Chapter 158 THE FALL (SEASON FINALE)

Chapter 158 THE FALL (SEASON FINALE)


~MONICA'S POV~

The wind howling across the industrial bridge felt like tiny knives against my skin.

I shivered, pulling my trench coat tighter around my body. My fingers gripped my bag so hard they ached. Inside it was nothing but twenty dollars and a burner phone. 

But soon, I would have a fake passport. Cash. A new life.

I checked my watch. 6:02 PM.

"Come on," I muttered, pacing the rusted metal grate. "Where are you?"

Headlights pierced the evening fog.

A black sedan turned onto the bridge, its tires rolling slowly over the pavement. It stopped twenty feet away. My heart leaped. 

The fixer was here. 

Annette had actually pulled it through.

The driver's side door opened.

A man stepped out. But he wasn't carrying a briefcase. He was holding a silver revolver.

My breath caught in my throat.

It was Richard.

"No," I whispered, taking a step back.

The passenger door flew open, and Claire stumbled out into the cold. Her face was pale, her eyes wide with absolute panic.

"Richard, put it down!" Claire screamed, grabbing at his coat. "Please! Don't do this!"

Richard shoved her off, keeping the gun pointed squarely at my chest. I stared at them. The truth hit me like a bucket of ice water. 

There was no fixer. There was no passport.

Annette.

That treacherous, backstabbing little rat. She hadn't helped me. She had sold me to the slaughterhouse.

"You set me up," I hissed, my voice trembling with a mixture of terror and pure rage.

"No, Monica," Richard said, his voice terrifyingly calm. "You set yourself up. I'm just here to collect the debt."

"Richard, stop!" Claire begged, putting herself between us. "If you pull that trigger, your life is over! You'll go to prison forever!"

"My life is already over, Claire!" Richard yelled, his calm breaking. He pointed the gun around her to keep me in his sights. "Look at her! Look at the poison that ruined us!"

I let out a harsh, bitter laugh. I couldn't help it. Even facing down the barrel of a gun, his weakness disgusted me.

"Ruined us?" I shouted over the rushing river below. "I didn't ruin you, Richard! I just showed you what you really are! A pathetic, easily manipulated little boy!"

"Shut your mouth!" Richard roared, his hands shaking around the grip of the revolver.

"You drugged him!" Claire yelled at me, her brown eyes blazing with hatred. "You poisoned his mind and stole his money! You're a monster, Monica!"

"I did what I had to do to survive!" I spat back. "He was obsessed with you, Claire! He was never going to love me! He was just going to keep pining after the pathetic wife he threw away!"

I took another step back. My heel bumped against the low, rusted railing of the bridge. Behind me, the dark, freezing water crashed against the concrete pillars.

"You made a fool out of me," Richard said, his voice dropping back to that dead, hollow tone. "You faked a baby. You drugged my food. You turned me into a zombie."

"Because you were weak!" I screamed. "You needed me to hold your hand through everything! You were nothing without your name!"

"And what are you without yours, Monica?" Richard asked coldly.

He stepped around Claire. He raised the gun, aiming it right at my heart.

"Richard, please!" Claire sobbed. "I'll do anything! I'll come back to you! Just put the gun down!"

"I don't want you to come back to a mess, Claire," Richard said softly, not looking at her. "I want to give you a clean slate."

I looked down at the rushing water below. It was a fifty-foot drop. A death sentence. Then I looked back at Richard and Claire. 

I was cornered. 

I was done.

But I wasn't going to beg. A Sterling never begs.

I leaned my head back and laughed. It was a loud, mocking, unhinged sound that echoed across the empty bridge.

"You think killing me fixes it?" I sneered. "You think washing my blood off your hands makes you worthy of her?"

"It cuts the cancer out," Richard said.

"You were never her," he whispered, his finger tightening on the trigger. "You were just a cheap substitute. You were nothing, Monica. You are nothing."

The words sliced through my chest, sharper than any knife.

I gripped the railing behind me. I looked at the man I had ruined my life to conquer, and the woman who had effortlessly defeated me.

"I might be nothing, Richard," I spat, my voice dripping with absolute venom. "But I am the rot that destroyed your soul. And you will never, ever be clean of me."

"Goodbye, Monica."

BANG.

The gunshot ripped through the air, deafening and bright.

I gasped. The force of the bullet slammed into my chest like a sledgehammer. The air rushed out of my lungs in a violent burst.

I looked down.

My hands were covered in hot, wet crimson. The blood spread across my coat, blooming like a dark, terrible flower.

Shock paralyzed my vocal cords. It wasn't supposed to end like this. I was the Queen. I was supposed to win.

My knees buckled.

"NO!" Claire screamed.

My center of gravity shifted. My heels slipped on the wet metal grate.

I leaned backward over the railing.

Time slowed down to a crawl. The wind rushed past my ears. I looked up one last time.

The final image burned into my mind was Richard standing at the edge of the bridge, his face as cold and dead as a stone statue, the gun smoking in his hand. And beside him, Claire, her hands clamped over her mouth, her eyes wide with absolute, screaming horror.

"See you in hell," I whispered to the sky.

And then the dark, freezing water swallowed me whole.

\[FADE TO BLACK\]

\[END OF SEASON ONE\]