Page 105 of The Last Dance You Saved
“I’m not lying,” I insisted, the bitter taste of blood in my mouth.
“We’ll see soon enough, won’t we? Open the bar safe, and we’ll go from there.”
They hauled us both into the office. Fallon cried out as Theresa jerked her arm back farther behind her and forced her toward the desk. Every protective instinct in me screamed.
“Stop. You don’t need to hurt her,” I said shakily. “You can have the jewels. You just have to wait for the bank to open.”
Theresa just laughed, yanking harder on Fallon’s arm, and the fear turned to rage inside me. At Theresa. At Adam. At myself. I had to do something to stop this. To save Rafe’s daughter. I’d promised him. And I’d promised myself I’d never let someone I loved be hurt while I simply watched ever again.
Adam thrust me farther into the room with so much force I ended up on my hands and knees. My entire body quaked. When I tried to stand back up, he kicked me in the stomach, and I landed on my ass as pain ratcheted through me.
“Please, Uncle A-Adam. Don’t hurt her,” Fallon begged, and I whipped my head around to see she was crying. Slow, scared tears she fought but couldn’t be stemmed. More hatred welled at them for making her experience this and the nightmares it would leave behind, even if she got out of it somehow whole. “Why are you even doing this?”
He didn’t answer her. He was having a hard time even looking at her, and I thought I might be able to use that. Maybe he actually did care about her. How could anyone have watched her strength and resilience for years and not? I’d known her a little over a week and was stunned by her bravery and courage.
Theresa was the one who filled in Adam’s silence. “It’s simple revenge. It’s been a long time coming for the Hurly family, in my opinion. I, on the other hand… At least I attempted to avenge my brother after your dad turned him in to the feds. He’d be dead if that asshole Steele hadn’t intervened. But I have plenty of time to get him back too. After we take the jewels, after we deal with the two of you, I’ll make my way down the list, one by one.”
An uncontrollable fury built inside me as they talked. I absolutely would not let them hurt Fallon. Not another hair on her head. And I wouldn’t let them hurt Rafe again either. Or Jim Steele or any of the good people who’d held the man I loved up at his lowest moments.
“Look,” I said quietly, “you want the jewels? You can have them. I just want you to let Fallon go. Let her walk out this door right now, and I’ll call the bank manager and have him open early.”
Adam snorted. “And give her a chance to call Daddy and have him send one of his men to save the day? Not going to happen.”
The one thing Adam didn’t know, hadn’t planned on, was that the Hatley family would come running way before Fallon had a chance to call anyone.
As if he’d read my mind, Adam looked down at me with a smug grin. “And don’t think your gun-toting family is going to come either. Theresa turned off the cameras here at the bar as soon as we saw you arrive.”
“You were across the street.” It wasn’t a question. The fact I hadn’t trusted Fallon’s instincts or mine only caused the nausea to return. Goddamn, I’d let them come this close when I could have taken her and run. We could have gone to the sheriff’s station. To my brother and Gia. Anywhere but stay here, when our intuition had been warning us to bolt.
“After we have the diamonds, I’ll never stay in a shithole like that again,” Theresa said.
“If you hadn’t spent the money I’d saved offshore, we wouldn’t need the goddamn jewels,” Adam growled. “And if we decided we wanted them, we could have hired someone to retrieve them.”
“I had to protect my brother while he was in jail! And what kind of man sends someone else to get his revenge, anyway? I’ll get great pleasure out of drawing blood for every sin against my family,” she snarled. “More and more, I find myself thinking you aren’t anywhere near the man I thought you were. Maybe that was why you needed my help finishing off Spencer, and why you missed when you shot at Rafe.”
The derision in her voice had Adam’s spine stiffening.
“Fuck you!” Adam growled, kicking the chair in front of the desk and sending it flying against the wall. “I told you! We’re cursed! We’ve been cursed from the moment Great-grandpa Tommy hung himself instead of taking back what was his!”
Fallon’s gaze met mine. Her cheeks were still wet from tears, but her look turned steely and grim at hearing the careless way Theresa had talked about ending Spencer’s life. Anger flooded her face, replacing the fear.
I needed to hold on to the anger spinning through me as well. I needed it to fuel me. I needed it to shove aside the dread and regret and the terror blooming at the thought of never seeing my family again. Never seeing Rafe. He’d never forgive me for costing him the one thing in his life he held precious.
“The only way to end a curse that deep is to spill the blood of those who took what was yours,” Theresa said, pointing the gun at Fallon’s head again. “Let’s start here.”
My heart stopped, and it was with a harsh, croaked voice that I threw out, “You’re forgetting Fallon is a Hurly too.”
“And maybe she could have been saved. Maybe if her mother hadn’t spread her legs for both the Harrington brothers, she would have been worth something, but instead, she gave herself to the enemy. And this little piece of trash chose the wrong side when she went running to Daddy to tattle on Adam.”
“Shut the hell up, Theresa!” Adam growled.
“You don’t get to tell me what to do. I don’t put up with any of that macho, He-Man shit,” Theresa said, turning to me with a smirk. “That’s why your great-grandma took off, you know.”
It took me several seconds to realize Theresa had switched gears and was talking about Carolyn. “She didn’t want to marry the man her daddy had picked out for her. Didn’t want any part of the family business. So she hightailed it out of Hollywood, taking the jewelry she’d helped steal with her. She walked away from her inheritance because she was too afraid they’d drag her home by her hair and force her to marry the pig they had all but lined up at the altar, waiting for her. Her inheritance is why Lorenzo has been foaming at the mouth since you walked into Vegas, asking about her. He’s afraid you’ll take him to court and get her piece of the pie.”
I couldn’t help the shock that sprang from her revelation. I’d put myself and my family in the bull’s-eye because they didn’t understand we’d never want a piece of anything they had. They didn’t know what it meant to be part of a family that had more honor in our little pinkies than they did in their entire beings. “We’d never take it. We wouldn’t touch a cent of Puzo money.”
She laughed coldly. “Go right ahead and tell yourself that, sweetheart. But I bet you’d do just about anything to save the family ranch. This bar…” She waved her hand around the room and then landed the gun on Fallon’s temple once more. “I bet you’d do anything to save her.”
