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“Amstaff said the same thing.” I pause and take a deep breath. “You helped the people who killed her. You helped bury the truth about Mom. About your wife. Do you understand how that looks?”
“I tried to get her off that story; she was going to implicate me—”
“She was your wife!” I scream at the top of my lungs. “My mother! How could you? How could you do that to your own family? I’ve been living a lie, but it ends here tonight.”
My father takes a step toward me, and I don’t like the look on his face. His voice is cold, his tone menacing. “Ariana, we can’t be out here anymore. We should go somewhere else and talk about this.”
“Stay the fuck away from me,” I warn him. “You’re a monster. You did all this for your career, for your political advancement.”
“I did this to position myself high enough to be able to help people! I have always worked for the people!”
“Like the kids who got tossed out of Sweet Mother of Mercy so your buddies could build a residential complex? Like the dozens of drug dealers who still walk freely because they’re paying the right people in your network. Or what about the shamefully unethical companies you’ve allowed to dump chemicals in our water? Was that working for the people? Don’t think for a second that I don’t know what’s been happening under your watch. I know everything!”
“Ariana, enough! We need to get out of here.”
He tries to grab me, but Kendric comes out with his weapon locked and loaded from behind the mausoleum. “The only thing you need to do is not move a fucking muscle, or I will blow both your kneecaps off,” he says.
“I should’ve known,” my father growls. “You poisoned my own daughter against me.”
“All we did was show her the truth. The only poison she ever drank came directly from you,” Kendric bluntly replies. “Don’t take another step, Mr. Mayor. It ends tonight.”
“You keep saying that, but what did you think would happen? That I would just roll over? Did you think I didn’t come prepared?”
“Oh, I know you came prepared,” Kendric chuckles. “But your associates are currently tied up.”
As we speak, two Steel Knights are currently watching over the car that accompanied my father here. We knew he’d have a security detail with him. They were quickly neutralized and cuffed but will be released once we’ve finished.
Kendric gives me the cellphone scrambler. “Turn it off. We need a status update.”
“Right, yeah,” I mumble and press the green button on the top of the device. The screen goes blank, and my phone beeps twice. Incoming texts, hopefully from Sky and Raylan.
“You’re making the worst mistake of your life, Ariana, getting in bed with these bastards,” my father says. “They’ll toss you aside the minute they get what they want, and I’ve come too far, sacrificed too much, to let you or anyone else ruin everything. Not when I’m so close.”
“So close to what?” I ask, fumbling through my jacket pocket for my phone.
“The ultimate seat of power. Where do you think I’m headed once I get into the state senate? It’s a straight road to the White House,” my father replies.
“I’d rather burn the whole country down than see a dirty piece of trash like you running it,” Kendric says. “I served my country. Proudly. You’re not worthy of the White House, Mayor. You’re not worthy of running this fucking city.”
“It’s over, Dad. You might as well face it.”
He can’t stop himself from smiling. A clicking sound has me looking up from my phone. My father glances somewhere to the side. I follow his gaze and feel the very life leaving my body as four armed men come up the hill with semiautomatic weapons pointed at us. “I had a feeling they wouldn’t be too far behind,” he says. “I’ll get away with a slap on the wrist, but you two … Ariana, it’s not too late to just leave and never come back. I can help you.”
“Your Black Hand friends?” Kendric asks, his weapon still pointed at my father.
“I hope they’re still my friends,” my father answers, waiting for the gunmen to say something.
“The Black Hand has invested too much in you to let it go to waste,” one of them replies. “But there will be a price to pay for this.”
“Forgive me, I was just trying to save my daughter,” my father sighs deeply. “Sadly, I’ve discovered there is no saving her. Not anymore.”
The words hit me like a punch in the gut. “Wow, so easy to toss me to the wolves, huh? I suppose you tried a lot harder with Mom, but you might as well have been the one who sabotaged her brakes,” I say, my voice trembling. “I can’t believe you’d stoop this low.”
“Power, Miss David,” the first gunman says. “Power is absolute.”
The second gunman steps forward, and we’re surrounded.
Oh, God, this wasn’t supposed to happen.
