Page 92 of Behind These Four Walls

“Shut up,” he seethed without looking at her. “If it wasn’t for you ...” He didn’t finish, and Isla didn’t want him to.

Jackson’s face was smeared with blood and dirt, his clothes torn and dirty with bits of leaves and grass. And though the clothes weredark, Isla could see large dark stains around his shoulder. Blood from where Victor had shot him. Jackson held his gun, the barrel trembling slightly from his anger but aimed directly at the chest of Victor, who remained seated at his desk, appearing composed despite the gravity of the situation. Jackson’s eyes flashed like those of a rabid animal. He would do anything. He no longer cared. Except for one thing.

“You’re going to sign it all over, you arrogant son of a bitch,” Jackson snarled. “The company, the estate—everything. You’ve stolen enough from me. Made me live my life like one of your lapdogs. It’s my son who’ll inherit all you built for all the pain and suffering I had to endure from your bullshit. You’ll die with that knowledge.”

“You think you deserve any of it?” Victor’s voice was calm, cutting. “You’re a parasite, Jackson. You’ve always been.”

Isla shook her head furiously at Victor, silently begging him to stop. But there was no imploring Victor of anything. He matched Jackson’s hatred, unyielding, like he was ready to take down the man who’d killed his daughter. Victor was pushing Jackson so he would make a mistake. Maybe Victor was buying some time for help to arrive, though Isla couldn’t help wondering why he didn’t have some silent alarm button to call forth a whole army. Or maybe that was her wishful thinking. Whatever the case, Isla didn’t need him pissing Jackson off further for him to shoot them both.

Jackson’s face twisted with rage. He stepped closer, the gun steadying. “Shut up! You had everything handed to you by your father—your wealth, your family, your power. I had to scrape and claw for every inch of ground I gained. And now you’re trying to take that away from me too?”

“I took everything?” Victor was incredulous, losing his cool at Jackson’s audacity. His tone rose an octave from outrage, his hands balling into fists from his pent-up fury, but his usual ironclad restraint was slipping. Something needed to be done. There wasn’t much time before one of these men lost his last thread of tolerance and snapped.

Victor’s gaze blazed like lava. “Are you mad, man? You’ve been cheating with my wife since before I married her. You passed your kid off as mine, and I never knew. You came up with some scheme with her to steal my company from under me using your kid while making me think you were loyal. That she was loyal. And you say I took everything from you? You never had what I wanted in the first goddamn place.”

No, no, no,Isla chanted silently, wincing every time Victor spoke, antagonizing Jackson when he should have been calming him. The two men had seemingly forgotten she was in the room with them.

“You lost the moment you betrayed me. And your son? If he’s weak and inadequate, it’s because he has your blood in him. I raised him like my son. I loved him, tried to make him strong. I would have and have given him the world, and it was still never enough. But you, you killed, lied, and cheated. You say it was for Bennett. But, Jackson, it was only for you. Bennett was never going to be CEO. Understand? Not even if any of your crimes panned out. I understood what type of man he’d be long ago and was giving him chances to succeed. Yet he failed at every chance. He is your son, after all.”

“Say that again,” Jackson growled, his voice breaking with fury.

Why’d Victor’s study have to be so far that no one would hear anything unless they came this way? It was by design, and probably ideal, to ensure privacy when Victor was doing business, but now Isla thought it was the worst idea ever. Anything could happen—was happening—and no one would know until it was too late. Why the hell hadn’t Victor put cameras in this damn house? Oh yeah, privacy. Fuck the damn privacy—they were about to be killed.

The tension in the room was reaching a boiling point. She looked around for something, anything, that could be used. She moved her leg, and the weight inside her pocket moved as well, alerting her. The weight ... her hunting rock. Slowly, she slipped her hand inside her pocket.

Jackson’s laugh came out hollow, manic. “Do you have any idea what I’ve sacrificed? Decades of work, planning, manipulation—and for what? For you to just tear it all apart at your whim?”

“You can still walk away from this.” Isla spoke up, palming the rock in her hand, slipping forward to the edge of the chair slowly. Her mind raced. She needed to stall him, to give someone—anyone—time to intervene. “If you do this, you’ll never get away with it,” she said, her voice steady despite how dry her mouth was. “You’ll destroy any chances Bennett may have. You don’t want to do that, right? Because under all this, you do care about him. He’s your son.”

“Isla,” Victor warned with a quick headshake. But they needed Jackson off guard and confused. They couldn’t have him concentrating on just one of them. And Victor pushing Jackson to the breaking point would be a mistake neither of them could afford.

Jackson concentrated his attention on her. “I should have dealt with you earlier and permanently. You wouldn’t get the hint ... not at the hunt, or when Bennett’s idiot friend followed you to the barn. Not even when we brought that fucking leech of a woman to expose you. You waltzed right in and set decades of planning on fire. You, a cheap con with an act Victor the Great bought hook, line, and sinker. Put that in your fucking article,” he said with a sneer. He took a step back, swinging the weapon in her direction. “Bennett doesn’t need chances,” Jackson snarled. “He needs power. And I’ll make damn sure he gets it, one way or another. So sign the goddamn papers, or I will shoot her dead right now. Right the fuck now!”

“What do I care about her, huh?” Victor asked suddenly, flipping the script.

Ice ran through Isla’s veins.What?

“What the fuck are you doing?” Jackson asked, his sweat-slicked face crumpling into confusion and wariness.

Victor glanced over at her. His eyes went over her as if she were just another piece of furniture. There was no care there. He was cold. He was angry. At her.

Victor shrugged. “Like you said. She’s a con artist and a liar. She let me go years without telling me something might have happened to Eden. She let Eden come here and got her killed. You think I care aboutwhat happens to her? She deserves it. Maybe you’re right. Maybe if she’d never come here, I could have continued my life of blissful ignorance, believing Edie was still alive out there and just mad at me. My family would be as it was. Bennett would still be a Corrigan, and you wouldn’t be wanted right now. So go ahead. It’s what she deserves. For Edie.”

What the hell?“Mr. Corrigan, wait! I—” Isla stammered in disbelief. If looks could kill, she’d be dead from that and then dead from the coming gunshot.

Jackson grinned, grabbing her by the hood of her sweatshirt and snatching her up. “All right then,” he said, calling Victor’s bluff.

She tried balancing herself so she wouldn’t stumble and fall. She clamped her mouth shut so she wouldn’t cry out as the gun’s muzzle pointed at her chest. Her right hand gripped the rock harder as it slowly slid out of the pocket and kept it at her side. One shot. She only had one and needed to make this count.

Jackson growled, “We’ll make a deal.”

Victor looked from Isla to Jackson and to the stack of papers dotted with blood. He nodded, making his executive decision. “A deal. Because you really got me between a rock and a hard place.”

A rock. That was when Isla knew and made her own executive decision, raising her hunting-nightmare souvenir, which would now actually serve its purpose. She swung upward with all her force, mashing the sharp edge of the rock into where the spreading dark blood on his shirt was seeping through, an especially wet patch. The gun went off, its shot going wild. Jackson stumbled backward, grunting in surprise and pain. He was still gripping her hood, and she swung again, not sure where the rock connected, maybe the edge of his jaw. He stumbled back into a floor lamp and fell with it as it crashed down, with Isla on top of him. Victor was next to them in a blur, pinning Jackson’s hand, wresting the gun from his loosened grip. Jackson took his free hand and thrashed wildly, landing a blow that hit Isla square in the face.

She saw stars, and her body followed them, half sliding off him while he kicked at Victor, who had been trying to separate him andIsla. Jackson kicked his feet, sweeping Victor off his and onto the floor. The gun skipped over the rug like a rock on the surface of water, away from them, and both men struggled to reach it first. Isla swam in pain, her lip wet from the blood trickling from it. Something caught her eye in the corner, and she crawled to it.

A loud crash sounded, and the door burst open, Lawrence and Myles charging in like two linebackers. Holland crowded the door behind them, yelling and jumping frantically for help as she took in the scene. In a blur of movement, Lawrence tackled Jackson. Myles dove for the weapon as well just as Jackson threw a vicious punch at Lawrence, catching him across the jaw.