I won’t fail her. I won’t let her die.
Fueled by the memory of my nightmare, I move forward. Each step feels heavier, louder than before, even though I’m still silently moving through.
I’m vaguely aware of Declan telling me something, but I ignore him. He doesn’t need to say a damn thing as I come up to the corner and hear voices.
Two voices.
Light filters under the closed door in the dark hall. And with it are the sounds of Aria pleading with her father. Begging him for something.
My heart twists into a wretched knot. That sound shouldn’t exist. The pain in her cadence. It shouldn’t be allowed.
My vision tricks me, giving me flashes of weeks ago. Of Aria on her knees and at my mercy. I wish I could take it back. As my hand settles on the cold steel knob of the door that mutes her cries, I wish I could take everything back.
Every piece of it. Even the moment I clung to life at the sound of her voice carrying through a closed door.
It only takes a half second for me to push the door open, the gun raised and ready to fire, but it’s useless. The barrel of one already stares back at me.
“Did you really think I wouldn’t be ready for you?” Talvery hisses as Aria sucks in a breath, wide eyed and backed in a corner. Tears stream down her face and I could kill the fucker now.
“Dad, please,” she begs him and I can’t stop looking at her, even as the sweat in my hand makes me hold the gun tighter.
“Drop your gun,” he demands and the gun slips slightly in my grasp as I hear Aria whisper my name. Not in fear, not in anger. I can hear how she needs me. It won’t be denied from her voice.
In my periphery, she takes a step toward me and her father cocks his gun in response. The click is resounding and foreboding. Aria stills instantly.
It’s only now, in the face of actually having to make the decision, that I question if I can kill him in front of her. If I could steal her father from her.
“Don’t,” she begs him in a breathless whisper. She still loves me. I can feel it in the way she speaks. A piece of her still cares for me.
I tighten my grip on the gun, not knowing if she’ll still love me after.
If she weren’t here, he’d be dead. I could do it if she weren’t here. But with her watching, still begging and hoping for the inevitable fate to change before her eyes… I’m hesitating. I’ve spent a decade waiting to kill this man. Waiting to make him suffer for what he did to me.
But if she hates me after… then I may as well be the one that died.
In any other situation, I wouldn’t have hesitated. Talvery would be dead simply because he took time to speak. I need Aria to love me though. A life without love is no life at all.
I don’t want to die, either. I don’t want her to see me die.
For the first time in years, I don’t want to die. I need to protect her. I need to make it right.
“Aria.” I say her name simply because I need to see her one more time. I need to know she loves me still. I need her to know it’s okay. But as she looks at me, her father speaks.
“Did you think I couldn’t see you?” Talvery sneers, but I don’t listen to him.
“Please, Dad,” Aria begs, her chest rising higher and falling deeper.
“That I didn’t have backup cameras?”
All I can think, is that I need to save her. In the back of my mind, although I’m looking between Aria and Talvery, all I can see is her on the floor of my office. On her knees between my legs, cold and not breathing.
I won’t let it happen.
“I’m tired and growing old. But I’m not done fighting yet. And I’m not that fucking stupid,” he says lowly and I know he’s going to pull the trigger. “I won’t lay down and die.”
“No!” Aria’s scream rings through the air at the same time that he speaks his last word.
Talvery’s statement again means nothing, but Aria hurling herself forward, reaching for the gun tempting her on the corner of the desk, is everything.
Her lunge distracts both of us. But when he turns to her, I can’t do anything but throw myself between the gun he points at her and the woman I need to protect. The only reason I’ve ever had to live.
My gun fires at him the same time his goes off, barely skimming the arm he holds the gun with as he cusses.
I don’t feel the first shot. I don’t even feel the second, but I see it. I see the barrel of the gun and even as the bullet flies toward me, I swear I see it. The sound of the shot is like white noise and it means nothing compared to the sound of Aria screaming. Her voice fills the room and it seems to drag across time as my heart beats slowly. Only a single beat to her long scream as she wraps her arms around me.