Page 41 of Tempting My Billionaire Master

Gordon stared at me, eyes narrowed in suspicion. After a long moment, he gritted his teeth, the gun still pressed against my forehead. “They want a video. Two, three seconds long. To prove the job is done.”

My thoughts raced. A short video. We could fake that.

“If we give you the evidence you need, then you can go without killing Ethan.” My words were rushed, desperate.

Amanda chimed in, her voice steady and authoritative. “I have everything I need here to make Ethan look like a corpse.”

Gordon hesitated, his eyes darting between me and Amanda. “It’s too risky.”

“Think about your daughter,” I pleaded. “How would she feel knowing that a good man, an innocent man, died because of her? And that her father, the person she loves so much, is a murderer?”

Gordon’s gaze bore into mine. The cold metal of the gun pushed harder against my head, and I forced myself not to flinch.

Finally, he lowered the gun and nodded. “Do it.”

Amanda sprang into action, rushing to Ethan’s side. She removed his oxygen mask and IV with brisk efficiency. The rest of us hurried to help, grasping Ethan under his arms and legs to lift his unconscious body off the bed. Ethan was heavy, dead weight, and the struggle to lower him left me breathless. I couldn’t help but wince at the dull thud as he hit the floor.

Once Ethan was down, Amanda carefully arranged his hand to cover the torn shirt and bandaged shoulder. She bent his legs, making it appear as if he had fallen.

But Elisabeth wasn’t satisfied.

“Theater is in the details, dear. We must make the scene believable,” she decreed. With a dramatic flourish, she shoved the nearby table aside, tilting it over to appear as if Ethan had knocked it over falling. Content, she stepped back to admire her handiwork.

“Still not enough,” she declared, her eyes narrowing in dissatisfaction. “We need blood.”

Amanda nodded, taking another blood bag from the refrigerator. She punctured it with a needle and carefully splashed crimson stains over his chest and shoulder.

Elisabeth scrutinized Amanda’s handiwork with a grimace on her face. “It’s still not good enough,” she declared. Turning to Amanda, she instructed, “Pour some blood on the floor next to Ethan. Make it look like he was lying there for some time and it poured out of the exit wound on his back.”

Amanda nodded, squeezing more blood from the punctured bag onto the floor beside Ethan. It pooled and spread and my stomach churned at the gruesome image we created.

I swallowed hard, my mouth dry as sandpaper. As much as I tried to remind myself this was all part of the act, I couldn’t tamp down the nausea creeping up my throat.

Ethan looked dead. Really, truly dead.

But it had to be done. To save Ethan. To save Gordon’s daughter.

Elisabeth frowned, tilting her head as she scrutinized our makeshift crime scene. “Not good enough,” she proclaimed. “Amanda, splash more on the wall behind him. We need it to look like he was shot at close range.”

“Elisabeth, you’re quite good at this,” Mary remarked, a hint of admiration in her voice.

Amanda rolled her eyes as she flicked blood onto the wall, crimson droplets spattered across the pale paint. “I’m just glad you all seem to enjoy it, since I’m the one stuck with cleanup duty.”

Gordon, who’d been silently observing our efforts, finally spoke up. “It looks realistic now,” he admitted, pulling out his phone.

“Realistic?” Elisabeth scoffed, rolling her eyes dramatically. “Amateurs. If you want people to believe this scene, everything has to be perfect. Since it looks like Ethan was shot from close range, we need a bullet hole in the wall and a shell casing next to his body.” She stared pointedly at Gordon. “Your cue, young man.”

Gordon blanched but gave a jerky nod. He raised his gun and fired at the wall behind Ethan leaving a smoking bullet hole at chest level, the sharp crack of gunfire making us all flinch. The shot rang out like an explosion in the small room, and we all slapped our hands over our ears.

“Who’s going to pay for the repairs?” Amanda mumbled, rubbing her ear.

“There,” Elisabeth said approvingly. “Now the pièce de résistance,” chirped with theatrical glee as she reached for the still-smoking shell casing but cried out, dropping it as the hot metal seared her skin.

Amanda clicked her tongue, handing Elisabeth a pair of forceps. “Here, use these.”

“Thank you, dear,” Elisabeth said with a gracious smile, plucking the bullet from the floor with a flourish and placing it in the pool of blood beside Ethan’s body. “Voilà! The perfect crime scene, non?”

My heart thundered in my chest as I stared at Ethan’s lifeless body sprawled on the cold tile floor. So still. So lifeless. So much blood.

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