Chapter 281
Lance
His voice was different too. Lower. Steadier. The kind of voice that had learned to give orders and expect them obeyed.
I forced myself to step back, to give him space, even as every instinct screamed to check for hidden injuries, internal bleeding, fractures that hadn't shown themselves yet.
"But Lance?" Wesley continued, and now the smile reached his eyes—cold and sharp and entirely too knowing. "You've got style, I'll give you that. Using Felix's life to guarantee mine?" He turned his attention to the bed, where Felix had gone rigid with recognition and rage. "Well, well. My other favorite uncle. Still breathing, I see."
"Wesley." Felix's voice came out strangled, his eyes darting between us like a cornered animal seeking escape. "Don't—don't come any closer. Your uncle and my father have an agreement. As long as you're safe, I'm—"
"You misunderstand." I cut through his panic with surgical precision, each word chosen for maximum impact. "The agreement wasn't your life for his. It was—" I paused, letting the weight of what came next settle over the room like a shroud. "—as long as Wesley arrived safely, you could die knowing you served your purpose."
The color drained from Felix's face. "You wouldn't—"
Davis holstered his weapon and moved toward the door with practiced efficiency. "I'll secure the corridor. Make sure no one interrupts. No one hears what happens here."
The door closed behind him with a soft click that sounded like a coffin lid sealing.
Felix's breath came faster now, shallow and panicked. He tried to push himself upright, to put distance between himself and Wesley, but his injuries made the movement clumsy. Desperate.
"Fuck—Wesley, you can't—I'm your uncle! I'm your—"
"My first target." Wesley's voice was flat. Empty of everything except cold certainty. "You killed Miles. You killed Vanessa. God knows how many others you've buried along the way." He reached into his jacket—slowly, deliberately—and withdrew a matte-black pistol that looked like it had seen recent use. "But more importantly—"
He paused, glancing at me. Something passed between us in that moment—an understanding that transcended words, that lived in the space where blood and choice and consequence intersected.
"—I made Lance a promise. I told him I'd send you and your father to hell." Wesley's arm came up, the weapon leveling at Felix's chest with the kind of steadiness that spoke to recent practice. "I don't break my promises anymore."
Felix scrambled backward, his hospital gown tangling around his legs as he tried to roll away from the muzzle tracking his movement. Pain lanced across his face—the kind that came from torn stitches and wounds reopening—but fear drove him past it.
"Lance!" The name came out as a shriek, high and desperate. "Lance, please—you'll stop this, won't you? You'll—you'll let me go, I can convince my father, all his assets, everything he has, it's yours, just—"
"Wait."
The single word cut through Felix's babbling like a knife. He froze, his eyes locking onto mine with something that might have been hope if hope weren't such a stupid, fragile thing.
"Lance?" His voice cracked. "You'll—you'll let me—"
I reached into my jacket and withdrew my own weapon. The weight of it was familiar, comfortable. An extension of will made manifest in steel and powder and purpose.
"Wesley." I didn't look at my nephew, keeping my gaze fixed on Felix as I spoke. "Use mine instead."
Felix's expression transformed—relief flooding his features so completely it was almost painful to witness. "Yes, Lance, please, I knew you—"
"It's faster." I continued as if he hadn't spoken, my tone clinical. Detached. "More accurate. The suppressor's better quality. Let him go quick. Let him go clean."
Understanding dawned in Wesley's eyes—a dark mirror of the smile that curved my own lips. "Uncle." The word carried weight now, freight it had never held before. "You always did have a soft spot for family."
He reached for the weapon.
I tossed it.
But not to Wesley.
The gun spun through the air, end over end, describing a perfect arc that terminated with the barrel aimed directly at Felix's chest. My thumb found the trigger guard as muscle memory took over, years of training compressed into a single fluid motion.
Two shots. Center mass. Professional. Clean.
Felix's eyes went wide—wider than I'd thought possible—his mouth forming a perfect O of shock as the impacts drove him back into the pillows. The heart monitor shrieked its flatline symphony, but he was already gone, his final expression frozen in that moment of absolute betrayal.
The silence that followed was profound.
Wesley stared at me, his weapon still half-raised, his expression caught between shock and something I couldn't quite name.
"Well." I lowered my gun, the barrel still warm against my palm. "Don't take it personally, Wesley. But first—" I gestured at Felix's corpse with the kind of casual dismissal reserved for solved problems. "—my grievances with him run deeper than yours. And second—"
I turned to face my nephew fully, letting him see the truth written in my eyes, in the set of my shoulders, in the fact that I'd just committed murder to prove a point.
"—you've bled for me. Risked everything for me. I wanted you to know I'd do the same. That you're not my subordinate. Not my project. Not my burden." Each word landed like a hammer blow, reshaping the space between us into something new. Something unbreakable. "In my eyes, Wesley, you've always been—you'll always be—irreplaceable."
The silence stretched between us, thick with everything unsaid, with years of misunderstanding and failed connection finally giving way to something true.
Wesley's throat worked. His hand lowered slowly, his weapon disappearing back into its holster with practiced ease. When he finally spoke, his voice was rough with emotion he didn't bother to hide.
"Fuck."
He pulled two cigarettes from his jacket—when had he started smoking?—and offered one to me. The flame from his lighter cast dancing shadows across his face as he inhaled deeply, held it, released it in a long exhale that seemed to carry years of tension with it.
"You know what, Lance?" He took another drag, his eyes meeting mine through the smoke. "You're exactly who I thought you were when I was ten years old. Before everything got—" He gestured vaguely with the cigarette, encompassing Felix's body, the hospital room, the wreckage of our family. "—complicated. You're still the coolest uncle a kid could ask for."