He’s done it before, and that was over Keira.
No one will survive if something happens to Rory.
“You try to stop me from getting my kid back, and your life is forfeit, Gaspard.”
“We’ll get her back, but I won’t hand Magnolia over to a madman who will butcher her. Promise me right now, on your wife’s life, that you’ll fucking work with me, or I don’t bring Magnolia back to you. Understand me? He wants her, and you know I can make her disappear. Neither of you will ever find her again.”
“Stop it! Both of you!”
Keira’s voice comes over the phone next, and shame eats through me like battery acid from the pain I hear in her ragged words.
“I’m so sorry, Ke-ke. I didn’t think— I would’ve never come to you— Oh my God, I’m so sorry.” Sobs rip from my throat, and all I want to do is hit my knees and pray, because I’m not strong enough to handle this by myself.
“You come back, and we’ll work it out. My baby will come home, and no one is killing my best friend. Period. You hear me, goddamn it?”
Like a fucking empress, Keira tells us all exactly how it’s going to go. A flicker of hope ignites in my soul that I didn’t just ruin the lives of the people who matter most to me.
Thirty-Nine
Moses
We have no fucking time to waste, but I still walk into the lion’s den with caution. Mount is a wild card right now—rightly so—and as much as I don’t want to kill the man, I will do what I have to do to save that little girl and Magnolia.
I didn’t just get her back to lose her all over again. Even though I understand exactly where Mount’s coming from.
With Magnolia’s hand clasped in mine, I’m one hundred percent certain she’ll give herself up to Reyes to save Rory. I know it down to the depths of my soul. She would never choose to live if it meant that baby lost her life or endured a single bit of pain on her account.
But I’m not letting any of it happen today.
No fucking way.
Footsteps pound up the pavement from behind us as we walk into the door from the garage. I whip around, my gun in hand, ready for anything, but relax when I see Trey and Jules.
“On the way back from the funeral, our driver said Mount’s kid was kidnapped. Is that for fucking real?” Jules asks, looking from me to Magnolia with wild eyes.
“Yeah, it’s for real. Come on. We don’t have time. We gotta get a strategy together. We have barely thirty minutes before we gotta go.”
“It was Reyes?” Trey asks.
My head dips once.
“Fuck. He wants Magnolia bad,” Jules says with a shake of his head. “We can’t go in there. Mount will serve her up to get that kid back. No fucking way this ends well.”
“You try to run and you all fucking die,” Mount’s voice bellows from the darkness ahead of us. “Get in here before I end you all where you stand for bringing this to my door!”
“Stop it!” Keira says, tears coating the steel in her voice as the light flips on. “There are enough people we already have to bury after today. We’re not adding any more bodies to the count. Everyone in. We’re getting our baby girl back, and no one else is dying. Goddamn it, don’t make me say it again.”
“I’m so sorry, Keira.” Magnolia rushes her friend, wrapping her arms around her as she sobs. “I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry. I’ll go. I’ll go. I won’t let anything happen to her. I swear. This is my penance. I’ll pay for my sins. Rory is coming home to you. I swear it.”
My heart cracks right down the middle to hear the despair and finality in Magnolia’s wrecked voice, but it doesn’t make a single dent in the stony expression on Mount’s face.
“We doing this my way? Or are we having it out right here?” I ask him, my finger resting alongside the trigger of my gun.
His fingers twitch, telling me he’s thinking about going for his piece too. We could all die right now. But I can read people. And this man wants to see his baby girl grow up, get married, and have babies of her own.
Mount releases a long breath. “We’re doing this the way that keeps the most people alive as possible. But if anything goes sideways, Rory is the only thing that I care about.”
Keira shoots him a glare as she rocks back and forth, holding on to Magnolia, but it doesn’t matter.
“I’ll take it,” I tell him with a sharp nod. “Now, he said Keira comes with Magnolia—”
“Over my dead fucking body,” Mount bites out, interrupting me.
“That’s what he said. You want to call him back on the phone he took from a woman he filleted? You want to tell him it’s not going his way when he’s got a knife near your baby girl? When he’s already threatened that if we’re late, or don’t follow his rules, he’s going to start sending pieces of her to show he’s serious?”
If there was murderous rage on Mount’s face before, I don’t know what the fuck this expression is, but I’m surprised we’re not all dead from the sheer force behind it. Mount swings around and punches through the nearest plaster wall.
“Lachlan! I’m going! So help me God, he’s not cutting my baby!”
Mount spins back around, blood dripping from his knuckles. His jaw shifts from side to side. “What else did that dead motherfucker say?”
“They go to the far end of the market, near Esplanade. They walk the stalls. Keira finds Rory, and he finds Magnolia and takes her.”
“He ain’t getting out of there with her,” Jules says, incredulous. “How the fuck does he really think he’s getting away with her? Not a chance. We can do this.”
Mount doesn’t even bother to look at him as he speaks. “He has a plan. We need a better one.”
Forty
Magnolia
“You know what to do? You got this?” Moses clasps my face between his hands as I stare into those brilliant green-gold eyes.
“I know what to do. I’ve got it,” I repeat back to him.
“And you know you’re coming back to me, and we’re gonna live an amazing fucking life after this asshole is dead, right?”
I nod because he needs to see me agree, but I’m not sure I believe him. If anything goes sideways, it’s my life for Rory’s.
I finally understand what the Hanged Man meant when Celeste drew the card for me.
The ultimate sacrifice.
I’ve been selfish my whole life. I’ve struggled and fought and tried to get what I thought I was owed. I’ve lied. Cheated. Stole. Betrayed people I loved, and committed more sins than I can possibly remember.
And it all comes down to this.
I have a chance at redemption, and if my life is demanded to save Rory, I’ll give it up gladly.
There’s no doubt in my mind, and not a drop of hate in my heart. This is the path my decisions have led me to, and I won’t let that baby suffer for a single moment longer if I can prevent it, no matter the cost to myself.
A calmness settles deep within me.
But I can’t tell Moses because he’ll never let me go. He’ll find another way. I believe in him, but I also believe we don’t have time to waste, and I refuse to be the reason Rory is missing a finger or an ear or something worse.