Chapter 147 The Final Stand
Third Person POV
Pain had become background noise. The bullet wound in Gavin’s shoulder throbbed with every heartbeat. Blood soaked through his shirt, his jacket, dripping steadily onto the marble floors.
He didn’t care, he just kept moving, one foot in front of the other.
Through corridors littered with unconscious guards. Past rooms where fires were starting to spread. Around corners where the sounds of fighting still echoed.
The compound was dying.
Zeus’s empire was collapsing and Gavin was bleeding out.
But he kept moving; he had to keep moving.
He had to get to the gate, to see Melissa with his own eyes. And be sure that she was safe.
Kane would get her out. Gavin trusted that with absolute certainty. Kane had never failed him. Never let him down.
But Gavin needed to see her.
He needed to look into her eyes one more time before…
His vision blurred. He caught himself against a wall, leaving a bloody handprint on pristine white paint.
He breathed through the dizziness, pushed off the wall and kept walking.
The front entrance was ahead. The massive doors were blown open during the chaos. Moonlight streaming in.
Almost there.
Almost…
The shot came from behind.
Pain exploded in his left leg. His leg buckled.
Gavin went down hard. Knees hitting marble. The impact sent fresh waves of agony through his wounded shoulder.
He looked down.
There was blood, lots of it spreading across his thigh where the bullet had torn through muscle.
He had gunshot wounds now he was going to bleed out before he reached the gate.
Gavin turned his head slowly. Looked back.
Sophia stood twenty feet away. The white fabric of her dress was now splattered with blood . Some of it was probably his. Her makeup was destroyed. Mascara running down her face in black rivers. Hair falling out of its elaborate style.
She looked like a ghost. Like something that had died and refused to admit it.
And she was holding a gun. Pointed directly at him.
“Don’t you fucking leave me,” she said. Her voice was shaking. Rising. “We belong together. Both of us. We belong together!”
Gavin pressed his hand against his bleeding leg. The pressure barely slowed the flow.
“We don’t,” he said. His voice was weak and strained.
He tried to stand. His wounded leg screamed in protest but he forced himself up anyway.
He swayed dangerously and stayed upright through sheer willpower.
Sophia was crying now. Ugly, broken sobs that shook her entire body.
“You married me,” she said. “You put on the mantle. You accepted the crown. You’re MINE!”
“Sophia.” Gavin’s face was pale. “Give up. Go away from here. Do something with your life.”
He took a step toward her, he nearly fell but he caught himself.
“The families don’t own you anymore. Isn’t there something you’ve always wanted to do?”
“No.” She shook her head violently. “No, no, NO!”
The gun shook in her hands.
“I don’t want anything else! I don’t want freedom! I don’t want choices!” She was screaming now. Hysterical. “I want YOU! I’ve wanted you since I was eight years old! Since Zeus promised me! Since they showed me your picture and said ‘this is your future husband’!”
She took a step forward. Then another.
“Twenty years I waited! TWENTY YEARS! While you ran away and built your empire and forgot about me!”
“I never forgot,” Gavin said quietly. “I knew exactly what I was running from.”
“You were running from ME?” Her voice cracked. “I loved you! I loved the idea of you! I built my entire life around becoming worthy of you!”
“I never asked you to do that.”
“You didn’t have to ask! It was PROMISED!” She was shaking now. Entire body trembling with rage and grief and madness. “You were mine by right! By blood! By family law!”
Gavin took another step. His leg gave out halfway through.
He went down again. This time he didn’t have the strength to get back up.
Just knelt there on the blood-slicked marble. Looking at the woman who thought she owned him.
“You can’t have me,” he said. “I’m not a thing to be owned. Neither is Melissa. Neither are you.”
“YES I AM!” Sophia shrieked. “I’m now a Valdez! I’m Zeus’s daughter! I’m YOURS!”
She rushed forward. Fell to her knees in front of him.
Grabbed his face with one hand. The gun still in the other, pressed against his chest.
“We’re married,” she said. Her breath was hot against his face. Smelled like champagne and madness. “We said the vows. We mixed our blood. We’re bound.”
“The marriage is annulled.”
“NO IT’S NOT!” She was screaming directly into his face now. Spittle flying. “You can’t annul it! It’s sacred! It’s…”
“It’s nothing.” Gavin’s vision was graying at the edges. “It never was anything.”
Sophia’s face twisted.
Then she kissed him, hard and desperately crushing their mouths together with bruising force.
Gavin didn’t respond nor did he kiss her back. He just sat there while she tried to claim something that had never been hers.
When she pulled back, her lips were bloody. From him or from her, he couldn’t tell.
“You’re mine,” she whispered. “Say it. Say you’re mine.”
“No.”
She hit him. The gun-hand. Metal connecting with his already-injured jaw.
His head snapped to the side. Blood pooled in his mouth now too.
“SAY IT!”
“No.”
She hit him again.
And again.
Gavin stopped trying to defend himself. Stopped trying to stay conscious.
Just let the darkness creep in around the edges.
Let his body finally give in to the blood loss.
He fell.
Sophia caught him. Lowered him almost gently to the floor.
Then she stood and looked down at his unconscious body.
She reached down and grabbed the crimson mantle that had fallen half-off his shoulders when he collapsed.
She pulled it free. Wrapped it around her own shoulders.
The fabric was too big. Dragged on the ground behind her. But she wore it like a crown.
She turned.
Guards were appearing. Staff. People who’d survived the chaos and were trying to figure out what came next.
They saw her.
Saw the mantle.
Saw Gavin’s blood-soaked body on the floor.
“I am Lady Sophia Valdez,” she announced. Her voice was steady now. Cold. Absolute. “Daughter of Zeus. Wife of Gavin Cross. And as he lies dying, I claim his authority.”
She pulled the mantle tighter around herself.
“You answer to me now.”
Silence.