Wylder didn’t reach for his own gun. His jaw clenched as he stared at his Dad, his hands raised in a placating gesture. If he pulled a gun on his father, it would come down to two choices—kill him or be killed instead.
I couldn’t blame him if he was having trouble crossing the point of no return. My heart ached for him. Why had it needed to come to this? I knew what it meant to have your father as your worst enemy, and I wouldn’t have wished it on anyone.
“Dad.” Wylder took a step toward Ezra. He was still trying to deescalate the situation.
“Don’t,” Ezra warned, clicking the safety off. My fingers curled around the trigger of my tiny pistol as I glanced between the two men. Was there any way all three of us could walk out of this confrontation alive? The wildness in Ezra’s face and voice reminded me of Xavier in the middle of his rampage.
“We can talk about it, Dad. Keep the bottle and put the gun away.”
“Don’t tell me what to do.” Ezra’s eyes hardened as if he had come to a decision. “I know what to do. It’s time to start over, to build my empire from the ground up again. But first I need to get rid of the snake in our midst.”
“You already have what you wanted,” Wylder said. “Open your eyes, Dad. I’m the person you raised me to be.”
“You’re a fucking traitor,” Ezra snarled. Then his gaze snapped to me. “But you’re the real problem. You’re the reason I lost my son. You spun your web around him, seduced him, warped his mind, and took him away from me. So you die first.”
My pulse thundered in my ears. Ezra jerked his gun hand toward me, his grip tensing around it, and there was nothing else I could do. I yanked my hand out of the purse and pulled the trigger on the tiny pistol.
Wylder’s hand shot up at the same instant, having snatched his own gun. Two bangs split the air simultaneously. I flinched, half-expecting to feel an impact as a bullet tore through my flesh. But no pain came.
Ezra fell, his grasp going limp and his gun tumbling to the floor next to him, unfired.
With my heart in my throat, I stepped around the counter. Wylder came up beside me. We stared down at his father. Ezra sprawled on his back, his eyes gazing at the ceiling unblinking. Blood streamed from two bullet holes side by side in his forehead. We’d shot him together.
We’d killed him together.
The knowledge took its time sinking in. I kept bracing for Ezra to blink, to sit up and start ranting at us again. But his body didn’t so much as twitch.
He was really gone. No more snarky remarks about me and the Claws. No more belittling Wylder’s contributions. No more insane power grabs that undermined his own people.
In a way, this was the moment we were finally free.
Wylder dropped his gaze, his mouth tightening. I gripped his shoulder. “I’m sorry. I know you didn’t want it to end like this.”
He sighed and leaned into my touch just a little. “I didn’t, but I knew it was coming. It needed to happen. He was always going to force my hand, from the moment I started questioning his judgment. I just—” He shook his head, cutting himself off. “Maybe it shouldn’t have been hard after everything he’s done, but it still was.”
“I think that just makes you human,” I said softly. “But you’re going to be okay. You’ve got Kaige, and Gideon, and Rowan—and me. I’ll be right here with you as we rule Paradise Bend together. We’ll tell a different story this time. We’ll fix our fathers’ mistakes, as many of them as we can. I give you my word.”
Wylder tugged me to him and bowed his head, his forehead brushing mine. “And I give you mine,” he said, and kissed me like he never meant to stop.