Page 127 of Undeniably Corrupt

“I saw Cassian the night you had him killed,” Vander states, shifting in front of me, both his hands out in front.

Shit. No phone. I gulp, trembling worse than I was moments ago, feeling helpless.

“I saw his eyes. His broken body. A gunshot won’t be so easy to cover as a traffic accident, and you’re in Boston, not Maine.”

“Don’t underestimate me.”

“Don’t underestimate me,” Vander counters. “I hacked you. I have everything from your computer. All of your password-protected files. Everything you’ve tried to hide, I have. And if you let Liora go, I’ll give it to you, and you can kill me.”

“What?” I cry, shoving at Vander as I lose my mind. “No!”

He looks at me. “I’m not going to let him kill you. Hazel needs you.”

I shake my head as the tears I had been holding back start to pour from my eyes like a broken faucet. “No! You can’t die, Vander.” A soul-rattling sob rips through me. “Stop it. Don’t say that.”

His green eyes meet mine, looking broken but resolute. “Baby, I’m dead either way.”

I turn back to my father. “You can’t kill him. Please. I’ll do anything.”

“Who else knows about what you have?” my father asks, ignoring my plea. He’s smiling now. The grin of the devil. He likes what Vander is offering, and I can’t take this.

“No one,” Vander answers steadily, and I gasp, clinging to him, shaking him, begging him to stop. To shut up.

“Who else has access to it?”

“Just me.”

“Stop!” I scream, pounding in frustration and desperation on his chest. “Stop talking!”

Vander does his best to hold me still, but he’s not looking at me. It’s as if I’m not here.

“And you’re willing to die for her?”

“Yes,” he answers unequivocally.

“No!” I cry. “Stop it!” I try to move in front of him, try to shove him away, but he’s not letting me. He’s using his size and strength and moving me away from him. Creating a distance that feels like death.

“You shouldn’t have told me no one else knows about it,” my father says icily. “Now I have no reason to keep you alive.”

My father raises his gun at Vander, and a loudbangreverberates through the garage as the gun fires, and I scream.

38

Idive on Liora, taking her to the ground hard. My body covers hers, my arms around her face and head as I shield her from the gunfire.

“Are you hit?!” I bark urgently in her ear, wanting to check her over but too afraid to move my body from hers. I turn her face away as her father yells in agony, the hand holding the gun blown off, the bullet clanging against the cement pillar five feet from us, exploding chunks of rock everywhere, but I can’t look anywhere else.

“No. Are you?”

Thank God. Holy fuck, thank God. I wheeze out a breath, trembling in a relief I’ve never experienced before. It’s so engrossing I nearly vomit from it. “I’m fine. He didn’t get me.”

“Jesus. What happened?” Confusion and panic have her trying to turn her head, but her father is face down on the concrete, screaming at the top of his lungs like a little bitch because his hand has been blown off, and I legit cannot think of anything more freaky or fucked up.

Shien is standing over him, kicking his gun far out of reach of his other hand and creating a tourniquetaround the bleeding stump with his belt. Liora’s father is irate. Beyond sense.

“What the fuck is going on? What are you doing here?” Corbin James screams.

“I’m FBI,” Shien says simply and continues on with other things I can’t hear. He could be reading him his rights for all I know.