Page 150 of When Hearts Surrender

“Shut up and do it before I put a bullet in between your eyes!”

Cole scrambles toward me, his hands shaking as he twists my arms behind my back and secures a rope tightly around my wrist. He presses something sharp into my palm. Then he fastens the rope around my ankles.

His eyes are frantic and guilt-ridden as they briefly meet mine, and he tugs at his hair and steps away.

“It’s okay, Belle,” I whisper, standing next to her, angling my body in front of her. “It’s okay. Everything will be okay.”

I’ll die before letting anything happen to you.

“Maxwell,” she whispers, “I’m so scared. He tranquilized me earlier and when I came to, I was already tied up here in the garden. I don’t know what he wants.”

Her trembling voice is a gut punch to my stomach and fury churns inside me.How dare he hurt my wife? How could he betray us after my family treated him like one of our own?

I knot my fists around the object Cole gave me. It’s a shard from the broken porcelain vase I found earlier. “I’m here, little muse. Nothing will happen to you.”

Turning back to Morris, I take in the old man clearly for the first time. The rain plasters his hair to his face and he holds the pistol tightly in his grip. He saunters toward us.He isn’t limping.

Something must’ve given away my disbelief, and he chuckles, shaking his head. “All these years, you’ve never thought to look beyond thedamn curse for the deaths. Never suspected maybe someone was behind all of this…like a sad, limping butler. You Andersons arepathetic.”

“Deaths?” My blood freezes. The medical examiner’s findings. He couldn’t possibly mean—

Morris laughs. There’s a madness in those normally calm eyes, his lips twisting in a snarl. “Your grandmother, your mom…”

He cocks his brow, and adds, “Sydney.”

Belle gasps in horror. Morris’s confirmation is a blow to my stomach. Of course, it had to be an inside job. I figured that was the case, but I’d never have thought it would be the man who was like a grandfather to me.

“W-Why?” I whisper.

Cole darts toward the old man. He bellows, “You killed Sydney? It was you all along? You fucking bastard! You led me to believe—”

Morris shoots him in the chest. Belle screams as I flinch, stepping in front of her, not wanting her to see this. Cole crumbles to the ground like a sack of potatoes, blood pouring out of his wound.

Cole groans, his shirt quickly darkening as he clutches his chest and wheezes, “I t-trusted you.”

“No, you were desperate, and I gave you an in.” Morris scoffs before turning to me. “Your family is cursed all right, but those deaths aren’t supernatural. I killed them.”

“But w-why? Why would you do this? We’ve treated you like family. We’ve done nothing to you. We’ve—”

“You’ve donenothingto me?” he yells and a flash of lightning flashes in the skies, illuminating the twisted darkness hiding inside him all along.

“I losteveryonebecause of your family!”

I shake my head. “No. You’re wrong. Your sister died and your parents were depressed and killed themselves. We had nothing to do with it.”

“She died because of your grandfather!”

His words ring out loudly in the barren garden and a brisk gale kicks up, sending torrents of rainwater across our bodies.

“My family gave everything to yours since my grandfather’s generation. We lived, breathed, and died in service of the great Anderson family,” he sneers. “And what did we get in return? Only death.”

He paces in front of me and Cole groans on the ground, his eyes darting to my face, reminding me of the shard in my palm. Quickly, I work on the rope—the fucking bastard got in way over his head and is now trying to do the right thing.

Too late, you fucker.

Morris rambles, his tall frame shaking. “Your grandfather murdered my sister!”

What?I shake my head. “No. Your sister was killed in Central Park. It was a robbery; the murderer is still at large. That’s what you told me before.”

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