Page 38 of Unwritten Vows

Derrick

It’s been nearly a day. My time is almost up.

I’ve done everything I can do. I’ve been in charge of Mara for hours now, although my insistence that we keep her alive has been wearing my father’s patience thin.

I keep making up vague reasons why she might be useful so that my father has to go discuss them with his men.

It’s just him and I down here. There are only a couple of small rooms in this basement shelter area.

Every time I think I’m making headway, I get knocked down.

The only small breakthrough I’ve had was when Mara finally woke up and gave me her friend’s number.

All I can do is hope that Casca Scutari, the meathead I spoke with just a few hours ago who seems quite obsessed with her, can get her out of this.

And soon. I’m sure we don’t have much time left here.

That’s when I hear the explosion.

It comes from the other end of the building, away from where we are, but I know who it is. I need Mara to be awake and somewhat alert in case we have to leave quickly. I can’t even believe how much I want to get her out of here.

Would I have done all of this just a month ago? I’m not sure. I might have just let it go. I might have come up with a reason why I needed to leave, or let my father handle it on his own. But now, I’m actively engaged in getting her out of this tiny safe room.

What has changed?

But I know what it is. Before I met Liza, I was a shell of a human being. She’s given me so much: purpose, feelings, a whole sense of self.

I shake my head to clear it and make my way quietly to the door of the small room Mara is locked inside of. My father is in the other room of this small unit, but he’ll be out here soon after that blast, I’m sure, looking for me.

I run over to the door and tap in the code. I slide through and press the red button to close it quickly.

Mara is pale as a sheet, sleeping without any indication of awareness whatsoever. When I first push and tug her, she wobbles around like a rag doll. I tap her face and say her name quietly, although I’m pretty certain this room is soundproof. I want to make sure that my father doesn’t hear me.

She looks up at me for a moment, eyes heavily unfocused, and I try to catch her attention, but it just slips away again. I tried not to give her so much of the drug last time, but it seems that I still misjudged.

“Fuck.” I hear another dim sound that is probably an explosion through these soundproof walls. I told them there was a safe room down here. I hope they don’t think the answer to their problems is to just bomb this place down, because that could have some pretty terrible implications for us.

I have to go see what my father’s plan is.

I take one last anxious look at Mara and head through the door.

I sprint toward the other end of the building where I heard the last explosion, and I run into my father and a few of his crew, one with a wound on his head spurting blood, contemplating what to do.

“Derrick. We’ve been compromised. We need to get out of here.”

I know I can’t leave yet. I have to come up with a way to stall. I paint my features with false concern. “Someone knows we have Mara, father. I got a text message.”

My father’s face morphs into deep concern. Something is threatening his precious fucking plan. Someone besides me is actually finding out something truly heinous about him. “What text message?”

If we turned on my phone, it would probably be filled with texts from her psychotic boyfriend asking me where I am and all sorts of other questions. I’m just going to have to lean heavily on deception and a bit on luck.

I grab my phone out of my pocket. “It’s off.” I pretend to hold the button down to turn it on, but I don’t, and of course, it doesn’t turn on.

“I had a full battery,” I say.

My father thankfully takes the bait. “A hacker. I’ve heard of hackers who can actually disable your phone.”

I have no idea if he’s right about that, but I’m relieved that he’s buying this. “They must have just done it. I came here right after I got the text. It said something like, ‘We know you have her, and we’re coming.’”

My father’s brain is working a mile a minute, I can tell. He begins to walk down the hallway toward her, and I follow. “Okay, we can tell them we were trying to save her and got trapped down here. We can tell them we didn’t have cell service. They can’t prove anything.”

In any other circumstance, I’d be annoyed that he was only just now coming up with reasons why we can keep her alive, but at the moment, I can only be thankful.

“Well, we should probably get her out of here, then.” I push ahead of him and start pressing the numbers on the keypad to get into the room.

“Oh, no. We’re going to make sure she’s dead before we leave, then we’ll tell them whatever story fits best.”

I stop pressing buttons and turn around to face him, unable to hide my surprise. “What?”

“I’ve already gotten the offer from Edoardo, and now someone has shown that they know she’s here. It’s better for everyone if she dies.”

You mean it’s better for you! My brain screams out, but I somehow keep my mouth shut. Still, I can’t figure out what to say.

“Come on, son. If you can’t do it, I will.” My father pushes past me and inputs the code.

I walk through the door, my mind going a mile a minute, and bump into my father’s back. He’s stopped, and a moment later, I see why.

Casca Scutari, the man obsessed with my ex, is here. He’s just standing there, hovering over Mara and holding a gun, with a pile of debris from the ceiling crumbled behind him. It looks as though he has blasted through with some type of explosive.

“If you want to be on time to your 10:30 massage, you won’t move one goddamn inch while I get Mara out of here.”

I’m nervous. Of course I’m fucking nervous. An enormous human with a gun pointed at my father and I is threatening us, and I’m pretty sure my father is set on doing something very stupid. From the way he puts his hands on his hips, it looks like he’s readying to take out his gun.

I need to figure out a plan. I tune out, considering my options. But my brain is sludge and I can’t pick any of the hundreds of thoughts out of it.

Suddenly my father shoots Casca, and he goes down. I can’t stop my mouth from hanging open. This has escalated so quickly, and for the life of me, I don’t know what to do.

My father turns towards Mara, and I say the first thing that pops into my head. “I still think we can use her, father. Maxim will pay a heavy price to have her back.”

As I knew he would, my father immediately disagrees. “At this point, Maxim isn’t my main concern. She’s caused enough trouble as it is.”

He shoves the gun into his back pocket again and leans over Mara with the syringe that will kill her in just the way my father wants; no one will ever know her true cause of death or where she died.

I try once again to get him to see reason. “We should just let her go to fend for herself. You agreed that she doesn’t seem to know anything.”

“After what she’s seen and heard?” My father looks hard at me, turning away from Casca on the floor. But just as he turns, a movement catches my attention. Casca’s eyes are moving and his fingers are twitching. I realize there is no blood coming from his chest.

My heart thuds. He must be wearing the world’s thinnest bullet-proof vest, thank God.

I know Cas is about to kill my father, and while it feels like a betrayal not to care, it could be even worse.

It could have been me. And it would have been, because I wouldn’t stand here and watch while he killed Mara.

“Derrick, you’re too soft. Sometimes you have to do things you don’t want to do. You’ll learn that eventually, so help me, God.” He continues toward Mara, but Cas grabs his leg. His gun clatters to the ground directly in front of me.

It all happens so fast again. First Cas seems to be gaining on my father, but then my father gets in some punches and it’s impossible to tell who has the upperhand.

I thought for sure my father would lose this fight, but I suppose even Casca the giant can’t kill a person with a bleeding shoulder, a banged up head, and four bullets lodged in his vest.

Do something! I urge myself, as I stand frozen to the spot. Just fucking do it!

“Shoot him, Derrick!” my father says, as I pick up his gun in slow motion. “In the head!”

In my brain, the words mean something so different. Shoot him, Derrick! In the head!

So, I shoot him in the head.

.