Page 125 of Coercion

“I will kill you both if I have to.” My mother states, pointing her gun back at us.

“What about your deal?” I sneer. “I doubt Jace will want a dead bride.”

“After today I will have control of everything. With enough diamonds, I doubt he will care who he’s fucking.”

She turns the gun on Preston and I throw myself on top of him to shield him, just as he pulls the trigger to take her out with his own.

Both guns echo around us. I scream out as the bullet hits me and I crumple. I don’t know if Preston manages to shoot her, I don’t know who’s even alive, if Jett is okay, if any of us are.

I fall, I tumble, I slip into the raging water as more pain than I thought possible takes over my body. I gasp for air but I can’t keep my head above the water. My limbs don’t work. I fight to get out, I fight to stay afloat but I can feel myself sinking.

And for a moment, I think that this is it, this is my fate, to drown, to be swallowed up by the rapids.

Only, something wraps around me, something pulls me back out.

“Ruby?”

I hear his voice but it’s so far off. I blink, staring at his unfocused face.

And then that darkness does come. Once more it shrouds me and once more I welcome it.

Preston

The machine beeps enough to irritate. I sit, staring at the tiny waves undulating up and down like I understand what I’m looking at, when in reality, all it’s telling me is her heart is still beating.

That she’s alive.

Nico walks in, standing right by the door, keeping on the peripheries because he knows he’s intruding.

“How’s the brother?” I ask, cutting through the silence.

“Alive.” He says. “He’s out of surgery now. Lost his spleen but apart from that…” He trails off as my wife shifts, as her leg kicksout violently like in her head, she’s still fighting a battle all on her own.

“And Jace?” I ask.

He smirks. “I gave him to Blaine. Thought he could do with some reward after all of this.”

I grunt. At least that will keep the man entertained for a few days.

“Preston…”

“Whatever it is, I don’t want to hear it.” I say, knowing that I run the risk of pissing him off.

“You have to deal with the mother. It’s your call. Whatever you choose to do.”

I narrow my eyes, pressing my hands together. Would Ruby forgive me if I killed her? Does she still hold some love for her despite everything the woman has done? I grit my jaw, trying to figure it out, but as always my wife’s thoughts seem to allude me.

“Leave it with me.” I murmur.

“And the business?”

I don’t reply. I don’t show any reaction to that question.

Everything Frank Holtz created, everything Levi and Diana stole is now mine because of the woman lying right here in front of me.

The woman who sacrificed herself for me.

Who threw herself in front of the bullets meant for me.