“Colt!” Mona cries, and I turn to see her cradling Cash’s head in her lap.
Eli splutters, choking on his own teeth as I scurry over to Cash, checking his body for injury.
“Eli stabbed him in the back,” she sobs. I turn my head back to see the bastard still dribbling blood, then return my attention to Cash.
“I’m fine.” Cash winces.
“Then why the fuck are you laying here like you’re dying? You scared the shit out of us,” I snarl.
“I just like the view.” He half laughs, half grimaces, looking up at Mona’s worried features. “Oh my God,” she bawls, leaning down and sealing her lips over his. Reaching out, she pulls me into her. “I can’t believe you came for me.”
“We will always come for you.” I take her face in my hands and kiss her lips, her nose, cheeks, eyelids. “Come on,” I tell her, helping Cash up and guiding her to her feet.
“My leg,” she flinches, looking down at the blood coming from an open wound.
“What happened?” Cash asks her.
“Oh God, Cash, Eli killed your mother,” she weeps.
It takes a couple seconds for what she’s saying to register. A wave of sorrow cloaks me, thinking of my mother and her love for this place—for Eli, her son. That bastard.
“I’m sorry,” Mona implores.
“It’s not your fault,” I assure her.
“Cash…” she murmurs, reaching for him. He embraces her, squeezing her to him like she’s a lifeline and he’s drowning.
Eli squirms in the sand like a crushed worm.
“Fucker,” I growl. I lurch forward to go back to him, but Mona stops me, grabbing my arm.
“No.” She shakes her head, then hobbles over toward large rocks scattered on the sand. Picking up one almost the size of her head, she shuffles over to Eli. His breathing is labored as he coughs blood. “Your heart belongs with me,” he sputters.
“You belong in hell. You never had a heart, that’s why you stole hers,” she sneers, and with all her might, she smashes the rock down, an angry, broken roar tearing from her lips as she lifts it, again and again, hammering it down until her arms give out. Crimson splatters up her face and into her hair as the impact split his skull open with a gruesome crunch, his face now resembling mulch.
His body convulses, nerves twitching before he stills. Blood seeps into the sand beneath him, the moon our only witness, the tide drawing in to wash away the evidence
We were right. The killer was from this place—and our mother’s son, of all fucking people.
“What now?” I ask, wanting to throw her over my shoulder and run home with her keeping her there forever but she’s not my prisoner she’s no one’s prisoner, now or ever again.
“Now we free everyone else. It’s time to end my father’s reign.” She tells me, strong and confident despite the fact she looks like she’s been hit with a truck.
Twenty-Six
Mona
Closure leaked from within me as I drove the rock into Eli’s skull, his warm blood sticking to my skin almost in reward for finally getting justice for Clara.
All those nights I lay with him, those hands that stole my sister’s life touching me…I’ll never forgive him for what he stole from me. Ending his life was a mercy. I should have locked him in Father’s prison and let him rot.
“That cut looks nasty. We’re going to need to wrap it.” Colt frowns down at my leg, blood still trickling from the open wound.
“My mother is imprisoned in my father’s dungeon. We need to free her and find Claudia.”
“Who’s Claudia?” Colt asks, ripping off his shirt and bending to tie it around my leg.
“She was Clara’s friend.” Cash nods. “She was the one who helped Clara get to and from the island. Lead the way.”
“My father won’t take too kindly to you being here.”
“That’s his problem, not ours.” Colt swoops me up, bridal style. “Let me hold you for a while. You look like you’re about to collapse.”
“Thank you.”
“For what?”
“For loving me,” I whisper. His face clouds with an array of emotions. “This is what love is, right? The kiss of your scent, the strength in your grip, the taste on your lips.” I palm his cheek. “Through the darkness, light is visible here…” I lower my hand to cover my heart. “I feel you living here.”
“I feel you everywhere,” he says, closing his eyes briefly. “I never want to not feel you.”
“You don’t have to. I’m yours,” I breathe. Turning my head, I reach out to clasp Cash’s hand. “I’m both of yours. We belong together.”
As predictable as ever, we find my father in his church planning my cleansing.
His eyes widen in shock when I walk in, my hair hanging in scraggly, wet strands down my shoulders, bruises and cuts painting my face a kaleidoscope of colors. My clothes tattered and torn, a piece of shirt wrapped around my shin, the blood soaking through it.