Page 73 of Two Steps Ahead

“Stop!” Kayleigh yelled. “Stop, please.”

“You don’t want me to punch him anymore?” Beau said.

Weston turned his head to the side and spat out blood. He wanted to let Kayleigh know he was all right, but Beau was already talking again.

“You’re right. Punching is rather ineffective.” Beau pulled out a knife, gripped Weston by the shirt and stabbed him in the side.

Agony blistered across Weston’s torso and he fell forward as Beau shoved him to the ground. He could hear Kayleigh sobbing as she dropped to the ground next to him.

“Weston.” She helped him sit back up. “Oh God, are you okay?”

He glanced down as she lifted his shirt to look at the wound. It hurt like hell, but at least it was in the fleshy part of his side—nothing critical.

Before he could assure Kayleigh he’d be all right, Beau snatched her up by her hair.

“Do you see what I’ve done to him in just a few minutes? Imagine what I could do with some time and a little creativity. Do you want to see your boyfriend die screaming? That’s what’s going to happen if you don’t do exactly what we said.”

Weston tried to get up again but fell back to the ground with a groan when Beau kicked him.

“And after we finish with Weston, maybe we’ll start on his nice foster parents. That’s a great story, isn’t it? How Clinton and Sheila Patterson adopted all those boys. Would you like to see them also die screaming? I can kill every member of his family.”

“Family has been what this is about all along, hasn’t it?”

Everyone froze, turning toward the voice of the man who’d just stepped from around the building.

Kayleigh gasped. Weston blinked, worried he’d taken too many hits.

There stood Leo. Very muchnotin a coma.

Chapter Twenty-Two

“Dad?”

Kayleigh stared at her father—looking way too healthy and alert—as she bent back down to put pressure against Weston’s knife wound.

How was it even possible that he was here? With a gun in his hand, no less.

Beau was wondering the same thing. “What the hell are you doing here, old man? I thought you were in a coma.”

Leo shook his head. “No coma. I just didn’t know who I could trust. I knew there was someone on my most inner team who was betraying me, but I wasn’t sure if it was Dean, Jasper or Gwendolyn. So, I’ve been pretending to be in a coma for three days, with the hospital’s help, to let this play out.”

Kayleigh couldn’t believe what she was hearing.

“You being here doesn’t change anything, Leo.” Gwendolyn turned so her gun was now pointed at him. “We’re not going to let this merger go through. Not going to let you kill more innocent people.”

Leo kept his gun trained on Beau. Good. Hopefully, that would stop him from stabbing Weston again.

“I’m very sorry to hear about your daughter,” Leo said. “That was a tragedy.”

“Don’t try to say you’re sorry now,” Beau snapped out. “You killed her daughter. You killed my father. You’re a murderer. Shoot him, Gwendolyn.”

Kayleigh had no doubt if Beau had had a gun in his hand, he would’ve shot Leo.

“He’s using you,” Leo said to Gwendolyn. “He hasn’t given you all of the story and he’s using you to make himself rich.”

“What are you talking about?” Gwendolyn asked.

“Don’t listen to him!” Beau yelled.

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