Page 95 of Take Me Back
Hearing someone else level the same accusation I’d directed at myself so many times would have cut deep only days before, but Kat had finally gotten through to me.
“I didn’t kill him. I wasn’t even there.”
Arianna takes another step toward us and I wrap one arm around Kat, bringing her against my chest while reaching under the desk with the other hand.
“You should’ve been there! It should’ve been you! He wasn’t ready. It was allherfault.”
The gun quivers in Arianna’s hand, and now I understand why she dragged Kat into the whole mess to begin with.
“So for revenge you arranged for us both to be kidnapped, and her to be sold and me transported to Vargas to kill me.”
“I did what I had to do.”
“Take two lives to make up for an accident? Luis would be disgusted by you.”
She shakes her head, and the gun wobbles. “He would beproudthat I got revenge. But you had to screw that up too.”
“So you came to work with me when I left the field because you wanted revenge.”
Arianna smiles, and it’s pure evil.
How did I miss it for a year?Because I was too blind to see anything through my guilt.
“Keep your enemies closer, I believe the saying goes. Now you both pay.”
She squeezes the trigger as I throw Kat to the floor and raise the gun taped under my desk to fire back.
There’s only a click.
Arianna’s bullet makes contact, slamming into my shoulder.
“Should’ve checked your weapon first,boss.”
She sights in on me again, but before she can pull the trigger, another shot fires. Arianna is thrown backward onto the floor, blood pooling around her.
I look down to see Kat crouching on the floor, the revolver she started carrying everywhere two weeks ago in her shaking hands.
She looks up at me. “I knew I didn’t like her.”
Epilogue
Kat
Three months later
“How am I going to tell him?”
The test results shake in my hand. The last three months have been unusually quiet after all the craziness, and nowthis.
I lower it to the table and flex my hands into fists to stop the shaking, then drop into a chair.
The garage door goes up as Dane pulls into the driveway. He has finally recovered from his most recent gunshot wound, and I swore that better be the last one. He agreed.
“Baby, I’m home!” he yells two minutes later when he opens the door from the garage into the house.
My throat seems frozen, unable to yell back.
How am I going to tell him?I ask myself again.
