Chapter Twenty-Nine

I landed on the ground, not knowing who was hit, or if I was hit. I searched myself. I didn’t see blood. I swung to Keira. She was on the ground, belly in the dirt, her head motionless.

I crawled toward her on my elbows, my heart rattling my chest. “Keira! Keira!” I didn’t recognize my own voice.

Finally, she turned toward me.

Air. Air returned to my lungs and blood to my brain. She was alive.

I panted, grabbing her. “Are you hit?” I cried. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine. I think.” She looked at her chest, her body, seeming as unsure as I was.

No blood. No wounds.

Then our heads shot toward our parents, toward Regina, toward Sophia.

That was when I heard the cough, the sputter of liquid in someone’s mouth. The sound of someone drowning. I turned toward the noise and saw him in a patch of grass, on his side, a pool of crimson creeping out around him so dark it blended with the mud in the night.

It was Randolph Urban’s blood.

I moved toward him on my knees faster than I’d ever sprinted. “He’s hit! Somebody! He’s hit!”

I reached for his side and looked for the wound, the hole, afraid to touch him.

“Move over!” Keira shoved me aside, dropping to her knees as she carefully checked his body, rolling him on his side. “It entered the chest.” She looked at his back. “No exit wound. Bullet’s inside.”

She carefully returned Urban to his back and tore off her light sweater, wearing only a tank top as she pressed her shirt to the blood spilling from the middle of his chest. Isn’t that the heart?

“Don’t move. You’re gonna be okay.” Her voice held the calm, practiced tone of an emergency room nurse. “Just stay still.” She leaned on the wound. “We need an ambulance!”

Her hazel eyes held a thousand warnings. I could see the severity. He didn’t have much time.

I reached in my pocket, fumbling for my phone, hands shaking so much that I dropped it in a puddle, then I heard my father on a call. My head spun toward him as I listened to the man who abandoned me, who faked his own death, who tried to kill the very person bleeding out on the ground in front of us—my dad was trying to save Urban’s life. Next to him, my mother had her knee on Sophia’s back, pinning her so hard muck coated her strawberry hair. Mom was shoving Sophia’s gun into the waistband of her pants; I hadn’t noticed earlier, but she must have had a silencer. That was why the sound was so muffled, gentle even.

Only the bullet was anything but.

“Anastasia,” Urban whispered, his voice so weak it sounded like it took all of his effort.

“Shhh, don’t move.” I clasped his head, trying to keep him steady. His white hair was soft, which felt odd. It always stood upright. My whole life, I had thought he styled it with product to make it stand on end, but as I caressed it now, it felt like duck feathers. No tacky gel, no stiff hairspray. It was just the way it was. “An ambulance is coming. You’re gonna be okay.”

He slowly reached up and lightly touched my hand.

“Don’t move!” I warned again, but he kept his hand on mine. He was a CEO with the firmest handshake I’d ever felt, and now he lacked the strength to squeeze a cotton ball.

“I always knew you were my daughter,” he said, his voice garbled with blood but love brimming from his eyes. Last words, these were last words. Tears formed a mass in my throat. “Somehow, inside, I always knew.”

“I know.” I nodded, feeling warm tracks drip down my cheeks. “I think I did, too.”

“I want you to know…” He coughed, breath sputtering. God, somebody help him. “I’m so proud of you.”

“No.” I shook my head, my hair, damp with fog, sticking to my cheeks, my tears. “Don’t say that. You’re gonna be fine.”

“I’m so sorry.” He looked at Keira, who was still holding the shirt off her back to the gory chest of the man who abducted her. “I’m so sorry for what I did to you.”

“I know.” Keira nodded unemotionally as she gave me a look meant for family members in a waiting room when it was time to say goodbye.

But I didn’t even get to say hello. Not really. Not knowing who he really was. We had one conversation in Poland. One! I was so angry with him, I hated him so much for so long. This wasn’t how this was supposed to end. Even if arrested, I thought I’d get a chance to speak with him, ask him questions, make sense of everything. But this? It can’t be real.

I kept shaking my head. I didn’t want him dead. Even in my darkest moments, I didn’t wish him dead, now I was watching him bleed out before me.

Urban squeezed my hand, his fingers barely curling, his thumb brushing the ring Marcus gave me. I wished Marcus were here right now. I wished I were with him. I wished none of this were happening.

“You are an amazing young woman.” He voice grew fainter, and his eyes slowly shifted to the parents who raised me, his stormy blue-gray eyes. My eyes. “She’s brave and strong.” He looked at my mom. “Like you.”

“No, like you,” she replied.

“Irina, I want you to know, you chose the right man,” Urban whispered, peering at the father who raised me.

“Thank you, my friend.” Dad nodded, biting his lips to hold back emotion. “We had a good run, didn’t we?”

Urban tried to nod, but coughed instead. “Yes,” he said between gasps. “We had a good run.”

“Noo! Let me go!” Sophia cried, struggling under the weight of my mom’s knee. She was writhing and twisting maniacally, like a possessed girl in need of an exorcist, like a girl in the throes of unimaginable grief. “Let me say goodbye! I have to say goodbye! Grandfather, I didn’t mean it. I didn’t know what I was doing! I’m so sorry! I don’t know how—”

“Shhh,” Urban said, gazing at her with a lifetime of love, both of them lying on the wet ground, almost close enough to touch if he’d had the strength to reach for her. “I know. This is my fault. I did this. I built this. I know that. It’s okay.”

“No! I’m so sorry!” she cried, sobbing into the mud.

“It’s okay,” he repeated. “I brought us here, not you. Sophia, I love you. Don’t doubt that.”

She stopped fighting under my mom’s knees. She stopped yelling. She was crying too hard to do anything else.

She shot the man who raised her, the man she loved more than anyone in the world. Whatever happened to her next didn’t matter. There was no punishment greater than what she would have to live with for the rest of her life. I almost felt bad for her.

Urban tapped a finger lightly on my hand, pulling my attention away from his granddaughter. The light was fading in his eyes. I couldn’t stop it. I wanted to stop it. I needed time. “Live, Anastasia. Live your life now.” He coughed, blood splattering from his mouth. I didn’t need to be a nurse to know he was struggling to breathe. I squeezed his hand harder, my throat clamping shut. “In Poland,” he whispered, “you asked if l cared about you enough to give you a normal life. I’m giving that to you now. It’s over. All of it. You’re free.”

“I didn’t want it like this,” I croaked, tears snaking down the sides of my nose as I sniffled, chest heaving.

“I know,” he murmured, his eyes gazing at me like I was the last thing he ever wanted to see. “I love you, my daughter. I’ve always loved you. I’m so proud to be your father.”

I watched his head sag to the side, his smoky eyes lifeless, his breath gone.

Then, I sobbed.