Chapter 795
“Liam!” Alistair shouted.
Logic dictated self-preservation. Caleb was vulnerable. Alistair could end the fight right now, kill the assassin, and survive. But Liam was Skye’s past. He was part of the messy, complicated family they were stitching together.
Alistair didn’t think. He abandoned his advantage and launched himself toward the pit, diving through the air.
He caught the trailing end of the chain just as Liam swung over the abyss. Alistair’s momentum slammed them both against the edge of the platform. Liam dangled precariously, inches from the spikes.
Alistair gripped the chain with one hand, his boots scrabbling for purchase on the lip of the pit. He hauled Liam up with a roar of exertion.
“Got you,” Alistair gasped, veins bulging in his neck.
He didn’t see Caleb rise behind him.
𝗣𝗈р𝘂𝘭𝖺𝘳 𝘴𝗍𝘰rieѕ 𝗈𝗇 𝘨𝘢𝘭𝗻о𝘷𝘦ls.𝖼о𝗺
“Noble,” Caleb whispered.
He drove the karambit deep into Alistair’s left shoulder, near the neck.
Alistair cried out, a sound of pure agony, but he didn’t let go of the chain. He used the pain as fuel. With a final, massive heave, he swung Liam onto the solid concrete.
Then, with the blade still buried in his shoulder, Alistair spun. His backhand strike caught Caleb squarely in the jaw. The force was tremendous. Caleb crumpled, unconscious before he hit the ground.
Alistair dropped to his knees. His vision blurred. The world tilted sideways.
The blast door hissed and groaned, finally sliding open. Lucian and Alpha Team poured in.
“Boss!” Lucian was at his side instantly.
Alistair reached for the knife in his shoulder. His hand trembled uncontrollably.
“Don’t touch it,” Lucian ordered, pressing a compress around the wound. “Medical! Now!”
“Liam…” Alistair slurred, his head lolling forward. “Check… Liam.”
“I’m okay.” Liam crawled over, his face pale with horror. He stared at the black blood oozing from Alistair’s wound. “God, Alistair… it’s black. The blood is black.”
“Neurotoxin,” Lucian cursed. “Caleb’s signature.”
I skidded the car into the warehouse loading dock just as the team was bringing them out. The rain was torrential now, mixing with the grime on the ground.
I saw the stretcher. I saw the stillness of the body on it.
“Alistair!” I screamed, sprinting through the mud.
Lucian held me back as the medics loaded him into the ambulance. “He’s alive, Skye. But barely. The blade was coated.”
Alistair’s eyes opened to a slit. He saw me. He tried to lift his hand, but it fell limp.
“Sorry,” he mouthed. “Messy.”
Then his eyes rolled back.
“Go!” Lucian slammed the ambulance doors.
I stood there, the rain soaking me to the bone, watching the lights fade into the night. Liam sat on the bumper of another ambulance, a blanket around his shoulders, staring at his hands.
“He saved me,” Liam whispered, looking up at me. “He took the knife for me, Skye.”
I walked over to the second stretcher, where Caleb lay bound and unconscious. I looked down at him. The fear in my chest crystallized into something cold and sharp.
“Wake him up,” I said to the guard.
“Ma’am, he’s out cold.”
“I said wake him up,” I commanded, my voice devoid of emotion. “And bring him to the hospital. I have questions.”
The basement of the private clinic Lucian used for “off-book” medical emergencies was sterile, white, and terrifyingly quiet.
Caleb was zip-tied to a metal chair. His jaw was swollen from Alistair’s punch, and he blinked groggily as the smelling salts did their work.
I stood in front of him. I hadn’t changed clothes. My jacket was wet, and there was a smear of Alistair’s blood on my cuff.
“Where is the antidote?” I asked.
Caleb focused on me. He tried to smirk, but it came out as a grimace. “Sterling. Or is it Thorne now? Doesn’t matter. He’s dead anyway. That toxin shuts down the respiratory system in two hours.”
“We have forty minutes left,” I said, checking the clock on the wall. “Plenty of time.”
𝖳𝘩е mо𝘴t рор𝘶lar ո𝘰𝗏𝘦𝘭𝘴 𝗈𝘯 𝗴𝗮l𝘯𝗼𝘷е𝗅𝘴.со𝗺
I picked up a tray of medical instruments and selected a scalpel. I didn’t hold it like a weapon; I held it like a pen.
“You’re not a killer, princess,” Caleb rasped. “You’re a CEO. You fire people. You don’t torture them.”
“The Skye Sterling you knew died five years ago, Caleb,” I said softly, stepping closer. “I buried that terrified girl myself when I walked out of that divorce court. The woman standing here? She’s the one who survived the funeral. And she will burn the world to save her husband.”
I slammed the scalpel into the table next to his hand. He flinched.
“Celeste,” I said.
Caleb froze.
“That’s why you did it, isn’t it? For your sister. Ethan has the Core.”
“He has everything,” Caleb growled. “The machine. The raw materials. Without them, she degenerates. It’s painful, slow… I couldn’t let that happen.”
“Why did Alistair let you go?” I asked suddenly. “Five years ago. I checked the files. You and Celeste were caught in a warehouse raid. You weren’t stealing TVs. You were conducting unauthorized bio-hacking experiments. Illegal human trials. Alistair found you. He should have turned you over to the Feds. You’d be in a black site right now.”
Caleb looked away. “He saw the research. He saw Celeste was testing on herself to find a cure for our genetic defect. He didn’t see monsters. He saw desperation.”
“So he let you go,” I whispered. “He gave you money to start over. To do it legally.”
“He did.” Caleb’s voice cracked. “‘Even in the dark, you have to leave a door open for the light.’ He funded the initial legit startup. He made Cain Pharmaceuticals possible.”
I stepped back, the words hitting me harder than a physical blow.
Five years ago.
That was right after I had come back. Right after I had called Alistair in the middle of the night, terrified, asking him if he was a bad man.
Please, Alistair. Don’t be the monster they say you are.
He had spared them because of me. Because he wanted to be the man I thought he could be. And now, that mercy had resulted in a poisoned blade in his shoulder.
“He saved you,” I whispered, tears pricking my eyes. “And you killed him for it.”
“I had no choice!” Caleb yelled. “Ethan forced my hand!”
“There is always a choice,” I said. “And you made the wrong one.”
Lucian burst into the room. “Skye, his heart rate is dropping. We’re losing him.”
I turned back to Caleb. “The antidote. Now. Or I destroy whatever data Ethan thinks he has. I’ll burn Cain Pharma to the ground, and Celeste goes with it.”
Caleb slumped in the chair, defeated. “The necklace. Celeste’s locket. The stabilizing agent formula is inside the microchip in the locket. And… the blade handle. The hollow compartment in the knife handle has a concentrated dose. It stabilizes the toxin.”