Chapter 304

“You think you’ve won?” Ms. Hayes says. She’s laughing hysterically, her voice screeching and broken. “You think you prove some kind of threat that we’ve never faced before. Darling, naïve little children…”

Her laughter stifles abruptly, and her glare flashes, hate hot in her eyes.

“I’ve brought you children into this world. Who in this world has more right to take you out of it than me?”

I shiver from the iciness in her voice. How could a woman, a mother, be so full of vicious hatred for her own children?

“We’ll release the recording,” Neil says. He’s standing tall, voice unwavering, though he clenches his fists as he speaks.

“Do what you must,” Mrs. Hayes says. “Unlike my foolish, coward of a husband, I will not cower. I will not back down. And when the people hear the recording, they will understand.”

I can’t hold my tongue anymore. Beau is still holding my arm, but I wrench it free as I step forward. “The people will never understand you choosing power over you own family!”

Archer can’t look away from his mother, as he’s the one with the gun in his face. But still, his arm stretches out blocking my path. He won’t let me step ahead of him.

That’s fine. I don’t need to go that far. I can talk to this bitch perfectly fine from right here.

I’m so pissed, I’m mere seconds away from reaching out and pulling out all of her hair.

“The people value strength,” Mrs. Hayes says, narrowing her eyes at me.

“Not over family!”

I remember how quickly the people were ready to turn on Neil and his brothers for backing Mr. Hayes competitor, for no other reason that they were Mr. Hayes’s sons and family was worth more than that. It was only thanks to Neil’s silver tongue that they were able to come out of that situation unscathed.

I lack Neil’s silver tongue. But what I lack in verbal finesse, I hope I make up for in passion.

The hate in Mrs. Hayes eyes, however, burns like an endless flame. My words have no hope of reaching her, as lost as she is. I can only hope that whoever hears the recording will be more understanding and take my side.

“How dare you talk to me about family,” Mrs. Hayes growls. She shifts the gun, waving it at my face now.

Archer tries to move, but Mrs. Hayes tuts at him.

“Stay where you are if you want her to keep her head.”

Archer freezes the others do too.

To me, she says, “You have no idea what I’ve been through. The things that I have had to endure for the sake of this family.”

Her husband is a notorious philanderer, enough to even have children out of wedlock. I felt sympathy for her in that regard: for being lied to and betrayed.

That was where my sympathy stopped.

“You didn’t survive any of it for your family,” I snapped. “If you did, you would have properly cared for your children. You sure as hell wouldn’t be waving a gun around now, threatening to kill them. No, you did everything you’ve ever done for yourself and yourself alone.”

“You bitch,” Mrs. Hayes snarled. Rage filled her so completely that her hand began to shake. She couldn’t seem to hold the gun straight.

I immediately saw my opening. I knew there wouldn’t be another chance. Any moment now, she would pull the trigger and start firing. I have no intention of dying here, or watching any of the brothers go down.

Mrs. Hayes will not get her wish for destruction today.

I waited a tick, for her hand to shake and her aim to veer to the left, then I struck.

I snapped my palm out toward her wrist, swatting her hand away. The gun faced the ceiling and went off. The force of it startled her and she dropped it. It skidded across the floor.

“Chloe!” Neil cried for me. I didn’t have time to

I hit Mrs. Hayes with a one-two punch follow up. One in the gut and the other, an uppercut to the face, catching her under the jaw.

I don’t put all that much force into it. My intent is not to kill her, simply to stop her from killing us.

It’s effective. On the second punch, her eyes close and she falls backwards. She falls in an unconscious heap onto the ground.

For a moment no one moves. Even the guards watch Mrs. Hayes’s fallen body.

Mr. Hayes gasps. He glances down. The gun is near his feet. He starts to reach for it, but Archer moves quicker, storming toward him with a looming posture.

Mr. Hayes inches backwards away from his son. He makes no further move to grab the gun.

Instead, Archer leans down and picks it up.

“What are you doing?” Mr. Hayes asks, his voice a high pitched whine. “Don’t just stand there, you morons! Do something! Stop them!”

He is speaking to the guards but the guards aren’t listening. They all seem to be looking at the scene with distain.

I understand. I can see the same as them, the blatant cowardice displayed by their nation’s leader, the man they have pledged their life and service toward. The man who is asking them to put their lives on the one, while not willing to do the same.

Beau comes to my side and starts to tug me back toward the elevator. The guards don’t stop us.

“Archer,” I call to him. He’s still standing there with the gun. I half expect him to lift it and aim it at his father, but I don’t want him to. “You aren’t your father or your mother,” I remind him. “You are better than both of them. You wouldn’t target a quivering, unarmed man.”

Archer doesn’t move for a long moment, so long in fact that I worry I haven’t gotten to him. But then, still holding the gun, he turns his back to his father and walks with us toward the elevator.

The guards watch, unmoving, as we enter. Neil presses the button for the garage, and the elevator doors close, sealing us – Neil, Archer, Beau, Steven, Isaac, and myself – inside.

Only when the elevator begins to descend do I dare breathe again. I’m trembling slightly from the things that I’ve witnessed, and the things that I’ve done.

“That was reckless,” Archer says aloud. He must have meant me, no one else spoke up against him.

I couldn’t speak against him either. Truthfully, it was reckless. I had acted without thinking, wanting to protect the brothers while hating their mother with a fierce passion.

My protective instincts flooded me so strongly that I hadn’t thought once of my own safety. I saw that gun on Archer, and my body took over.

“I wasn’t going to let that woman take anything more from you,” I say.

“Reckless,” Archer says again.

“It was also very brave,” Beau says. “Showing the courage of a warrior.”

No one disputes that either, and I puff up my chest with pride.

Beau quickly adds, however, “Never do that again.”