Page 159 of Knot Unwanted: Part Two

“SHUT UP!” Caldwell screams, leveling the gun at Heath again. “You don’t know anything about me!”

“I know most of the omegas I supplied you slit their wrists in your bathroom the first chance they get,” Heath continues relentlessly. “I know the last one slammed her head into the wall till she broke her skull.”

“Jesus,” Jax breathes, his voice thick with horror. “Stone, get Hailey out of here. She doesn’t need to see this.”

“No,” I say firmly, surprising myself with the steadiness of my voice. “I need to see it. All of it.” I look up at Jax, letting him see the certainty in my eyes. “I need to know how it ends.”

After a moment’s hesitation, he nods, respecting my choice, though his scent betrays his concern. “Okay. But we’re right here with you.”

On screen, Caldwell has moved closer to Heath, his movements erratic, the gun now pressed under her chin. “You’re the one who ruins everything. You and your greed. Your connections. Your whole sick empire. I just wanted one thing. One simple thing.”

“To be loved,” Heath finishes mockingly. “Yes, you mentioned that. Touching. But you’re not man enough. Fuck, you’re not even alpha enough. You’re weak, Robert. And that’s why I know you won’t pull that trigger. I know you don’t have it in you.”

On screen, the rage seems to bleed from Caldwell, leaving him empty. “You’re right,” he finally says. He waves the gun between Heath and the camera, his speech becoming more incoherent. “It doesn’t matter now. Nothing matters. They’ve frozen my accounts. Business partners won’t return my calls. And it’s all because of you. You and that omega who couldn’t just accept her place.”

Caldwell presses the gun hard against Heath’s forehead again, his hand visibly shaking. “You ruined everything,” he says, and this time there’s no emotion in his voice—just cold, flat certainty. “Everything I worked for. Everything I deserved.”

“Robert—” Heath begins, but the single gunshot cuts off whatever she might have said.

The sound is deafening even through the phone’s small speaker. I flinch violently, a cry escaping me as I witness Heath’s head snap back, a spray of red misting the wall behind her. Her body slumps in the chair, the ropes that bound her now the only thing keeping her upright.

“Oh god,” I gasp, unable to look away despite the horror unfolding on screen.

Caldwell stares at Heath’s body for several seconds, seeming almost surprised by what he’s done. Then he turns back to the camera, his expression oddly calm now, almost peaceful.

“It’s her fault,” he says quietly. “All of it. She promised me love, but she only ever delivered merchandise.Defectivemerchandise.”

He raises the gun to his temple.

“No one’s coming to save me,” he continues, speaking directly to the camera. “Not like they saved her. My omega. The one that got away.” A terrible smile stretches his lips. “But they’ll remember me now. They’ll have to. I made sure of that.”

The second gunshot is almost expected, but no less horrifying. Caldwell crumples to the floor, the camera tiltingwildly as it falls with him. For several seconds, there’s nothing but a disorienting view of ceiling and wall, the sound of liquid dripping, then silence.

The broadcast continues for several more seconds before cutting off abruptly—likely ended by the social media platform’s moderation algorithms finally catching up to the violent content. The screen returns to my regular timeline, with cheerful posts and advertisements now filling the space where death just played out in real time.

No one speaks. The picnic blanket, the sunny afternoon, the half-prepared meal—all seem surreal now, disconnected from the horror we’ve just witnessed. I’m vaguely aware that I’m trembling, that my breathing has gone shallow and rapid, that tears are streaming down my face without conscious awareness of having begun to cry.

“Hailey,” Jax says finally, his voice gentle but firm. “Hailey, look at me.”

I raise my eyes to his, anchoring myself in the steady concern I find there.

“He’s gone,” Jax says simply. “Heath is gone. They can never hurt you or anyone else again.”

The words take a moment to penetrate the shock surrounding me. Gone. Both of them, gone. The monsters who haunted my nightmares, who represented the darkest chapter of my life—extinguished in seconds right before my eyes.

“It’s over,” I whisper, testing the words, seeing if they ring true. “It’s really over.”

Finn’s arms wrap around me from one side, Stone’s from the other, creating a protective cocoon of pack scent and warmth. “It’s over,” Finn confirms, his voice thick with emotion. “You’re safe. You’re free.”

I should feel something definitive, I think. Relief. Vindication. Closure. Instead, I find myself awash in a complexstorm of emotions—horror at the violence I’ve witnessed, shock at the suddenness of it all, a strange emptiness where fear once lived, and beneath it all, a tentative unfurling of something that might, eventually, become peace.

“I don’t know what to feel,” I admit, voice barely above a whisper.

“That’s okay,” Jax assures me, reaching to brush tears from my cheek with gentle fingers. “There’s no right way to respond to something like this.”

“I’m glad they’re dead,” Finn says with surprising vehemence. “I’m sorry if that makes me a terrible person, but I am. They deserved worse than they got.”

His honesty almost makes me smile. “I think…I think I’m glad too. Not about how it happened, but that they can’t hurt anyone else.”

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