Page 70 of Moon Blind Hearts
Albie tips up his chin, and I can feel his pulse thundering in his wrist as he fights the programming we were both raised with. “I think I’ll stay right here,” he finally says. He meets my eyes. “After all, I’m an uncle now.”
Father straightens and looks at me with a sneer. “This isn’t over, Juliet.” He looks one more time at the camera Valerie holds before turning with the most dramatic flair every villain seems to have and climbs into one of the other undamaged Suburbans.
I release a sigh, my shoulders slumping.
Another door kicks open in front of us before he can close the door behind him, from another Suburban, and Augustus climbs out, his pupils blown wide with aggression. “If I cannot have what I was promised, then no one will!” he roars. The gun appears in his hand, a gun very much pointed at me and Genie.
I don’t get a chance to do anything but scream, but even that is lost in the sounds of everyone else reacting the same way. I curl around Genie instinctually, turning her away from him in the hopes that he’ll hit me and not her.
A gunshot goes off, and I tense, waiting for it to make impact, waiting for pain to slam into my body. My only hope is that the guys will take care of Genie once I’m down. I crouch, curled around my daughter . . .
. . . but no pain comes.
Confused, I lift my head and look around. My eyes find Sawyer beside me, standing with a gun held out, the end of it smoking just a little. He’s still, his face hard, as he stares in the direction of Augustus. I stand and whirl, searching until I find him.
Augustus is still standing in the same position, the gun out, his pupils wide. But he looks down at his chest the same time as I do, both of us watching the red flower bloom across his white shirt. Horrified, I cover Genie’s eyes just as Augustus collapses.
“How the fuck—” Cash starts to Sawyer.
“You gotta learn to trust your senses better,” Sawyer says, passing the gun over to him. “It slows you down otherwise.”
Oak scowls and looks toward my father where he stands halfway in the car.
My father raises his brow. “He must have done a particularly potent line of cocaine and your people acted in self-defense,” he says, surprising me. “I hear the Harrington’s have a drug problem.”
Albie nods. “I’ve heard that, too.”
I realize a moment later, it’s only because it would look bad if this was dragged through a court system, if anyone can refute it. Him covering for Sawyer isn’t a favor. It’s just another move toward his presidential campaign.
Oak looks over at the Sheriff. “Does that check out, Sheriff?”
Sheriff John nods his head. “I saw everything. Self-defense is clear.”
My father nods and looks at me one last time. He doesn’t say good-bye. He doesn’t even say anything at all. He just looks at me with one last look of disgust and closes the door behind him. Cars move out of the way to allow the remaining Suburbans to leave, closing rank behind it so we’re in a protected circle.
It’s Valerie who comes up to us with a bright smile. She gives me a hug and chucks Genie on the cheek, camera still in her hand.
“Well,” she says, studying me. “I guess welcome to Steel officially.” She points the camera toward me and I straighten, suddenly consciously aware of what this is going to look like for everyone watching the live. “You’re one of us now, Juliet Ward,” she adds, winking. “I bet you’d look mighty fine in a cowboy hat.”
And as each person of the town comes up to welcome us despite the literal dead body of a rich man in the street and everything else that happened, I have to fight back the tears. Everyone makes sure me and Genie are okay and can’t see. Everyone checks if we’re okay.
For the first time in my entire life, I realize what family is supposed to feel like.
Chapter 42
Jules
“Senator Ward! How do you feel about the fall out with your two adult children?” a reporter asks, shoving a microphone into my father’s face on the TV.
To anyone else watching, he looks unaffected and poised as any presidential candidate should look. For me, I can see the tick in his jaw, the hard look in his eyes. He’ll never forgive me and Albie for making him look bad, for making him look like a bad father. We can never go home.
“The campaign trail is a hard one,” he says, ever diplomatic. “It’s taken its toll on my children as it has many before us. We all ask that you respect our privacy at this time and allow them room to breathe. Thank you.”
That’s it. That’s his only response to the live video going viral online. Someone turned the video into a song, a techno version that repeats, “This isn’t over, Juliet,” over and over again. It isn’t bad, but hearing Cash sing it under his breath a million times does make it get old fast.
While the media has been reporting on our fallout, it’s barely glanced over the death of Augustus Harrington, that part of the video edited out during news coverage. There’d been a single news story about his addiction to cocaine and then nothing. There wasn’t even a story about our broken engagement and no one came to interview me.
I’m thankful the reporters seem uninterested in that. I didn’t want to have to lie and play the grieving fiancé. I’m not sure I could have done that well, so I’d have told the truth. Clearly, that’s why my father pulled strings to brush the story under the rug. Otherwise, Steele would be crawling with news vans.
