Hers To Keep (Servite Academy #2)

Chapter 47

Chapter

Forty-Seven

SCARLETT

M y body shudders feverishly as I walk toward where Wesley has commanded me to stand after my mother took the ledger from me. Before I gave up the only leverage I had.

He’s pulled up a chair beside Ace, ordering me to sit, and with a gun pointed directly at us, I’m in no position to refuse. Beside me Ace groans as the rope used to tie his hands behind his back slices through the skin of his wrists as he tries to break free.

“Your mother didn’t think you’d show, sweetheart, but I assured her my nephew must have some magical dick between his legs, because no matter the crimes he’s committed against you, no matter how he betrays you, you keep coming back for more.” His crass words anger me further, but there’s nothing I can do that will free me from these monsters. We’re so terribly outnumbered. The only thing I can hope for now is for Alek to hurry and get help.

Wesley stands before us, the gun in his hand still pointed at the two of us, while my mother moves loudly behind us. I can’t tell exactly what it is she’s doing but as she moves rapidly around the room, she causes a loud ruckus.

Immediately the stench of gasoline, just like that night at the cabin, burns as the fumes invade my nostrils. I see her from the corner of my eye pouring the transparent yellow liquid all over the furniture in the room, splashing the curtains, and spilling it all along the floor. Once she’s finished, she moves to stand in front of us pouring some of the gasoline at our feet before dousing us both in it. I turn my head, closing my eyes and mouth before it splashes in.

“I’m sure you’ve heard of the accidental fires that seem to keep popping up around here in Hillcrest,” Wesley asks, but not really expecting a response. “I heard an interesting rumor about how my nephew and his girlfriend have become quite obsessed and become arsonists of sorts. Starting one in my very own office last Halloween where they were caught making out, then up at the cabin they were staying at, almost blowing themselves up, and finally doing so at his family home. It’s quite tragic really, that love drives us to such madness.” He moves toward me, placing the gun at my temple as Ace groans beside me, begging him to stop.

“To be young and in love, it drives us to madness, Wesley. We’re living testaments to that,” my mother sneers, setting the empty container of gasoline beside my chair. Her eyes cut deep into mine as she watches me with such an abhorrence, I can feel it in my core. What did I ever do to earn such an intense hatred from her?

“Yes, my dear Lilith, what a shame we showed up too late. We could have stopped them had we known how unstable they were,” Wesley mocks, sarcasm apparent in the measly tone of his voice.

I laugh wildly at the stupidity of their plan to make us look like two lovers whose love ended in tragedy. “So that’s your plan, make us into your modern-day Romeo and Juliet. To stage it and make it look like Ace and I went and blew ourselves up. No one will believe you.”

He crouches down to my level, his lips so close to mine as he mutters against me. “I don’t need anyone to believe me, child, you forget who I am. No one will question what we tell them, there won’t be an investigation into the matter.” He runs the barrel of his gun down my check, my heart beating forcefully, overflowing with fear and anticipation of what comes next.

Will he dare to shoot me?

“I honestly thought you’d be more creative, Wes,” Ace mutters, from beside me, a snide chuckle coming from deep within him. Wesley’s angry scowl turns to Ace. “A murder-suicide is what you’re planning, right? I loved her so much she wanted nothing to do with me, so I sacrificed us both. If I can’t have her, no one can.”

A wide grin appears in place of his murderous scowl, tainting his more than rugged facade. “Must admit it isn’t my best, but on such short notice we make do with what we have, son.”

I’m about to barter a deal when suddenly we’re interrupted by yet another malevolent force. “Well, would you look at that, the whole gang's here. You make this too damn easy.” My body tenses as I hear him, immediately recognizing the voice that’s haunted me for weeks on end. Because this day couldn’t get fucking worse.

Marchesi is unstable, that much I already knew, but as I turn and watch him, walking toward us, holding a gun pointed directly at us with a crazed look in his eyes, I know he’s gone over the edge. Lilith and Wesley move to stand behind us, Ace still tied up by my side, while all of us look directly toward the man appearing before us.

“What the fuck are you doing here?” Wesley shouts, as he turns to face Marchesi pointing the gun at him now. Marchesi’s dressed in a dark blue suit minus the jacket, his sleeves rolled up to his elbows, his shirt collar folding down as the top three buttons of his shirt are unbuttoned.

“Wesley, Lilith, how nice to see you again,” he says, and I turn and find a look of confusion in my mother’s eyes, which surely is the same one in Wesley’s as they watch Marchesi, or as they know him, Macallan, stalk toward them .

The room feels incredibly small—the walls caving in as my vision blurs. Beside me I feel Ace’s hand fall upon my thigh, released from the restraints. My body calms as he looks down at me, assuring me we’re going to be okay.

“What brings you here, Macallan? Don’t tell me this is about how I had to exile you for breaking one of The Gallows’ rules,” Wesley says, referring to what he did to me that night at The Gallows.

“Oh, my dear Wesley, you’re more stupid than I thought,” Marchesi says sardonically, his brown hair falling in perfectly waves, his deep hazel eyes bare of the glasses he usually wears, and his slight stubble now a full-grown beard.

Suddenly, I see the realization of who he is washes over my mother’s eyes as she watches him approach us. “Franco,” she whispers, a look of fear in her eyes as she recognizes her stepbrother after all these years. Who would have known it would be my mother who’d figure it out first? I’m kind of proud we had the upper hand on this one and knew something they didn’t for once.

“Franco?” Wesley asks, confused, angrily staring back and forth between my mother and Marchesi, ignoring the fact that Ace and I are still sitting here before them. “Who the fuck is Franco?”

“Franco Marchesi, son of the infamous Gabriel Marchesi, my stepbrother, and Gianna’s psychotic older brother. Sent away at only thirteen years old because his father was afraid his son was a murderous psychopath,” my mother explains, as she walks away, toward the far end of the room beside the bar.

“Well il mio padre had one thing right, my dear Lilith,” Marchesi says with a mocking smirk. He walks closer to us, Wesley growing more impatient by the minute while his gun remains pointed at Marchesi.

“Franco Marchesi? What the fuck are you talking about, Lilith?” Wesley shouts, now frantic as he again points the gun back and forth between them. The confusion in his gaze mixed with the anger of once again hearing that name turns his aqua blue eyes a dark shade of blue resembling the midnight sky before a destructive storm.

“She means that I, Franco Marchesi, crept my way into your gilded kingdom, Wesley, and infiltrated this deranged empire you so tirelessly aim to protect from outside prying eyes. I guess you’re not as airtight as you believed you were.” Marchesi stalks across the room to grab the drink my mother holds out to him, looking more relaxed than I would have expected coming face to face with his sister’s murderers.

“But how, why?” Wesley stutters, taken aback by Marchesi’s statement. Whether it’s shock, anger, or fear, for the first time Wesley is fucking speechless, and it is a sight to see. The man in the three-piece suit of control is spinning out of it faster than he can handle.

“Yes, the thing is we all know the why,” Marchesi mutters as moves back over to where Wesley stands, the two wicked men now face to face. Wesley falters back, keeping his gun raised still pointed at Marchesi’s head.

Recognition flashes before Wesley’s eyes as he blankly stares at Marchesi who’s nodding his head in my direction. “It’s you, the one who’s been blackmailing me. This whole time it’s been you and you’ve been right…”

“Right under your nose.” A small chuckle escapes from Marchesi at the bewildered grimace obscuring Wesley’s usual snide smirk. My how the tables have turned.

“But why, what did I ever do to you back then?” Wesley asks, not yet understanding the gravity of the situation at hand. “I never even spoke to you. I was a child, and when you came here, I treated you as a friend, you were no one and I brought you into my world?— “

“Only to exile me yet again,” Marchesi says, interrupting him, clicking the safety off the guy he has pointed at Wesley like they’re in some old wild west duel. “I know what you did to my poor baby sister. You used her as part of your ploy, and she took her life because of it. She was weak, and you exploited her fragility. You took advantage of her.”

Wesley shakes his head maddeningly. “No, I loved Gianna. I never wanted her to do what she did. She was supposed to leave Maxwell, and I’d be there to patch up her broken heart.”

Anger clouds Marchesi’s eyes as Wesley speaks, trying to justify his actions. A rare glimpse of guilt appears as he speaks of Gianna, but not enough to make me feel sorry for him. I’ll never be able to feel anything but intense hatred for him.

“But that’s not what you wanted is it, Lilith,” Marchesi sneers, shocking us as he turns and slowly stalks back over to my mother, keeping the gun pointed at Wesley the entire time. “You couldn’t stand the fact that after all you did, Maxwell still wanted nothing to do with you. You couldn’t let Wesley have his happily ever after, when you were going to be left alone with a child you didn’t even want.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Lilith says, quickly pushing past him trying to stalk out of the room, but Marchesi is quicker and grabs her arm before she can go, shoving her back against the bar.

“Lilith left an extra dose of The Devil’s Kiss, an altered one, with Gianna that night along with a letter she wrote supposedly from Maxwell. In this letter he told her he’d be leaving her to run off with Lilith, the one he’s always loved in secret. He said that everything between him and Gianna wasn’t real, just a game he played when he got tired of Lilith’s rejection.” My mother’s face pales as Marchesi continues to tell his story, Wesley listening intently while Ace and I sit stunned like pawns watching from the sidelines, while these devils play their games. “Gianna injected herself with this dose and then went to the tub and slit her wrists for good measure. She felt humiliated and betrayed, and her feeble mind couldn’t withstand such shame and heartbreak. I found my baby sister that day. I’d just come back to town ready to rejoin the society that cast me out and I found her, the note, and the syringe. ”

The raging expression on Wesley’s face when he hears Marchesi’s confession, is the angriest I’ve ever seen him. The full force of his fury directed at my mother for a plan of her own I’m almost positive he knew nothing about. The bitch double crossed him—can’t say he didn’t deserve it, but Gianna didn’t.

Ace turns to me whispering quietly so only I can hear. “You okay, Scar?” he asks, and I nod unable to form a coherent sentence, or any word at all, while watching it all unfold before us.

“You fucking bitch,” Wesley shouts, pointing the gun at my mother. “Lilith, tell me this fucker is lying. Tell me you weren’t so fucking stupid as to betray me.”

My mother has the audacity to roll her eyes as she pours herself another drink. “Oh please, I simply gave her the means to do what she already was planning on doing. It’s not my fault she?—”

BANG!

A loud gunshot echoes in the room interrupting my mother’s confession as Wesley shoots her, the impact of the bullet throwing her back against the bar. Glass liquor bottles fall and shatter with the force of her hit.

A stain of deep red blood appears over her abdomen, bleeding through the white of her gown as she lies back in agony, clutching her wound in one hand, holding on to the edge of the bar counter with the other. My heart threatens to jump out of my chest as I stare bewildered at what just happened.

Wesley walks over and stands above her, his hand not holding the gun running anxiously through his hair as he watches her gasp for air in front of him, shriveling in agony.

From beside me I feel Ace’s hand upon my thigh tighten, his wrists bloody and cut, the rope that was binding them torn at his feet.

“Well that escalated quickly,” Marchesi mocks, a deep, sardonic laughter escaping him.

“You should have never betrayed me, Lilith. I warned you what would happen if you ever did.” Wesley turns away from her and a part of me aches to run to her, to kneel before her and stop the bleeding gushing out of her. But the better part of me, the sane part, realizes this is exactly what she deserves. She preyed on the weak-minded, kindhearted Gianna Marchesi. She deserves to burn in hell for everything she’s done.

“Sorry you had to find out this way, Servite,” Marchesi says sarcastically.

“Fuck you,” Wesley sneers, coming back to face him. The two of them stand face to face once again, their guns pointed at each other’s heads, both breathing erratically as they scowl in despair. “You planned this all along, didn’t you?”

“Why yes, Wesley, and might I say I had the best help,” Marchesi says, looking behind Wesley, his gaze meeting mine.

“What the fuck are you talking about?” Wesley asks, angry and confused as he turns and glares at me while Marchesi continues to speak.

“Well, you see, I had our dear little Scarlett here working for me. She’s such a talented actress, actually. I know that’s one thing, if not the only thing, she inherited from her mother.” Marchesi steps closer to me, taking advantage of Wesley’s distracted state, but Ace quickly stands up blocking him before he can reach out to grab me.

Ace grips my arms, holding me safely against him as he speaks, his heart pumping loudly against my ear resting on his bare back.

“What do you have on her?” he asks Marchesi. “I never for one second believed her half ass excuses for leaving me, but I couldn’t pinpoint exactly what you could have told her to make her agree to your bullshit plan of making her work for Wesley.”

“God, this day just keeps getting better. I’ll never tire of telling this story,” Marchesi says, and I know exactly what he’s about to say next.

No, this can’t happen.

“Marchesi, please don’t,” I plead, but it’s useless.

He smiles widely as he looks to Ace, who stands shirtless, bloody, and beaten before him. “You see, Ace, there’s a little family tale I’m sure you haven’t ever been told, and it goes a little something like this. Warren Servite is not your biological father.”

I feel Ace’s body stiffen against me as he stands frozen glaring at Marchesi. He shakes his head. “What the fuck are you talking about?” he asks, as I move my hands and wrap them around his waist careful not to hurt him.

“The truth son, Warren can’t be your father because he is sterile, incapable of having children, of producing an heir for the Servite throne. However your grandfather, the bastard he was, couldn’t have someone who was not of the original Servite bloodline taking over his empire, therefore tainting the bloodline, so he took matters into his own hands.” I feel Ace’s body shake vigorously as his hands fist at his sides when he realizes where this story is leading. “So he went and ordered his younger son Wesley to conceive a child with Warren’s wife Willa.”

There it is. The ultimate truth coming straight from this crueler devil’s lips. The truth bomb I did everything in my power to avoid from being revealed. The one thing I’m afraid Ace won’t be able to come back from.

“You, Wallace, and your twin sister Wynter, are in reality Wesley Servite’s children. Children, Warren was forced to raise as his own,” Marchesi adds, as if it weren’t already fucking obvious.

Ace turns to face me, then looks back between Wesley and Marchesi, and the agonizing pain in his eyes I feel deep in my soul. “Is this true?” he asks, looking toward Wesley, his tone of voice weak and full of disbelief. There is not a semblance of remorse or emotion in Wesley’s eyes as he turns away from Ace annoyed by what’s unfolding before him.

“Scarlett and I made a deal,” Marchesi says, Ace’s attention moving back to him. “She’d work for Wesley and get me the ledger, and I’d ensure the secret of your parentage never came out.” Marchesi’s glare connects with mine, a devilish smirk appearing across his lips. “Oops, I guess my part of the deal is off. ”

“Where is the ledger?” Ace asks, everyone’s eyes instantly shifting to my mother who lies on the floor, still alive, blood endlessly oozing out of her, her body twisting in agony. Wesley rushes over to grab the ledger from beside her, but suddenly another gunshot rings.

BANG!

I turn toward Ace, his hands embracing me in a hug, my head burying itself into his chest at the sound of the gunshot.

“Fuck!” Wesley yells, falling to his knees before my mother. “You fucking shot me!” He shouts back, crying out in agony. I look up and find that it was Marchesi who shot Wesley in the leg.

“Oh, that’s the least of your worries. I’d let you bleed out here, maybe even shoot you between your eyes,” Marchesi says, as he reaches down, yanking the ledger from my mother. “But I’d much rather watch you crumble as I destroy your precious empire.”

Suddenly…

BANG!

Marchesi shoots Wesley once more in the shoulder, and he falls back on the floor beside my mother’s feet. Marchesi reaches over to kick away Wesley’s gun.

“You son of a bitch, you won’t get away with this!” Wesley shouts, suddenly pulls out a lighter from his coat pocket and throws it toward the curtains, in the far end of the room, doused in gasoline. Instantly a blazing fire erupts, quickly igniting the curtains in bright red and orange flames.

At the sight of the flames, Ace pulls me toward the door but not before I rush over to pick up Wesley’s gun from the floor before me. Marchesi realizes what I’m doing, but it’s too late. The gun is in my hand pointed directly at him. His smile widens at my obvious anxiousness, the gun trembling in my hand.

“Now, now, little bird, no need to be stupid. We’re on the same side, my darling,” he says moving forward as if I don’t have a gun in my hands. I hear the click of Marchesi’s gun reloading and I freeze knowing well enough what he’s planning on doing, but before he can, I lower the gun to his feet pulling the trigger?—

BANG!

“You fucking bitch!” he shouts, as he falters back hopping on one foot while I use the distraction to run into Ace’s arms. “Not so fast, you two,” he adds, and I know he now has the gun pointed at us. I turn slowly, meeting the barrel directed at not me but Ace. “I believe the flames were supposed to consume the two of you. After all, that was his plan, I can’t let it go.”

BANG!

A fifth gunshot rings, this one louder than all the others as Ace grabs me tightly, throwing himself on top of me, the two of us landing roughly against the floor. His body shields me from the bullet coming from outside the hallway.

“Leave my daughter alone!” Maxwell shouts, as he appears in the doorway, his dark blond hair clearly disheveled while he glares fiercely at Marchesi. I have to blink a few times to make sure what I’m seeing before me is real. My father has come to save us.

Marchesi cries out in pain, falling to the floor with a bullet in his chest, blood pooling all around him. Wesley and my mother writhe in pain beside him, as the flames threaten to consume them.

“Maxwell!” I cry out, a sense of relief flooding me as I see him.

“Scarlett, Ace,” he yells, stepping into the room. “We have to go now! The fire is spreading fast. There’s gasoline all over the house, we have little time.” Maxwell reaches out and grabs my arm pulling me out toward the door when suddenly?—

BANG!

Maxwell’s hold on me loosens as he falls to his knees, blood spewing out of a bullet wound on his neck. I look up and find Marchesi, barely able to stand, pointing the gun at me, but before he can shoot, Ace bends to pick up the gun my father had in his hand, shooting Marchesi right between his eyes.

BANG!

I close my eyes tightly, not wanting to see Marchesi’s brains fly out of his head, nearly stumbling as I turn away, but Ace is there grabbing me by my waist, steadying me as I look down at my father who now lays in a puddle of his own blood spilling along the marble floor at our feet.

No! God no! This can’t be happening. Not him, not Maxwell. Not my father who was only here because of me. I can’t bear to lose him. I’ve only just found him.

My chest constricts, my lungs threatening to give out on me as I drop to kneel before my father, placing my hands against the gunshot wound on his neck, applying as much pressure as my weakened state allows.

“Ace, please, you have to do something!” I cry out, the flames of the fire coming closer, threatening to entrap us. I can smell the smoke suffocating us, my lungs burning as I heave. Ace paces the floor beside me, not knowing what his next move is.

“Scarlett, please we have to go, I can’t,” Ace mutters desperately, his hands running anxiously through hair as I hopelessly try to stop the blood gushing out of Maxwell’s wound.

“Darling, he’s right,” Maxwell stutters, choking on his own blood. “You must go. This fire will soon be uncontainable, explosive, and I need you to get out of here.”

“No! Please no, I can’t leave!” I shout out in between helpless sobs. “We didn’t get any time, Dad. I need more time.” It’s the first time I've ever called him anything other than Maxwell, and the pride in his eyes as say the word Dad, makes me shudder from the heart-wrenching sadness. “I ignored you, pushed you away, fought our relationship. I didn’t allow myself to get to know you and now I never will. I can’t lose you, please not you too.”

His right hand reaches for me, cupping my face in his palm as he speaks. “I know enough to be proud. You have turned out to be an extraordinarily brave young woman, despite your upbringing, despite the obstacles you’ve endured. You prevailed, my dear, and it’s all I ever would have wanted for you.”

“Ace, please,” I plead, his eyes somber and full of tears as he looks down at my dying father and me. For once, the Horseman, the king is utterly helpless, not some ruthless soldier but a mere mortal like the rest of us.

“Scarlett, please, leave me. You need to save yourselves. The love you have in here,” he slowly reaches his hand to my chest, placing it above my heart, the painful agony he feels clear in his eyes. “This is the most rewarding thing I couldn’t have hoped for you. Love is beautiful. It’s painful and irritating at times, but it’s the greatest gift one could give and hope to receive. To love and to be loved, and you love fervently. But most importantly, you are loved unconditionally. By me, by your chosen family—your friends, by your sister, but most importantly by the boy who gave up everything he was to become the man worthy of receiving this absolute gift.” His gaze moves to Ace, as he looks at him with contentment.

I can’t accept this is our fate. I can’t lose my father, it’s not fair to lose everything at once. Not after everything I’ve already lost. “But I want more, I need my father by my side. I just got you, I don’t want to lose you,” I cough loudly, choking on the thick cloud of smoke hovering over us—the flames coming closer as the walls around us cave in, the ceiling threatening to come down upon us.

“You won’t, I’ll be in here. In your thoughts, in your dreams, you’ll find me and can always reach out and talk to me. I’ll be everywhere you are, my dear daughter. Always.” His voice now sounds like he’s choking on his own blood as he tries to speak, his eyes red and bulging out.

“Scarlett, we need to go now!” Ace shouts, grabbing me by the shoulders and pulling me up.

“Outside there is someone waiting for you,” Maxwell utters, the blood now leaking out of the wound I’ve let go of. “With him I leave everything, all my belongings, my fortune. It’s all yours.”

“I don’t want blood money, not any of it,” I cry out.

His eyes are glazed over, the white around his blue irises bloodshot and veiny. The life being drained out of him with every drop of blood that leaks.

“Scarlett, I’m sorry but we have to go now!” Ace yells, as a large wooden beam falls before us nearly knocking us down, the flames continuing to ravage the house. Maxwell’s eyes start fading away, as he reaches out for me once more.

“I love you, Scarlett. I love you so much, my dear girl.” Just then, Ace pulls me out of the way of a chunk of the ceiling crashing down on me. The torment I’ve felt thus far did nothing to prepare me for the pain that is about to ravage my entire being.

Piece by piece my heart is breaking. Completely shattering as I blur out the scene before me. Darkness threatens to consume me completely once again. My hearing goes silent, my vision fading away blink by blink, my mind threatening to find everlasting slumber. My lungs burn from the smoke of the fire no doubt, my eyes burning from the number of tears that flow endlessly through them. Though it’s nothing compared to the agonizing ache of my now hallowed heart.

I start to hear far away cries, my name from Ace’s lips slowly becoming muted sounds. That’s when it happens, as I’m dragged out of the burning manor, thrown against the front lawn as the house explodes behind us. My back aches, my chest caves in from the pressure of my fall. Ace lies on the ground beside me, a large, bloody gash visible on his forehead, his eyes closed as his body lays limp, and just before my eyes give out on me a shadowed figure comes to my side.

I look up into bright green eyes, a softness I’ve never seen in them as they watch me. It’s the last thing I see.