Chapter 152
Chapter 152:
Hilliard wiped the blood from his lip and rose slowly, his body a catalogue of pain. But the physical ache was a dull echo compared to the wound that had opened in his chest.
He turned to Charla.
She had scrambled away from the fight and was back on the deck, nursing her supposedly injured ankle with a practiced expression of suffering. She watched him approach with wide, fearful eyes. She had seen the fight. She had seen the thermal footage. She had seen him reach for Cailin — too late.
“Hilliard, baby, let me explain,” she began, her voice carefully unsteady.
“Get up,” he said quietly.
“I can’t — my ankle! It’s genuinely hurt!” she whimpered, reaching for him.
“The video showed you taking a dive worthy of an Oscar.” His voice rose, the sound filling the open air like a thunderclap. “You are fine. Get up p>
Charla scrambled to her feet, her limp miraculously absent. She backed away, both hands raised.
“See?” Hilliard said. “A miracle.” The laugh that came out of him was hollow and bitter and humorless.
Kegan walked over from where he had been waiting for a second transport, flanked by two of his guards. His expression was the studied indifference of a man closing out a transaction.
𝖢𝗁𝘪nе𝘀е 𝗇𝗼𝗏e𝗅s 𝘵r𝖺𝗇𝗌𝘭𝗮𝘁𝖾𝗱 o𝘯
“You want to know who gave the final order?” he asked Hilliard. He nudged a bound figure lying near the cabin with the toe of his boot — Gretchen, gagged and zip-tied, her eyes tracking them from the deck.
One of Kegan’s men pulled the gag free.
“Tell him,” Kegan said.
“It was Charla!” Gretchen’s voice came out raw and immediate, desperation stripping away any attempt at composure. “She paid me fifty thousand. She said to kill the kid. She said ‘make her disappear’ — those were her exact words p>
“She’s lying!” Charla shrieked. “She’s a criminal trying to bargain her way out! Don’t listen to her p>
Kegan didn’t argue. He didn’t respond at all. He simply reached back, closed his hand around the collar of Charla’s expensive white dress, and began walking her toward the railing.
Charla’s heels scraped uselessly against the fiberglass. “No! Hilliard, help me! He’s going to kill me! Hilliard p>
Hilliard stepped forward. It was muscle memory — an impulse written into him over years of protecting her without question.
Then he stopped.
He saw Cailin’s dead eyes looking back at him from the rescue basket. He felt the weight of Elia’s small body sinking in the dark water. He heard Gavin’s voice reading back the kill order, word for word.
He said nothing. He stayed where he was. He watched.
Kegan lifted Charla without apparent effort and threw her over the rail.
The shriek was cut short the instant she hit the water.
Kegan turned back to Hilliard, brushing his gloved hands together with an air of finality. “She can swim. Or not. My business here is done p>
Hilliard walked to the railing and looked down. Charla was thrashing in the wake below, screaming, her white dress blooming around her in the dark water like a drowning flower. He watched her for a long, silent moment.