Page 158 of The Thief
"Shut up."
"Is that why you killed Ava? Because the voices in your head told you she was betraying you?"
"She was betraying me!"
"She was trying to escape from a madman. Can't blame her for that."
My grip tightens on the knife and hurley stick.
"You turned her against me," Trace continues, his voice getting higher, more agitated. "You and your people, you corrupted her, made her think she could leave her family."
"Her family?" Henry's laugh is cold, mocking. "You mean the husband who beat her, who isolated her, who finally put a bullet in her chest when she tried to get away?"
"I protected her!"
"You murdered her. And the baby she was carrying."
"That wasn't my baby."
The admission hangs in the air like smoke. Even from up here, I can feel the weight of it. He knew. He fucking knew all along. What the hell is wrong with him? Why would he do that?
"No," Henry says quietly. "It was Jason's baby. Jason, who loved her. Jason, who would have given her the life she wanted instead of the prison you created."
"Shut up!"
"She never loved you, Trace. She was planning to disappear with Jason, to raise their child somewhere you could never find them. You killed the only woman who ever mattered to you because you couldn't accept that she'd chosen someone else."
The sound that comes from Trace isn't quite human. Rage and pain and madness mixed into something that makes my skin crawl.
"She loved me! She was coming back to me!"
"She was running from you. Just like everyone runs from you eventually. Just like your own men will run when they realize what kind of monster they're working for."
"I said shut up!"
I hear the sound of a struggle, Henry's grunt of pain, and something clattering to the floor. Then Trace's voice, closer now, right at the bottom of the stairs.
"I'm going to make you watch, old man. I’m going to make you watch while I break your precious granddaughter piece by piece. I’m going to make sure the last thing you see is her begging for mercy she'll never get."
"Over my dead body."
"That's the plan."
I see the flash of steel, see Trace lunge forward with a knife in his hand. Henry tries to block, but he's too old, too slow. The blade punches through his chest, and he staggers backward.
No.
The word tears from my throat as I launch myself down the stairs, using all my might to swing the hurley stick.
The heavy wooden stick connects with Trace's skull with a sound like breaking branches. He drops like a stone, blood streaming from his head, the knife clattering across the floor. I drop the hurley and rush forward.
"Henry!" I'm beside my grandfather before Trace hits the ground, pressing my hands against the wound in his chest. Blood seeps between my fingers, too much blood, too fast.
"Alastríona." His voice is weak, fading. "I'm sorry."
"Don't talk. Save your strength. Help is coming."
But we both know it's not true. The wound is too deep, too close to his heart. I can see it in his eyes; the knowledge that this is goodbye.
