Page 59 of Burning Bridges

Chapter 32

PIPER

Icometo,feelingthe trickle of something warm rolling down my cheek. I swipe it away, realizing it's blood. The air smells of gas, making my head spin, and visions of what just happened flit through my mind. How on earth did the car land upright? All I remember is the car being hit from behind with force, then it flipping over and over again. After the third time, it all went black.

I look over to my side and find Leo slumped over the wheel. “Oh no, no, no,” I cry, fighting to get myself out of my seat so I can check on him. The seatbelt won’t unlock, so I grab the knife I know he keeps in the glove box and slice it off me. I have no idea how long we've been here like this, but his injuries look so much worse than mine. “Leo,” I call to him, hoping it will wake him up. I feel his neck, searching for a pulse. I can’t find one. “Leo, no, you can’t leave me. Not now when things were just getting good. I need you,” I cry, hysterical tears already rolling down my cheeks. I'm trying madly to find signs of life.

“Oh, little princess, looks like you're out of luck.” My blood runs cold at the sound of Kylo’s voice. It was him who hit us. I should have known.

My angry eyes flick back to him. His figure is blurry through the tears, but it’s him all right.

He smirks at me, opening the door. “What a tragedy. No happy ending in sight for you. Looks like your boy toy Leo didn’t make it.”

My chest heaves as I try to process what to do. He knows what we did. If he gets his hands on me, I’m dead. He was only going to keep me alive before to get to Leo. With everything I have left in me, I kick him in the chest. He wasn’t expecting it and stumbles back. It’s then I notice he’s injured as well, blood smeared over his forehead. There is no way he could have hit us with such force and not been hurt in some way.

I use the time it takes him to react to get myself out of the car so I can run for it. I don’t know where I’m going, but I have to try and get away from him. I fly past his car, the wreck looking just as messed up as Leo’s car. My body aches, but the adrenaline coursing through me pushes me to move faster than I ever have in my life. A car approaches, and I try madly to get their attention, waving my hands around and screaming out, but they pass on by. It’s so dark, I bet they couldn’t see me.

I keep moving, but I feel Kylo right behind me. He might be injured, but he’s still able to move. And before I know it, his arms fly around me, pulling my body into his. I scream into the empty night. It echoes all around, but it’s no use. No one can hear me.

He laughs, and I feel it right through my body. “Scream all you want out here, no one will hear you.” It’s then I feel the barrel of a gun pressed into my back. “You and your boyfriend thought you could fuck me over tonight, didn’t you, Princess? That wasn’t very smart.”

“You got what you deserved. And I hope after tonight whoever you owed shipments to hunts you down and slaughters you like the pig you are.”

“Brave words for a girl with a gun in her back.”

“We both know I’m not getting out of here alive tonight. I can only hope that your fate is also sealed,” I say with determination.

“I did always like your fire. Even when you know your time is running out, you keep it up. It will make it more fun for me. Let’s go for a little walk.” He shoves me in the back with his pistol, forcing me to move and leading me in the direction of what looks like a dirt trail heading up a hill.

He drags one of his legs behind him in a limp, but it doesn’t stop him from shoving me forward, climbing higher up the track. His gun is pointed to my head as he shoves me along in front of him. I stumble along the rocky ground, not able to see properly in the dark, and he corrects me, his meaty hand digging into my arm. Over on the horizon, I can see the day is breaking and soon the sun will rise, but for now, everything in front of me is shadows. I shiver from the cold air on my face.

“I’ll let you in on a little secret,” he says, breaking the deathly silence.

“What?”

“Even if you and your boyfriend didn’t destroy everything I have spent years building, I was coming for you. From the moment you sat down to that meal with me, your days were numbered,” he says coldly. And it’s no secret to me. I knew it when I first laid eyes on him.

“What did I do to you?”

“You stole years of my life,” he spits angrily. He must be in a lot of pain right now and it’s making him angrier than a snake. There are no jokes, no sarcasm, just pure hatred for me.

My mind drifts back to Leo, left all alone in the car. I can only pray that by some miracle he’s still alive and he will at least survive this, but I don’t like his chances. I know it’s too late for me. “If you went to prison, it wasn’t because of me,” I snip back. I’m not letting him get away with believing it was my fault in any way. He deserved everything he got, I’m sure.

“Your asshole brother set me up to take the fall for a crime we committed together. I got time, and he got to go on with his life. He might be dead now, but I was told he set me up in your name. So, I guess you get to suffer the consequences now because he can’t.”

“You're cruel. Tony did what he did to protect me. You deserved to rot in there for what you did to me, and I’m sure countless others. It's a shame they let you out.”

“Oh, honey, you haven’t seen cruel yet.” He shoves the gun into my back, pushing me forward to a clearing.

“What I don’t understand is why make me believe he was alive? Why buy me a car and give me money? Why help me if you were just going to kill me in the end anyway?”

“That was me killing two birds with one stone. See, I needed Leo out of my hair as well. His rules about drugs have made a little dent in the King empire, but then I found out his one weakness was you, the girl he fell in love with when he was a nobody, just a kid. It was so simple. He fell for you hook, line, and sinker, and you being the good girl you are played along, doing whatever brother dearest told you to. You made it all so easy.”

“How did you know Leo had a thing for me?”

“That’s the best bit. Fate, baby. I was placed in a cell with a good friend of Tony’s, Jason Rossi. See, he was fucked over by your brother as well. He would have done just about anything to get a little vengeance for the time he was serving on behalf of your brother.”

I try to place the name, thinking over Tony’s many acquaintances. And it hits me. Jason, the psychiatrist. He was the one who helped Tony kidnap Jasmine. He would have been there with him right to the end, and because Tony was dead, Jason took the brunt of the charges.

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