Page 127 of Heartless Game

“Lower the gun,” I told the man. “Or I shoot him.”

“Ignore him,” my father said. “Kill her.”

The man cocked his gun.

“You kill her, I kill him. I’m your next boss. Who do you think dies next? And not only you. I’ll take out your entire family, everyone you love, until there’s no one left,” I told the man.

After a moment, he lowered his gun.

One problem solved. But my father still had a grip on the gun and battled me for control of the trigger.

Fuck.

No time.

“I love you, bashert,” I said. “Any time with you, however short, was worth a million lifetimes.”

Tovah’s eyes widened as if she understood what I was planning.

“Isaac, don’t, please,” she begged.

“I love you, bashert,” I said. “I’ll see you in another life.”

I stared into those big brown, terrified, loving eyes, committing them to my soul.

I pulled the trigger.

The shot was deafening. My father’s scream even louder. A moment later, a fireball of pain tore through my heart—the one my bashert had brought back to life.

As my father slumped against me, as I fell to the ground, as my father’s man raised his gun again and pointed it at me to finish the job, Tovah’s voice rose above the cacophony, an enraged battle cry. She elbowed him in the side, knocking the gun out of his hands and running toward me?—

—and then there was another hellish slap of a gun firing and a bullet hitting skin.

Through blurred eyes, I spotted a red spot bloom on Tovah’s chest and grow.

Watched her fall to the ground.

Helpless, trapped under my father’s body, I roared my rage and anguish, at a world that would accept my sacrifice and take her from me anyway.

With the little strength I had left, I shoved my father’s body off mine and rolled over, crawling toward where she lay. Somewhere, far away, Liza was barking orders. Somewhere, far away, a woman was wailing.

When I reached Tovah, she was on her back, gasping for breath.

“Isaac, why—please, be okay, please be okay,” she was trying to say.

And, “Tovah, bashert, you’re okay, you’re okay,” I was saying back, or maybe thinking, I wasn’t sure. Were those tears on my face? “Tovah, you’re okay,” I kept repeating, weakly reaching forward like I could staunch the blood seeping out of her chest, but I could barely move my arm.

Around us, people were moving, there was yelling, maybe someone called the family doctor, I wasn’t sure. Everything disappeared again but the woman lying inches from me, as I tried to touch her and couldn’t. Tried to hold her and couldn’t. Tried to save her and couldn’t.

I heard a choked laugh.

I strained my head to look over at my father. His legs were hidden by the table, but I could see his face.

“Now you have no choice,” he said, with a strange gleam in his eye. “You’ll take over this family. And I can join your mother.”

With one final gurgle, he went still.

There was more yelling around us, guns being cocked. I ignored all of them. I didn’t care about anything. What else mattered?

---