Page 36 of Conquer

I went quiet then, glancing at Ed who seemed to be shriveling before my very eyes.

“Did you get him involved in this?” I asked Gordon.

“No. That was all your boyfriend’s work. Would have saved me a lot of trouble if I had known about it, though. I’m glad Ed was smart enough to finally tell me,” he said.

I resolutely ignored his mention of Adrian and the flashing pain in my chest that came from it.

“Don’t worry, Sam,” Gordon said. “This will be over soon enough.”

My anger and hurt faded and were soon replaced with a concern that hadn’t been there before.

“What are you planning, Gordon?” I asked.

“Ed here has the right idea. I wouldn’t spend the cash on college for brats or whatever he has planned for it, but retirement sounds nice, and I ready for it. I’m gonna find a nice beach and settle down on your friend’s dime,” he said.

“And I’m supposed participate?” I asked.

“Yeah,” he said simply.

“And if I don’t?”

He didn’t even look worked up. “If you don’t, then I’ll kill you,” he said just as simply.

“Then you won’t get your money,” I threw back at him, ignoring the way my voice trembled.

That got a reaction from him.

“You’re that fucking high on yourself, bitch? You think you’re that important? Think that you’re the only way this can happen? Have you learned nothing? You think I didn’t see the way you looked down on me? Idiot Gordon, the bumbling investigator. How wrong you turned out to be. And if you think you have some kind of leverage here, you’re mistaken.”

Gordon went serious, his face set in a granite expression. “So close your fucking mouth, and do as you’re told, or I will blow your fucking brains out.” He smiled. “Deal?”

“Wait. What’s all this?”

Ed finally seemed to be with us again, and he looked between Gordon and me, his hands raised. “All this isn’t necessary. We’re on the same side. If we could just—”

The muffled sound of the bullet leaving the silenced gun sounded like a muted explosion in Ed’s cozy office.

I watch in horror as the bullet lodged in his throat. He reached for the wound, blood shooting out of his throat, air bubbles joining it with each of his breaths.

He groped at the wound, his fingers slick, each pound of his heart only sending more and more his life’s essence spilling on to the carpet.

It took less than two minutes, and those two minutes felt like an eternity.

I sat there, stunned, watching Ed as he took his last breath.

When he finally went still, though I swore I could still hear the trickle of blood as it seeped out of the wound, I looked at Gordon again.

He had his usual smirk back on, getting off on my reaction and the certainty that I now had no question of the lengths Gordon would go to.

“You’ll leave his wife alone?”

The thought of her waking up in the morning and finding this was horrible, but it was the least horrible of all the possibilities, and if there was one thing I could salvage, I would save her life.

“You believe me now? You won’t make this any more difficult than it has to be?”

I nodded, and when he gestured at me with the gun, I stood.

He did as well. “Good. If I had known that was all it took to shut you up, I would have shot Ed years ago.”

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