Total pages in book: 109
Estimated words: 103620 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 518(@200wpm)___ 414(@250wpm)___ 345(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 103620 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 518(@200wpm)___ 414(@250wpm)___ 345(@300wpm)
“Correct assumption,” he says.
“So, there you go. You have your diamond, you have Alec standing right here, what the fuck more do you want?”
He clears his throat and says, “I have lost the following: My wife. My life. My face. My name. One of my sons. And the other of my sons to some kind of inexplicable love affair that I do not judge but I cannot begin to understand. I have had so much taken from me that it boggles the mind. And, if I am to be honest, it is the kind of loss that would perhaps have shattered any number of other men.
“And while I am not any number of other men, I am not immune to the occasional affliction of emotionally driven decision making. So given all that, what I propose in trade for young Andra van den Berg—”
“Watson,” Eliza says.
“What I propose in trade for young Andra van den Berg,” he reiterates, “is…” He pauses for a long moment. “Is, very simply, that you and Christine walk. Away. Leave. Go about your business as you did after you left both of my boys to die at the base of that cliff, and this time… you never come back.”
My brow furrows. Because I can’t quite wrap my head around what he’s saying.
That’s what this has all been about? Jealousy? He’s jealous of Alec, Christine, and me? Is that… is that what the fuck he’s saying? After everything we’ve gone through and all the cloak-and-dagger bullshit we’ve endured, it’s as common and stupid as, “I want you guys to stop dating my kid?”
Are you fucking joking?
“Because,” he adds, almost as if in answer to the questions I didn’t ask aloud, “if you don’t choose that option, my alternate offer is…”
He reaches out and presses a button on the underside of the table. Two of the armed guards re-enter. One of them is that young guy Alec called ‘Liam.’ They raise their rifles and point them at me and Christine.
“My alternate offer is that you never walk anywhere ever again.”
Wow.
Jealousy’s a bitch, ain’t it?
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
There was once a young boy. A laaitie like any other. He was carefree and liked to play outside. He liked to chase fireflies and climb trees. All the things a young boy might like to do. A happy boy, one might go so far as to say.
And a slap took it away.
He fell from the tree in which he was playing and the man he called Father slapped his face instead of patching his wounds.
Some years later that same young boy would endure another fall. This one from a much greater height and precipitated by a bullet entering his body. And this time, his father would scoop him up and ferry him away to safety. He would save his life.
Or, at least, would save some form of it.
Because by the time the boy was a man and took his great fall, he no longer needed nor wanted his father to care for him. He had the care, attention, and love he desired. Because he found it in the company of two others who, like him, had taken great falls of their own. Both literal and otherwise.
And, to greater or lesser, complicated, messy, amazingly improbable degrees, the three joined to form something like a parachute. And the boy-become-man came to learn—through trial and error, failure and success, great fokken displays of carelessness and great fokken displays of righteousness—that the only way he could possibly survive another fall… would be with his parachute intact.
I have ever believed that the only thing that can take the life of Alec van den Berg is Alec van den Berg. That if I am not ready to die, death cannot come for me. That I, having accepted and become death incarnate, cannot be intimidated or beaten.
It is now time to truly put that theory to its test.
I walk over to stand between Christine and the rifle young Liam is pointing at her.
“Hello, Liam,” I say with a politeness he honestly deserves, considering the last time we saw each other I left him unconscious.
He looks dead nervous.
“Ag, man. C’mon. Put that thing down. You don’t want to shoot anybody.”
Liam hazards a look at the other gun-toting laaitie and then at my dear old vader.
“Alec,” dear Dad says, “I want to encourage you to think before you do anything rash, my only seun.”
Something about him highlighting that I am his only remaining child strikes at my heart, but not enough to make me waver. I must see this through.
“I’ve been, I think, more than gracious,” my father continues. “I could have handled this situation dozens of times prior to now, and in far less cordial ways, but owing to the… history you have together, I have chosen to exhibit what I believe is an almost preternatural level of patience. Did you not enjoy the train? I thought it would give you ample opportunity to spend one last bit of time together. Was that not generous? I don’t expect a thank you, but you could be appreciative enough to stop attempting to intimidate my security laaities.”