Page 47 of Vain (Tempest #2)

Chapter Forty-Four

MATILDA

I’m a nervous wreck waiting for news. Unable to sit still, I pace the room. Greyson has been flitting around trying to keep busy while Marley has stayed glued to my side, waiting for me to fall apart.

“I’ve called the police and explained what’s going on. They’re sending someone out,” Greyson says, walking in with his phone in his hand. “Why don’t you lay down for a little while?”

I shake my head. “I couldn’t sleep if I tried.”

“I know that, but you could at least rest. I have a feeling it will be a long night.”

“Maybe in a little while. I just can’t right now.”

“Okay.” He nods. “I’m going to go out and let Cliff know the police will be arriving soon. He’ll need to open the gate and let them in.” I nod and watch him leave.

I turn to Marley, who pulls me in for a hug.

“It’s going to be okay.”

“But what if it’s not?”

“Then it’s not. But still, eventually it will be.”

I huff out a weak laugh, jolting when the unmistakable sound of a gun firing shatters the silence. Marley grabs my arm and drags me down the hallway toward the back door. The sound of a thump, followed by a groan, has us both freezing.

“Is that Greyson?”

“Fuck!” Marley curses when Greyson comes into view.

He’s covered in blood, holding his side. When he sees us, he tries to walk toward us but stumbles. Instinctively we both run for him.

He stops and closes his eyes. “He’s here.”

I reach him first, supporting his weight. “I don’t understand. Who’s here?”

“I am.”

I frown. When I look up, I see a gun pointed at Marley. I scream as a bullet rips through his leg. I yank myself free and run to Marley as he collapses on the floor.

“What the fuck are you doing?” I scream at Greyson, who looks down at us, the gun still in his hand.

“You can’t leave me.”

Marley squeezes my hand. “Tilly, listen to me. You need to get out of here. Run. Now.”

“I’m not leaving you,” I hiss

Greyson beckons me toward him. “Come on, Matilda. It’s time to go.”

“I’m not going anywhere with you. What the hell is happening?” I sob.

“It’s only for a little while, just until things calm down. Don’t worry, I have a plan.”

I shake my head, trying to make sense of what’s happening, but nothing seems real. “What plan?” I take off my hoodie and tie it tight around Marley’s injured leg, making him groan.

“You weren’t supposed to see this part. I tried to get you to lie down but you wouldn’t listen.

Don’t worry, it’s not fatal. Hurts like the devil though, doesn’t it?

” Greyson grins at Marley, lifting his hand to show his own bullet wound.

Blood pumps steadily out of him, running down his hip and leg.

“In hindsight, I should have aimed lower, but I wanted it to look authentic,” he says, tapping his head with the gun.

“Tilly, please run,” Marley whispers.

I can’t. I won’t. I try to remember what you’re supposed to do in situations like this, but I’m not sure there’s a manual for when the man you’ve loved as a father for twenty-odd years turns on you. All I can think is to keep him talking until the cops get here. But then it dawns on me.

“You didn’t call the cops, did you?”

He grins, slowly sliding down the wall, his gun still in his hand. “No. Not yet. That comes later. See, Cliff out there was my patsy. I hired him myself for just this occasion. Can you guess why I picked him?”

“He used to work for Cox Security,” Marley guesses.

“Ding, ding. I’ve dumped the car I borrowed, but that thing sure caused a nice distraction.”

“None of this was Daniel or his team. It was all you?”

“Daniel was a pathetic waste of space.”

I close my eyes at the choice of the word was .

“You don’t need to worry about him anymore.”

“And my mom?”

“Don’t you mention that woman to me. Not ever,” he snarls, making me rear back.

“Greyson, you’re scaring her.” Marley tries to defuse the situation.

Greyson looks at him with a blank stare before he shakes his head. “I apologize. Honestly, this whole thing has been exhausting. All I wanted was you close. I can’t bear the thought of you leaving me. I won’t survive that, Matilda.”

Marley’s breath hitches. “Did Andrew Summers stalk Matilda?”

I freeze as I realize that this isn’t a sudden moment of madness. He’s been the bogeyman all along.

“No. Please, no.”

“You were going to leave me. I had to make you stay. Andrew was a sycophant who used to follow you around, begging you to notice him while he sniffed your underwear like the creep he is. He said he was your stalker because it’s his one claim to fame, and I let him because it suited my needs.

You came home to me. And you stayed home. It was just the way it should be.”

I flash back to last night when he said something similar and shiver at how naive I was. But Jesus, I’d give anything to be her right now. “The Post-it notes?”

“Just to make you smile, at least in the beginning. I’ll admit, I used some bullying tactics. But it was all so that you would stop going out there and doing things where it’s not safe.”

“But you’re the one that made me not safe.”

“No, Cliff did,” he says with a wink. “But now he’s dead—self-defense, of course—after he shot Marley and me.”

All my twisted thoughts unravel as memories come floating to the surface. “You snuck into my trailer and cut off my hair.”

“Hair grows back, Matilda.”

“You burned my fucking skin off,” I scream at him, making me jump.

“Yes, I’m sorry about that, but it worked. It had to be done. Fun fact, though. It was Daniel who threw you in the shower, so I guess the useless fuck was good for something.”

I don’t let myself think about Daniel. I can’t. “You ran me off the road and nearly killed me.”

“That was not my intention. Everything just got a little out of control.”

“You set fire to my home. Our home.”

“So we could rebuild something new, something wonderful. And it was a great way to mark myself as the victim. And people would look at you like the monster you are.”

I shake my head in disgust, unable to stop my tears from flowing. “I loved you. I loved you so damn much. How could you do this to me? To Marley?”

For a minute he looks stricken before his face turns resolute. “There was no other way.”

When his phone rings, he pulls it out and looks at it. “That’s our cue to leave.”

Once Greyson’s phone stops ringing, Marley’s phone starts. My heart skips a beat because I just know it has to be Aiden.

“Answer that and I’ll shoot you in the face. I don’t want to, Marley, my old friend, but I will.”

Marley shakes his head. “What happened to you?”

Greyson sighs, adjusting himself. The blood from his wound is pooling on the floor beneath him now. “Hattie happened.”

“What does my mother have to do with this?”

He laughs then, but it’s a cold and cruel sound, something I’ve never heard from him before. “She forced me to lie. She made me give up the one thing I truly loved. And then it was too late, too much water under the bridge, too many steps to climb.” I look at Marley, who frowns.

“What did she make you give up?”

He looks at me then, his eyes staring into mine, and it’s like the answer unlocks itself. “My daughter.”

“No.”

“Yes. I thought it was love, but it was nothing but a ploy. She wanted a rich husband and a baby, which was the only way to get one.”

“You could have fought for me.”

“I had nothing. They were married a week after she found out she was pregnant. The deal was, I keep my mouth shut and I’d get to play an active role in your life, but you could never know the truth. I thought it would be enough. And for a while, it was.”

“Until I wanted to leave. Why not tell me when I was an adult?”

“I thought you might hate me.”

I look at him incredulously. “Yes, if the options are the truth or stalking, please do choose the illegal one.”

“I couldn’t risk it.”

“And in the end, it was all for nothing.”

“How can you say that?”

“I was going to build you an annex. I hoped you’d move with me. I wanted Zoe to meet you and know how wonderful you were.” I cry, unable to stop the flow of my tears. “But now, you can go to hell. I’ll never let you near my daughter,” I snarl.

“You don’t understand.”

“You’re right about that. I just don’t care.”

“No, that’s not right. That’s not what’s supposed to happen. We’ll go away for a while, pretend we were kidnapped, and return when you trust me again. I know it will take time, but I can prove myself to you, I know it.”

He’s not straight. He can’t be. His plan has so many holes that it would never work. He has to know that. “What about Daniel and my mom? What about the people you burned with acid? What about Marley?”

I see it then, the remorse on his face.

“He was never going to let me go,” Marley says sadly, pain and betrayal evident in his voice.

“It has to be this way. I’m sorry, Matilda. One day you’ll understand. But right now, we need to go,” he states as his phone rings again. He gets to his feet, though he looks far from stable. “Move.”

“I’m not going anywhere with you.”

“Please,” he implores, his face ravaged when he realizes this was all for nothing. He gambled with all our lives and lost.

“I can’t,” I sob.

He lifts the gun and aims it at me, his voice devoid of all emotion. “If I can’t have you, then nobody can.”

And then he fires.