Page 112 of Trial of Deceit

Those eyes he last saw when he was twelve.

Those eyes he spent the next seventeen years staring into through a blown-up photograph.Cursing the Universe for ridding him of his mother.Loathing the responsibilities of the life he lived, and longing for the life he could never have.

“I can explain…” Malia forced out.

“Explain?”Jediah repeated as she coughed again.He wished she’d just put the mask back on already.He didn’t have the willpower to squeeze the trigger, but if her wish was to cough herself to death, he feared he wouldn’t be able to stop his body from rushing over to soften her fall.“You faked your death, then came back to betray me?!”

Malia got a hold of herself.She frantically shook her head.The action angered Jediah further.Wore his patience thin.

He squeezed the trigger.

In that split second, Malia’s eyes widened.

Jediah’s heart stilled.

Malia had anticipated a death that never came.

Jediah’s gun had jammed.

Malia shook her head in disbelief before holding her mask to her face.“You’d really kill your own mother, Jediah?”

His eyes narrowed, though he didn’t lower his gun from his shaking hand.“My mother died years ago, and she’d never betray me.”

She looked around the room as a round of gunshots went off.When she looked back at him, she was frantic.“Please, Jediah.Just hear me out.It’s too much for me to say right now.We need to meet—”

Jediah calculated if he could grab the pistol tucked into his side, and make a clean shot at Malia before she took one at him.From this distance, her eyes seemed watery from the smoke and dust.“Talk now.”

She lowered her hand with the mask.“Kayon lied to you about the families.He made me leave my family, and made me believe he would help me build something from the ground up.Marquis wasn’t supposed to be the head of the Valcourts.Neither was your father supposed to be the head of the Richardsons.It’s all mine, and—” she paused, as if she was unsure how to continue.

Questions formed in his mind, but Jediah didn’t allow his stance to falter at her words.

The clock was ticking.

Malia needed to finish explaining soon before his patience wore thinner.

“Ah!”she screamed as a bullet came out of nowhere and hit her.

Jediah’s eyes widened.His grip loosened on the jammed gun as Malia gripped her chest, and stumbled backward into the thick smoke.Jediah spun around while grabbing his other gun.He dropped the jammed gun, grabbed the pistol from his waist, and aimed around the room while searching for cover.He noticed an overturned table.

The room closed in on him when he heard a strained whisper, “J-Jed…”

Jediah rushed toward the table.He dropped to his knees and reached his arms out, seconds to spare as Ashari passed out in his arms.

Chapter thirty-two

“Meksureyukeepyu eye dem pon Cedella,” Jediah whispered as he stood beside the incubator his child lay in.

“I’m not stupid, Jediah.Yu tell mi dat hundred time since mi come here,” Bryony said, irritated.

Instead of replying, Jediah dared to look down at the incubator.Before now, he’d looked at it only once since entering the room.It was a hard sight: seeing a newborn connected to tubes, with its limbs small and fragile, its head too big for its body.Cedella and her team had said they’d done all they could for the baby.Now, they’d try to get some rest, then periodically check on the baby during the night.Whether or not the baby lived to see another day would be dependent on its strength.Cedella hadn’t said it directly, but the small, sympathetic smile she’d given Jediah before excusing herself from the room said the chance of survival was at the lowest of lows.

Bryony laid a hand on his shoulder, squeezing it firmly.Jediah didn’t have to look at her to know she was giving him one of the motherly smiles he’d grown to love and appreciate.

Jediah’s eyes darted to the heart monitor.

Beep.Beep.Beep.

The incessant tune knocked at Jediah’s resilience.Trying its hardest to lure Jediah a bit closer so he could stick one of his hands inside the hole, and finally get a touch of what he and his wife had created.