Chapter 14 - The Deal
“Sign.”
Dad lifted his head.
His face was bruised, beard matted with dried blood, but his eyes were clear.
“Don’t,” he said.
Evan hit him across the mouth with the gun.
Brooke flinched.
“Stop it.”
Evan looked at her. “You wanted control. This is what control costs.”
Something changed in her face.
Not redemption. Not yet.
Fear.
She finally understood she was not Evan’s partner.
She was another loose end.
I looked at the papers.
“Give me a pen.”
Dad shook his head. “Claire, no.”
“It’s just paper.”
Evan handed me a pen.
I signed the first page slowly.
Then the second.
I was buying time.
Officer Hale had been pulled from the ambulance, but I had seen him hit his shoulder mic before the doors shut. If it worked, police knew we had been taken.
I needed to keep us alive long enough for them to find the building.
On the third page, I stopped.
“This date is wrong.”
Evan’s eyes narrowed.
“What?”
“The effective date. If you file this, legal will flag it.”
He stepped closer.
I pointed to the line.
He bent down.
I drove the pen into his hand.
He screamed.
Dad kicked the chair forward, slamming into Evan’s knees.
Brooke grabbed for the gun.
A shot exploded.
Concrete dust burst from the wall.
I threw myself sideways.
Evan struck Brooke across the face and ripped the weapon free.
Then a siren wailed somewhere outside.
His eyes widened.
“How?”
Brooke touched her bleeding lip.
She looked at me.
Then at Evan.
“I turned on my phone before we got here.”
Evan stared at her.
“You what?”
“I’m done.”
He raised the gun toward her.
Dad shouted.
The lights went out.
Total darkness swallowed the room.
May you like
Then the warehouse door crashed open and someone yelled:
“POLICE! DROP THE WEAPON!”
