Page 145 of As the World Falls

It’s like my nerve endings flare at that piece of information. “What do you mean?”

“I’m not saying anything more until I have your word.”

“You have my word,” I rush out. “I’ll call in your favor to Luccio. Now tell me what the fuck you’re talking about.”

He reaches beside him and slaps a couple of pieces of paper and a cell phone onto the table. I picked up one of the papers that looked like information about an offshore account in Chuck’s name and large sums of money being deposited directly from Dante. I opened the phone to see pictures of Chuck and Dante in what looked like meetings. Almost all the images contained several illegal substances, like drugs, guns, etc.

“There are also recordings of Chuck and Dante’s discussions on the phone, many of them pertaining to you and Luccio. Theguy is desperate for control in places that just being the mayor can’t reach.”

I selected all the photos and the downloaded recordings and sent them to Milana, knowing she knew exactly what to do. They’d be online for the world to see in the next ten minutes. I wasn’t fucking around anymore with Chuck.

I flip through more of the pictures and stop on one, my eyebrow furrowing as I look closer at what I’m seeing because there is no fucking way. The image was a little unfocused, so I couldn’t be sure, but a feeling in my gut hardened like a stone, making my blood run cold.

He notices my expression and looks over to the phone at what I’m looking at. “Oh, that’s one of Chuck’s new guys. He started coming around the last couple of weeks after Chuck found him, supposedly. The dude is really fucking strange. Gave even me the creeps. But he seemed passionate about Chuck’s plans. He actually may have been the one Chuck sent over today. Dante thought it’d be smart to send someone you wouldn’t expect, so keep an eye out for him.”

I looked up at him, feeling like I couldn’t move or breathe. “Did you get his name?” My ears rang as he turned his eyes up to think and then muttered the name, Lance.

I quickly stand from the table, my body vibrating with the need to get the fuck out of here. “Follow me outside. Luccio will be coming to bring you to a safe house,” I say urgently. Hodge follows me out and around to the back of the building without a problem. When we’re alone, I turn to face him, pulling my gun from my waistband and shooting him square in the chest.

He falls to the ground, a gurgling gasp escaping him. “You said…You said…” he stammers, blood bubbling from his mouth.

I go to walk past him but pause for only a moment, “My word means nothing when you’re someone like me. I didn’t forget what you did to Cecilia and what you had planned for her.” Icrouch down to his level as he fights for breath. “I wish your death is painfully slow and the rats eat you to the bone.”

I leave him on the ground, already half lifeless, as I sprint to my car. I felt sick as thoughts spiraled through my head. All of the signs that Lance wasn’t right—his obsession with my life and jealousy that led to aggression against Cecilia. His growing obsession with her.

I freeze for a moment when I sit inside my car, my brain working to make sense of everything, when I remember the sling on Lance's arm the day I attacked him at the library. The same arm of the man I shot at the ball.

It all made sense. He ran away the minute the fight started despite me still getting a shot in on him. It was his first time probably doing anything like that, so he ran in fear.

My hands slammed against the steering wheel of my car. I felt stupid for not seeing all the signs, and now he was with Cecilia at my place, doing God knows what to her.

I tear off into traffic, driving way over the speed limit as I try and race back home. I have my phone out, trying to call Tobias, praying like hell he was there with her, but it keeps going straight to voicemail.

“Fuck!” I growl out, racing through a red light. Horns from other cars blare around me, but I don’t give a shit. I fly in the direction of my home, and the only thing on my mind is Cecilia’s face. If she wasn’t okay, I was going to end everyone’s miserable existence that has anything remotely to do with Chuck, including Dante and his men. He wanted to get to Stefano, so he tried to get to him through me, which is where he and Chuck not only found common ground but severely fucked up.

I’m five minutes from home when my phone rings, and I answer without checking. I hoped it was Tobias who would tell me everything was okay, but it’s quite literally the last person I want to hear from right now.

“Do you know just what you’ve done?” I hear Chuck scream on the phone. His voice sounded choked and full of rage. I’d laugh if I didn’t want to murder him violently right now.

“The question is do you know what the fuck you have done?” I growl back at him. “How long has Lance been working for you?”

Chuck laughs manically, and I press my foot harder on the gas, my street finally coming into view. “It wasn’t hard at all, you know. I’d been watching her for so long it didn’t take much to notice his unrequited love for her. It was tragic, actually, watching him fawn after her and seethe when she constantly threw herself at you instead. I simply had to educate him on your more secret business endeavors, and he was on board if only to save his precious Cecilia from you. He grew increasingly resentful and irrational the more she ignored him for you, even with the knowledge of who you really were. Those betrayed by their loved ones really do make the best of villains, don’t they?”

I turn down my street, my heart crashing harder and harder in my chest the closer I get. “I hope you’re enjoying your last laugh, Chuck, because you’re finished. And if she’s hurt when I get to her, you better pray for God to save you because there’s nowhere, no one, on this earth that can save you from me.”

I toss the phone to the ground just as I approach the house. I just get the gates open when I fly into the drive. My chest feels like it’s being electrocuted when I see two of my security guards near the gate dead and dragged into the hedges. I'm unsure if I even put my car into park before I raced out of it and into my house. The front door was wide open, instantly making my stomach drop. It’s deadly quiet when I go inside. I rush around the house, my gaze flying everywhere, looking for any signs of her. I walk into the living room and see Marco lying on the floor in a pool of blood. He was still, his eyes shut. My body feels cold just looking at him, but it’s then I hear two gunshots ring outfrom outside, and I bolt out onto the patio, not seeing anyone, and I realize it came from inside the maze.

I run inside it, whipping around corners and taking the paths I know by heart. I run and don’t stop until I come closer to the center of the maze, where I hear the fountain. Brief memories of my and Cecilia’s time there float through my head like an endless reel, reminding me that all that could remain of her now are memories. I felt like I was going to throw up, and tears sting my eyes as I think about her being shot right now and dying, and I wasn’t even there to hold her through it.

I turn down one last path that leads straight into the center when I come up behind someone slowly walking toward the fountain. I still, realizing it was Lance that I was behind. I look past him, seeing Tobias across the other side, aiming his gun at him and Cecilia on the ground behind him. Her hands are gripping the hair on her scalp, tears pouring down her face as she screams for her brother.

The sight of her alive but in so much fear and anguish rips at me, making my stomach roll with a mixture of nausea, rage, and sympathy for her, knowing this was someone she loved betraying her.

Lance doesn’t realize I’m behind him. Neither does Tobias nor Cecilia. Blood runs in a stream down his arm, and I realize Tobias landed a shot on him, just below his shoulder on his other arm. He fires off another shot, but he’s an amateur with the gun and misses completely. Tobias steps back, his hand shooting behind him to guard Cecilia and urge her back.

I already knew my plan, but I hesitated for a second, fearing what Cecilia would do or think once I executed it. Lance fires another shot in my hesitation, and although he misses again, it’s closer. It blasts dirt on the ground too close to Cecilia for my liking, and that’s when I don’t wait any longer.

I lunge behind him, wrapping an arm around his neck and immobilizing him as I win the gun from his hand. He roars in fury as I hold him against me. “I warned you,” I growl into his ear as I press the gun against the center of his back, and then I pull the trigger.

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