Page 75 of Ransom for His Secret Son

From the corner of her eye, Remi caught a blur of movement. Eloise. The woman had slipped free from Zeke’s hold and had bolted out of her car. Zeke lunged after her, but Eloise was already on her feet and was raising her gun.

Her target wasn’t Tarrant. It was Brody.

“If you and Remi are dead, there’s no one to say what I’ve done,” Eloise said, her voice cold, unshaken, her finger tightening on the trigger.

Remi didn’t hesitate. She turned. And fired.

The shot rang out, sharp and final.

Eloise’s eyes widened in shock as the bullet struck her square in the chest. For a heartbeat, she stood frozen, as if her body hadn’t yet caught up with the inevitable. Then she crumpled, hitting the ground with a heavy thud.

Dead.

With her pulse hammering wildly and her breath gusting, Remi kept her gun trained on Eloise’s lifeless body. The entire world seemed to hold still.

Brody turned to her. Their eyes met. And in those eyes she saw the only truth she needed.

Now it was over.

Chapter Twenty

Brody stood in the center of what had been a war zone. No gunfire now. No threats of death. Just the chaos that followed an ordeal like that.

The sun had fully risen, casting shadows over the inn’s construction site. It no longer looked spooky and haunted, but Brody knew he’d never be able to look at the place and not recall the nightmare that had gone on there.

A nightmare that had ended with two dead and two injured. A huge toll, but he knew it could have been a whole lot worse. He could have lost Remi when she’d created that distraction, and the images of Tarrant’s shots coming so close to her would stay with him for a very long time.

At the thought of that, Brody brushed the back of his hand over Remi’s. She was right next to him. Literally. Arm to arm with him. Other than the hand touch, neither of them was moving. Both were just standing there and taking in the scene unfolding in front of them. They were probably in shock, the weight of everything that had happened settling deep into their bones.

Yeah, all of this would stay with him for a long time.

The air still smelled like gunpowder and dust, the remnants of the chaos Tarrant and Eloise had created. Across the site, paramedics were loading Maria and Langley into ambulances. Maria was pale, shaken, but alive. Langley was whining about pain, but Brody didn’t have an ounce of sympathy for him. The man had helped Tarrant once before. He’d played his part in all of this.

Nearby, Jolene had moved in to question Christina and to take her gun so it could be bagged. His deputy had done that not just because the weapon was a safety risk but because it would need to be entered into evidence and tested. A lot of things would go under scrutiny of the lab techs and CSIs, but Brody had no doubts that in the end, the conclusion would be that he and Remi had done exactly what they’d had to do to neutralize the threat and survive.

And the reasons for those threats were lying on the ground.

The ME’s team had arrived shortly after the ambulances and backup, and one assistant was with Tarrant’s body, the other with Eloise’s. Soon, they’d both be bagged as well and transported to the morgue for autopsies. That would generate yet more reports, more discussions. More of the aftermath of the chaos.

Brody glanced over when he heard a familiar clicking sound. Harlan had Zeke restrained and was slapping cuffs around his wrists. The former bodyguard wasn’t resisting. He just kept staring at Eloise’s body, his expression lost, his lips moving in a constant mutter.

“That wasn’t supposed to play out like this,” Zeke said, his voice hoarse. “I loved her. She wasn’t supposed to die.”

Brody scowled at the man. Love or not, Zeke had helped Eloise arrange this nightmare. He’d played a part in using Brody’s sons as pawns. And Brody would make sure Zeke paid for that. At any point, the bodyguard could have stepped in and stopped his employer, but he hadn’t.

“You killed for Eloise,” Brody spat out. “You’re the one who tied up the loose ends by murdering the people she hired to set up this plan.”

Zeke didn’t deny it. “I did it because she was hurting for her son. I wanted to help.”

Brody wanted to punch him and try to shake some sense into him. He was a cold-blooded killer, no better than Tarrant, and Brody hoped he stayed in prison for the rest of his miserable life.

Remi shifted, turning to watch Harlan as he led Zeke away to a waiting cruiser. Brody could see exhaustion in her face, the same weariness he felt pressing in on him.

“It’s over,” she murmured.

Brody wasn’t sure if that was relief he heard in her voice or something else. Maybe she was waiting for him to say something. Maybe she was waiting for him to decide what came next.

He wasn’t sure he had an answer.