Page 45

Twenty-Nine

Maddie

I scream at him as the door closes and run toward it, but the guards make good on following Aidan’s orders and block my exit.

“Mrs. Stryker, we need you to calm down. This kind of outburst does no one any good,” one of them says.

Then Cora’s hands are on my shoulders. “Come with me to the kitchen, I’ll make you some tea.”

I wrench myself out of her grasp. “I don’t fucking want tea! You people are all insane!”

I race up the stairs, past my personal security detail, and into my room. I lock the door behind me and shove a chair under the knob in case anyone decides they’re going to follow.

I take the gun out from under the mattress and the magazine.

I count eight bullets. I know enough from TV to know you have to rack the slide to make the gun ready to fire and think it’s probably best if I don’t do that quite yet.

I slam the magazine in and conceal the gun in the waistband of my pants and pull my shirt over it.

I take a few steadying breaths, remove the chair from under the door, unlock it, and step out into the hallway.

“Mrs. Stryker, is everything okay?” Luca, one of my door goons asks.

I don’t think he’s asking because he’s concerned about me. He’s asking to see if I’m done “making a scene”. He’s trying to gauge and assess the situation and if I’m going to have some sort of hysterical meltdown—if they’ll need to restrain me somehow.

I take a deep breath and smile stiffly. “I think I’m going to take Cora up on that cup of tea,” I say.

The guard nods warily. I walk down the hallway like I’ve got all the time in the world.

I descend the stairs into the main entryway, taking in my surroundings.

Cora has gone back to the kitchen. There are five armed guards in this room.

Two by the double doors that lead outside, and another three scattered around at doors that go into other parts of the house.

One of the guards is about twenty feet from me and isn’t paying attention. I pull the gun out and aim it at him.

“Take me to my father.”

He just looks at me, as do all the other guards in the room. They all pull their guns out and aim in my direction.

I glance around the room at the drawn weapons.

I should be scared, but I’m not. “What exactly do you think Aidan will do if one of you shoots me? You may as well put your guns away because he’ll kill you if you hurt me.

And I’m sure you know more about him than I do, but from what I do know, I’m pretty sure he’ll kill you slowly. ”

“Mr. Stryker said…” one of them begins.

“It doesn’t matter what Mr. Stryker said. He’s not here right now, and I said put your goddamned guns away or I’ll shoot this guy.”

The guard standing closest to the one I’m aiming the gun at says, “You won’t get very far with the safety on.”

“Ciccio?!?”

“What? This little girl isn’t a killer. She doesn’t have the stomach for it.”

I take the safety off, remember to rack the slide, and shoot the guard twice in the head.

He falls, and I fight the urge to vomit.

My brain is screaming I killed a person.

I killed a person. I killed a person! But I can’t let Aidan kill my dad.

I have to hold it together and get out of here.

Also I’m beyond enraged that after I’ve been treated like cargo for the better part of the last four months, they think I’m some “little girl” who can’t and won’t fight back.

I point the gun at the next guard closest to me. “I’m pretty sure I told you all to holster your fucking weapons!”

Four pairs of wide eyes are locked on mine as they all put their guns away.

I take a deep breath. “Okay, am I killing more of you or what? Who is taking me to my dad?”

My security detail races down the stairs, their guns drawn.

“Drop the guns,” I say, aiming at them. I’m not actually sure if them dropping the guns is wise.

Will they go off? But the stairs are carpeted, and taking a cue from the other guards, they drop them and slowly descend the stairs, their hands in the air.

This pair are at least smarter than the other guys, maybe because a gun actually went off and someone is dead now.

I point to one of my goons. “You. You’re taking me to my dad.”

“I… I can’t do that,” Nino says.

I shoot him in the foot then aim at Luca. “How about you?”

“Y-yes, Ma’am.”

“Great. I saw some zip ties in my husband’s study. I need you to zip tie everybody else’s wrists and ankles so they don’t follow us.”

I spot Cora lurking in the doorway, and I’m not sure whose side she’s on so when the guard comes back with the zip ties, I get him to secure her as well.

“I’m very sorry, Cora. I just don’t know if I can trust you.” I really am. I feel terrible about tying a nice old lady up like a criminal, but she’s known Aidan his whole life. If I’m willing to kill to protect my father, I don’t know what she’s willing to do for Aidan.

Claude has retired to his cottage for the night, and I’m glad he doesn’t have to see this.

There are plenty of other guards on the property so I know someone will come untie them soon. I just hope nobody has a number to call and warn Aidan, or that he forgot to bring his phone with him. He did leave in kind of a hurry.

I order Vinny out of the car in the circular drive and Luca gets in the driver’s seat.

I get in the backseat and keep the gun trained on him.

Really the actual driver should be driving me, but I doubt he’d drive as fast as I’m going to make this guy drive, nor do I think I have the stomach to shoot that nice old man if he defied me.

I really like Vinny. I don’t hate Luca, but I could shoot him.

Luca starts to pull out of the driveway.

“Listen carefully,” I say, “You’re going to follow all of my instructions. If you turn down any road I didn’t tell you to turn on I will kill you. Are we clear?”

“Y-yes, Mrs. Stryker.”

I’m really glad I watched so many spy movies, because I at least sound like I know what I’m doing even though I’m a mess inside.

I hide the gun when we reach the gate, and they wave us through. Apparently Aidan was in such a rush he didn’t bother to tell anybody but the guys in the main house to keep me inside. He didn’t think I’d get past the front door.

I wonder if all of this is pointless. Is there any hope that I’ll get there in time?

How much time have I already lost? I doubt Aidan is driving above the speed limit.

If we go fast enough, I could beat him there.

I try not to think about what I’ll actually do.

Reason with Aidan some more? What’s that going to do?

Can I actually shoot him to stop him? I want to hate him right now, but before this chain of events I was starting to feel something quite different. Can I actually kill this man? And then what happens? I’ll surely go to prison, right?

What if I turned the gun on myself? It’s cruel given what I know about his mother, but maybe it would drive the point home, maybe if my life were literally on the line, he’d understand the gravity of his decision and reconsider.

Does any of this even matter? It wasn’t as though I had any time to plan this out.

“Um, Mrs. Stryker, I need to make a turn, and I don’t know where I’m going.”

“Turn left,” I say. “And drive faster.”

“I’ll get pulled over.”

“Not on this road, you won’t. There are never any cops here.”

He doesn’t argue with me and accelerates to a speed that seems like we’re actually trying to save a life here.

Aidan took the black Mercedes SUV he drove me home in that first night after the attack in the alley, and it’s parked in front of my house when we get there.

“So help me god, Luca, if you follow me or try to warn Aidan in any way, you’re a dead man.”

He nods. “Understood, Mrs. Stryker.”

“Good.” If it weren’t for the threat to my father’s life, I could take the time to enjoy what it feels like to be Queen.

I step outside and press my hand against the hood of Aidan’s car. It’s still warm. He hasn’t been here long. I hope I’m in time.

The front door is unlocked. My mom drifts in like a ghost from the drawing room.

The house looks so strange. Aidan may have bought it to let my parents stay, but it still has almost no furniture, and it looks so bare without the endless roses that were filling it the last time I was here.

A few vases remain, but they are all wilting and dying.

She’s wearing the lavender dressing gown. It’s ripped in several places, like an animal got hold of her. One of the sleeves dangles off her shoulder. A bruise is forming around her eye.

I see red. “Did Aidan…?” How the fuck could he?

When all this violence is supposedly for his own mother, why would he turn around and hurt mine?

It looks like more than hitting. It looks like a more intimate violence has occurred here, but Aidan wouldn’t…

would he? And how could he have had the time? I thought he was coming for my dad.

She shakes her head. “No, it wasn’t him.”

“Who did this?”

She looks away, tears in her eyes, and I feel like I’m seeing her now for the very first time. And I know the answer even without her telling me. I desperately don’t want to know the truth, but I do. I think somewhere very deep down, I always knew. I just couldn’t face it.

“It’s complicated,” she says.

No, it’s really very simple.

She’s been this way for years… slowly slipping into this half life, only I didn’t notice until it involved me. I wouldn’t let myself notice. My brain plays the reel of all the good memories with my father, and I just can’t let myself believe he did this. I can’t believe he’s that type of man.

But why not? He hurt Aidan’s mother, why wouldn’t he hurt mine? He gave me to a man he probably assumed would hurt me just like Aidan’s dad. So why would I ever doubt my lying eyes?

I hear a crash and race in the direction of the sound. I find Aidan and my father struggling in the practically empty game room. There’s a revolver on the floor several feet away, and they’re fighting over a knife, each of them trying to force the weapon into the other’s flesh.

I fire my gun into the wall. “Stop!”

They only stop briefly, look at me, then at each other, and then they go back to it. Each of them is determined to kill the other and both of them know I can’t bring myself to hurt either of them. Finally my dad somehow gains the upper hand, and has the knife pressed against Aidan’s throat.

I don’t think. I just fire the gun until I’m clicking against nothing.

Four bullets straight into my father. I drop the weapon.

My hands are shaking, and I collapse to the ground.

I crawl over to him and flip him over. His eyes stare blankly up at the ceiling.

Did he know I shot him? Or did he die before he realized?

“No, I’m sorry! Daddy! I’m sorry.”

I couldn’t stop pulling the trigger. I hold my hands over the multiple bleeding wounds as though I can somehow get all the blood back inside.

I know he’s dead, but somehow I can’t quite believe it.

How can he be here one minute and gone the next?

Even if I know what bullets do, my brain won’t accept that there’s nothing that can be done to change this.

I can’t rewind time. And it’s still so fresh, still so recent.

Only a minute ago. It seems like time should be able to go backwards just a minute. It’s not that much.

I just need that one minute back, please.

But I couldn’t let him kill Aidan, I just couldn’t.

Not after what he did to Aidan’s mom and my mom, and me.

I was going to lose one of them tonight, and it couldn’t be Aidan, but I still don’t know if I can live with what I’ve done.

I wish there was another bullet left in that gun for me.

Why couldn’t I stop pulling the trigger so I had just one more for myself?

Suddenly Aidan’s arms are around me and he’s rocking us back and forth. I’m dimly aware that he seems to be having his own breakdown of some sort, but he whispers in my ear. “It’s okay, Maddie. It’s okay. It’s okay. You’re okay. We’re okay.”

It feels suddenly like we’re both small children, together surviving some awful adult situation. He feels too innocent, like that small boy that made me a valentine.

I would laugh at the absurdity of Aidan telling me we’re all okay like some sort of self-help pop psychology guru. I’m Okay. You’re Okay. But nobody’s okay, and I don’t know if we ever can be again.

But I love him. I had to do it. I had to save Aidan.

But I also loved my dad, even though I know I shouldn’t.

He doesn’t deserve my love after all the awful things he’s done, but I can’t stop the mental images in my head of all the good things about him that are now lost forever.

All the memories now don’t even seem real as though they all became untrue, the moment his soul left his body.

When I saw what he’d done to my mom and what he was about to do to Aidan, I just… lost control.

Luca rushes in, his gun drawn. He must have heard the gunfire. Someone in this neighborhood wouldn’t know the difference in the sound of fireworks and gunfire, but Aidan’s men would.

I told that motherfucker to stay in the car.

Aidan holds up a hand to stop him. “It’s fine.”

He continues to stroke his fingers through my hair, but all I feel is numb.