like Julian understood people. Not by love. Not by loyalty. Only by utility.
I looked at the black device in his hand.
Then at the tiny green light on its side.
Steady.
Not blinking.
A memory surfaced.
Three months earlier, Julian had complained that the company’s prototype remote switches required two-step activation. The light remained steady until the safety latch was released.
He had only one free hand.
The latch was still locked.
The detonator was not armed.
Julian was bluffing.
I let my body go limp.
The sudden weight startled him.
His grip shifted.
I drove my heel down onto his foot and slammed the back of my head into his nose.
Bone cracked.
The gun fired.
Glass exploded beside us.
Adrian struck Julian’s wrist. Celeste pulled me away. The pistol skidded across the terrace.
Julian scrambled for it.
Before he reached it, another figure stepped from the dark kitchen.
Elena.
She wore police-issued clothing beneath a borrowed coat. A tracking band circled her ankle. She had been released temporarily to help investigators locate documents hidden in the house.
She picked up the gun.
Julian froze.
“Elena,” he said softly. “Give it to me.”
Her hands shook.
“You were going to kill me.”
“I loved you.”
“You changed the insurance policy.”
His eyes flicked toward the detonator.
“Press the button,” he urged. “If I can’t have the company, none of them should.”
