Page 99 of Malicious Marriage
“Not you,” he says quietly. “Just her.”
It doesn’t matter how. Hailey is free. Whatever happens to me now is just fate. “What’s your endgame?” I ask as a strange warmth spreads through my chest. “Why did you even do all of this? Just to kill Dean?”
Malcom waves the gun back and forth. “Hailey didn’t tell you everything, did she?” He begins pacing back and forth in front of the table that used to host my dinner parties and finger-painting sessions. “The wholereasonI wanted to marry Hailey was because your father put an annoying little clause into his will that no amount of legal threat could get changed. Everything, in title and deed, was left to Hailey after he died. She had to be present ateverything, every tiny little decision. So, I was marrying her because power could only be transferred by direct blood or spousal consent. And given that I’m only her uncle, I didn’t count.”
Direct blood. That meant me. “He knew, didn’t he?” The warmth continues to spread through me as if accepting my fate here has finally calmed me. “He knew that if anything happened to him, you would stop at nothing to geteverythinghe left behind.”
Malcom scoffs darkly. “Yeah, he fucking knew. But Hailey ran before I could force her to sign and the only one left was you. You didn’t count so I kicked you out of the family, and I was able to take over as an interim until Hailey was located. You didn’t even fight me.” He laughs coldly.
“Can you blame me?” I snap as tears slowly fill my eyes. “My dad died and my sister vanished all within a week. I didn’t even know which way was up and all I cared about was finding her.”
“Ironically, we had the same goal in the beginning.” Malcom continues to laugh as he lifts the gun. “That’s all I cared about, too. I had money and power, but everything was still being restricted by my dead shithead of a brother.” He grimaces and rolls his eyes. “Still taunting me from beyond the fucking grave. I had the Russians looking too because I knew she’d run away with that fucking Alexei. Every time they thought they had a lead, they would send me looking so I spent most of my time traveling looking for that little shit.”
He lifts the gun to his temple and for a moment, it looks like he’s about to shoot himself. Then he points it at me.
“But then they tell me they’re tired of looking and they have a new deal with the Savoys. The fuckingSavoys. I should have made sure they all died in that fucking fire.”
My heart lurches. “Fire? What fire?”
“Oh, come on, keep up! Surely, your deceased lover boy told you about the fire that killed half his family? Honestly, when I found out that two Savoys perished in the fire I started to hide my own murder, and that a third got burned to all shit, I thought it was so fucking funny. But instead of dying out, they just kept rising to power. Who knew they’d come back to bite me twenty-five years later?”
No fucking way. Malcom set the fire that burned Dean so badly when he was trying to save his brother and sister? My stomach drops. I don’t expect to make it out of this alive, but I wish there were a way I could tell him.
“So I come back to the States ready to remind the Kuznetsovs of exactly who I am, and what do I find?” Malcom dances a little. “Fuckingyoumarried to Dean! You presented me this beautiful new plan for power right on a silver platter and you had no fucking idea. Don’t you see?”
He walks closer and closer to me until my lungs are flooded with the stale stink of smoke and ale. “I never planned on letting Hailey go. She’s probably dead by now, but don’t worry, I already forced her to sign all of the Byrne estate over to you. And now that Dean is dead, guess what? All ofhisstuff goes to you too. Can you see where this is going?”
He leans so close I can see the dirt in his eyes and an old stain near the corner of his mouth. My stomach rolls in disgust.
“We’re going to get married, Clover. And then I’m going to kill you. That spousal line comes right back to me!”
He’s so gleeful that he doesn’t see me surge toward the gun until my knee is slamming hard into his crotch. He doubles over with a choked squeak of pain and his grip loosens on the gun long enough for me to drag it from his grip and stumble away.
“No!” I yell, spinning to face him as he falls to his knees. “No, because—” Is Hailey really dead? Did I really just send her to her death?
“No?” Malcom snarls, glaring up at me. “You can’t tell me no! It’s over, you fat little cunt!”
“No, because… because if Hailey is dead, then I need to die too and you get nothing. Absolutely fucking nothing!”
“Huh?”
“Before we went looking for Hailey, I was scared something would go wrong so I signed over everything in the Byrne name to Dean. It wasn’t a lot because you cut me off, but the fact that we found Hailey… if she’s dead, then everything passes to m–me and if I die, then it goes to Dean!”
Malcom pales immediately. “But you…?”
“No!” Laughing through my building tears, I shake my head. “I didn’t kill him. Look at me, do you really think I could kill someone like him? Dean is fine and once… once our bodies are found, then hopefully he will?—”
“What, forgive you?” Malcom sneers as he tries to get to his feet. “You think giving him our business will make him forgive you?”
Suddenly, the door behind Malcom slams open and my heart leaps into my throat. He lunges for me at the same moment and in a panic, I lift the gun and fire.
“Ah!” The bullet embeds in the shoulder of the man bursting through the door and he stumbles backward as Malcom collides with me.
“Dean?”
42
DEAN