Page 41 of Inside the Maelstrom: Part Two
The town car pulled up, Muntz in the driver's seat. Muntz was a former military man too, and the guy could drive a tank out of an enemy bunker with a grin on his face. He’d been with me a long time, and I trusted him as much as I trusted anyone. I loaded Chaos’s bag into the back.
She was moving from Otto to Sampson. I briefly wondered if we should have taken Otto with us. He was the next obvious weak spot for Hendrick, but even as I thought it, I knew we could have begged and he’d never go. Otto had spent his whole life like an emotional shield around Hendrick’s heart—there was no way he would leave it unprotected now.
Sampson kissed Aviva like it was the last time he would do it, and it was the most emotion I’d ever seen him show. She’d been good for him as well, battling her way past his ironclad defenses and seeing more than his rich boy insouciance.
“I’ll see you around, Good Girl.”
“You better, Bad Boy, or I’ll come back and kick your ass.” She dropped her gaze to the floor, but not before I saw the tears pooling in the corners of her eyes.
He hooked his finger under her chin and kissed her once more. “It’s almost over, Aviva. Be tough for just a little longer.”
And for the second time in far too short a time, I held her close as she cried, her heart breaking about leaving them behind. I was helpless to do anything but hold her together the best I could.
Chapter22
Sampson
I’d made both Hendrick and Otto wear Kevlar to the courthouse. They’d tried to make the last attempt look like an accident, but that didn’t mean they wouldn’t be more direct with their next method. I wasn’t taking any chances with my best friends or myself. I had big plans for our life, which didn’t involve being six feet under before we turned twenty-five.
Good Girl had messaged to say that they’d made it to their hotel in Reykjavik, and that she missed me. I couldn’t describe the way my chest hurt at those words. I couldn’t describe how much loving her hurt. I loved Drix and Otto, but what I felt for Aviva was… consuming.
There was hardly any press on the steps of the courthouse this morning, but there was a waterfall of flowers, candles and other tributes. People paying homage to the lives taken, to the faces they’d seen on their television every night, who were now lying on cold morgue slabs. All because of a megalomaniac.
The SUV was bullet-proof and bomb-proof, and we waited for the six bodyguards to swarm out of a second SUV that had been traveling behind us before Muntz would even unlock the doors. We were hustled quickly up the courthouse steps, through the flower tributes and into the courthouse. If anyone thought that going from two to six security personnel was suspicious, no one said anything.
I breathed a little easier once we got inside the building. You’d have to be ballsy to walk into a courthouse and kill someone. Though up until yesterday, I would have said it was ballsy to try it on the courthouse steps as well.
We were unfortunate enough to run into the senator in the foyer, and my whole body tensed. Our security closed ranks casually, but I could see the way they held their bodies, ready for a fight.
“Son. I’m happy to see you alive and well after the accident yesterday. I was worried you’d gotten caught up in the carnage.”
Perfectly parental response, and if you were standing around eavesdropping on the conversation, it would have sounded heartfelt.
Until you saw his eyes. There was a simmering evil inside the senator, and the subtext was clear. He wished we were all dead. Well, I wasn’t a plaintiff in this damn case, and I didn’t need to hold my tongue.
“Worried? You sure you don’t mean disappointed?” I bared my teeth at the old fuck.
“I’m sure I don’t know what you’re insinuating, Mr. Rubio. Where’s my lovely daughter-in-law today?”
Oh, that was a fucking threat, laced in fake concern. I stepped toward him, but Otto’s hand grabbed mine and held me back. Not the place. We’d get our revenge soon, but now wasn’t the time.
“Yesterday’s event really shook her. She’s at home, resting.”
I wasn’t going to give him any reason to look up the flight plans and track her down. I wasn’t a fucking idiot.
“Well, I hope she’s feeling better soon,” he sneered.
“Fuck off,” I growled, striding past him. Enough of this verbal judo bullshit. I wasn’t here to pander to this sociopathic asshole. I was here to ensure he was no longer a threat to my family.
By the time we were done, he was going to wish his first assassin had finished us off.
The second day in court was a lot more subdued, as neither Drix nor his father were on the witness stand. It was just an endless revolving door of ‘Expert Witnesses’ contradicting each other. Psychiatrists feeding off one another, counter-arguing about whether Hendrick was self-harming or being harmed. Forensic accountants going through each of their finances. Character witnesses, which did not look good, but hey, you could say the same things about me, and I was perfectly fucking sane.
Mostly.
That was until they called up Alexis. I couldn’t keep the disgust off my face, and she looked absolutely gleeful. I gritted my teeth, because this shit was going to be bad. Alexis and Aviva had had a disagreement in the club before we’d left for Europe. Hendrick had been fucking her friend in the bathroom that night.
At least it wasn’t Destinee. Tobias had tried to track her down—probably to scare her into keeping her mouth shut—but she was in some kind of private university in Switzerland after getting caught snorting coke with her household gardener.
