“Wake up.” A large hand landed across my face snapping me straight to consciousness.
My face that had already been struck today by another man.
The force used felt worse. It hurt more. My eyes fluttered open and beheld Jude’s angry face.
I tried to open my mouth but couldn’t. Strong tape held it shut and hands were bound behind me.
He crouched down at my feet and I made the mistake of looking down.
I screamed when my gaze landed on the vest strapped around me with a square device on the front something next to it that looked like a fire work. A bomb.
He’d strapped a fucking bomb to me, just the way a bomb was strapped to Marissa. I screamed again but of course no sound came out with the tape across my mouth. Tears streamed down my cheeks in an instant at the terror of what could happen to me.
Jude was undoing ropes wrapped around my feet. I didn’t know why.
“Get up.” he snarled grabbing me up.
My legs buckled and I nearly fell over. his hold on me tightened and he looked around the place panicked.
What was going on? He didn’t seem to exhibit the bravado he’d had before he took me, and where was I?
Where was I?
The place was …
Wait I recognized it. This wasn’t the same place but it was a warehouse. A bit more done up than the one I’d been placed in years ago, but I was right.
He moved with me to an area surrounded by rows of large shelves. Some had metal parts, others had reels of wires. There were so many of rows of shelves it looked like a maze. The lighting was also bad.
Jude stopped when we heard a door in the distance open. Then voices.
“Jude!” bellowed a voice I thought I recognized but wasn’t certain.
The voice held so much anger and fury it made me shake.
“Juddddddddddddde.”
Jude stopped and in an instant I knew it was. It was Claudius.
“Fucking bastard.” Jude frowned.
I looked around trying to see where Claudius was but got nothing.
Nothing except footsteps. They sounded everywhere, all at once. It wasn’t just him who came. There were more people.
“Jude.” That was Dante.
“You’re outnumbered Jude.” That was Gio.
“Vastly, outnumbered.” Luc. That was Luc.
A guy with spiky black hair rushed up to us. He was the guy that came through the window.
“We’re surrounded. There’s at least ten of them.” He spoke in a hushed voice.
“Where’s Joe?” Jude asked.
The man shook his head. “No one’s responding to my calls. I think they know Goliath’s dead.”
Goliath dead. Claudius. He must have done it. He did it.
I would be lying if I said I didn’t feel that some form of justice had been served with his death, but look at me. Look at the situation I was in.
“Go to the front and cover me.” Jude ordered once again tightening his grip on my arm. It hurt so much.
The man readied his gun and snaked down the aisle opposite us while we continued toward the back of the place where it got darker.
“Jude, let her go and come and face me like a man.” Claudius screamed.
We got to a door. Jude tried to open it but it seemed like it was locked from the outside.
“Shit.”
Bullets sounded and then a desperate cry of terror. Jude pulled me behind a shelf that had boxes of all different shapes and sizes.
A noise shuffled behind us and Jude whirled around.
Claudius stood there holding out two guns in front of him. His face was worse beaten and bloody than earlier. Beaten and swollen.
Luc, Dante and Gio came into view, behind him. Guns up.
Jude laughed a cynical laugh and pressed his gun to my temple hard, holding me tight to his chest. so tight I thought he was going to crush me.
This was the fourth time now that I’d had to fear for my life like this.
The fourth time, and from the way things looked, it might be the last.
“Let her go, Jude,” Luc ordered. “It’s over.”
“You prick, you couldn’t leave well enough alone, could you?” Jude cried Claudius wasn’t saying anything. It meant he was infernal mad. Like a volcano minutes before it erupted.
“Bastard, we all trusted you. You were playing us this whole time,” Luc continued.
Dante and Gio glared at him too. Disappointment on their faces.
Jude pulled the trigger back, and I thought this was it for me.
“Heard you were the guy who took my girl the first time,” Claudius barked, finally speaking. His voice sounded everywhere all at once in the vast expanse of the space before us. “Jude, is that right?”
I kept my gaze trained on Claudius, but he wasn’t looking at me. He looked above me at Jude.
“If you know, why are you asking? Boss,” Jude threw back and laughed. “Didn’t you think it made for an interesting game? Except you should have died too. You know what? Goliath wanted to cut your head off. A crazy-ass man like that, and that was all he came up with. It was my brilliant idea to strap the bomb to your wife, grab her twin, and try to make you see which one you could save. I have all these ingenious ideas that these people don’t really make use of. Goliath did it his way. Game of chance. Same with Victor and Henry. At least he took me up on using the old mental home.”
I saw the dark look in both Claudius and Luc’s eyes at the mention of Henry. I knew that would be another stab to the chest. I’d already been in Europe when Henry died, but I’d heard about it. Marissa told me.
“All those ideas, and I was never more than a grunt. Time for that all to change. Joe was going to pay me a lot for this gig. Your little stunt today cost me a million dollars. This is me recouping some of my losses. I wonder if her death would make you lose your mind. Such a shame I never got to use the bomb, but blowing her brains is still just as good.”
The trigger clicked in my ear.
He was going to kill me. This was it. This was it. My final moment.
My gaze locked with Claudius but he still wasn’t looking at me.
I was hoping he could see how much I loved him with my eyes.
I snapped my eyes shut though when Jude released the trigger.
Claudius Click, clack, and –
That was all.
All I would allow. Jude actually released the trigger, but I got to him first and my bullet in his neck made him fire the shot in the wall across from him instead of Ava’s head.
He screamed a piercing wailing sound that tore through my soul and grabbed at his neck. Jude pulled Ava down with him as he fell to the ground.
She shuffled away from him as blood spurted from his neck and his eyes rolled back in his head.
While everyone else stared at Jude, I rushed to Ava. She was shaking and crying. I pulled the tape from off her mouth first , ripped the damn bomb vest from her chest and crushed her to me.
I froze up because I didn’t want to do it. I didn’t want to shoot him. I didn’t want to kill him.
Jude, Alex’s brother. Jude, one of The Four.
Being suspicious was a lot different to facing reality. There’s always that in between, that room of possibility where you could be wrong.
Hearing goliath tell me Jude had Ava, seeing Jude with Ava and hearing the venom of his words showing his hate for us told all.
I was right and I had to end him.
He was the first person I ever killed that left me feeling like this. Hollow and empty.
“Claudius.” Ava wailed she was still shaking.
Luc and the guys started walking, back the way we’d come.
But… the clicking behind me told me this wasn’t over yet.
Click, clack… then…
BANG!
I looked around to see Jude go down again. Blurt spurted from the side of his head. Someone shot him, someone shot him preventing him from shooting me.
Someone…
Not just any someone.
A few metres away stood Alex, gun still held out, aiming at Jude.
He’d killed him.
He’d shot his brother and killed him, saving me.
The horrified look on his face pulled on my heart, and worse was the tear that ran down his cheek.
He didn’t look at me. He stared at Jude’s lifeless body then turned and walked away.