“No,” he yelled. “No way are you guys stopping me now. He’s dead. The company is already set to go to me. I need out of here.”
“Rook,” I whispered, pushing away more. “Stop him. He’s going to kill someone else. Just stop him.”
“Stop him, as in…” His voice trailed off, eyes wide as he watched me.
“Yes, as in,stop him.”
“You know what that means,” he said, his hand moving up and down my arm.
“Yes, I know what it means. If we let him go, he’s going to blame this on us and go after everything. Do it,” I said.
Rook nodded and stepped towards Elliot, who was still waving the knife. “Alright, put it down.”
“Stay back!” Elliot yelled, his eyes wild with desperation. I knew he would kill anyone in here and not feel an ounce of guilt over it.
Rook kept moving his hands up in a non-threatening gesture. “Put the knife down and we can negotiate something.”
Elliot’s gaze darted around the room, sweat dripping down his face. “Negotiate? There’s nothing to negotiate! He betrayed me, and now you’re all trying to kill me. There’s nothing tonegotiate because I’m leaving here and telling everyone what happened.”
In a sudden move, Elliot lunged at Rook, aiming the knife at his chest. Rook twisted to avoid the blade, but Elliot’s fist came up, connecting with the scars on Rook’s side. I could see the moment the pain shot through Rook’s body. He stepped back, momentarily debilitated.
Elliot grinned, thinking he had the upper hand for a second, but Rook recovered fast. With one swing of his arm, Rook landed his punch.
I knew what came next. There was a knife in Rook’s fist, and I knew he was going to shove it into Elliot’s neck.
Rook looked over his shoulder at me, and I could see the small wince as he twisted his body.
“Rebel?”
“Go ahead.”
I could only stare as Rook slid a blade across Elliot’s neck.
The blade curved in, sinking further into his neck before Rook pulled. Blood spurted, coating Rook as the other guys watched. Some part of his neck fell to the ground, and I gagged, clamping my mouth shut as bile rose in my throat.
“That solves that issue, then. He can’t come after anything your dad might have promised him or make us out to be the killers,” Aiden said.
I looked over at Elliot, thankful that Rook had rolled him over, so nothing seemed wrong with him at this angle.
“Karma really caught up to him for leaving you alone with me,” Rook said with a tight smile.
Hero cocked an eyebrow. “Or maybe the trying to kill her, ruining her chances of getting the business, or, I don’t know, maybe killing him?”
“Okay, I get it, but that night is how we ended up here,” Rook said.
“I’m glad, though. For all of it,” I said. “Not only was he a very shitty boyfriend, but he was turning out to be a worse stepbrother.”
Hero and Mason grinned as Aiden and Evie walked out of the room.
“Come on,” Rook said, his voice gentle now as he wrapped an arm around me. “Let me get you out of this room first and we can figure out what to do next.”
I nodded, tipping my head back to look at the ceiling as I walked out past my dad’s body. Some part of me felt numb to it, but I wondered if that was the shock more so than me being cold or uncaring towards him.
As we stepped into the hallway, the weight of everything that had happened crashed over me. The pain of losing my father, the betrayal, the violence—I could barely breathe. But then Rook’s arm tightened around me, and I knew I would at least never have to be alone in it.
Rook walked me out to the hallway and into the main house before he turned to wrap his arms around me.
I leaned in, but I couldn’t bring myself to say anything for a few minutes.