Devil and the Deep (The Ceruleans Book 4) - Julie Ann Walker Page 0,109
of the new ventures were up and running! But your father refused! He’s forced our hands! He’s forced my hand! I need that money!”
So what? Bran thought, feeling like he was looking at one of those optical illusions that shifted shape just when you thought you were seeing it correctly. He thought he’d hold Maddy and Gene Powers for ransom to get the funds from Maddy’s dad? How the hell did Tony think he’d get away with that? Surely a man didn’t make it to the position of mid-level executive in a company like BP if he was an idiot.
Unless, he planned to kill ’em after he got the money, Bran thought. Get rid of the witnesses and act like he received the funds from some other source. With Maddy and Gene dead, there’d be no way to prove otherwise.
His finger tightened on the trigger, easily lining up a head shot. One pull and this could all be over. But there was something going on here. Something he felt sure he needed to understand. “Just keep him talking,” he told Maddy.
She turned to him, her cheeks pale as winter’s first snow. But her eyes were hot with determination.
“But what now, Tony?” she called. “What do you expect—”
Bran stopped listening because Gene Powers lifted his face then. Wet tracks glistened on his lined cheeks, but his eyes were as dry as a desert wind. Bran’s antenna twanged. He recognized the look on Gene’s face. It was one of crushing regret and…a scary sort of determination. Gene shook his head and did something weird with his shoulders. He sort of shrugged them and moved them around. Bran would’ve said he was trying get comfortable against his restraints, but there was something…off about the movement.
Gene lifted his eyes back to the bridge house windows, and if Bran wasn’t mistaken, he smiled behind the duct tape. A curl of understanding unwound inside Bran. He sighted down the length of his barrel. Sure as shit, all at once Gene’s hands were untied. They knocked Tony’s pistol away from his temple. A split second later, Gene plowed his shoulder into the younger man and sent them both flying across the yacht’s back deck.
“Uncle Gene!” Maddy screamed as the two men landed with a harsh-sounding thud, all the while fighting for supremacy and control of the pistol.
Bran cursed and tightened his finger on his trigger. But he didn’t take a shot. Not yet. He didn’t have a clear line of sight and—
Bang! Bang!
“Nooooo!” Maddy shrieked, jumping to her feet.
“Damnit!” Bran cursed, taking his eye away from his target just long enough to yank her back down.
They watched breathlessly as Gene kicked away Tony’s body and staggered to a stand. Blood stained the front of his pearl-snap shirt, but it wasn’t his. It was Tony’s. Gene raised his face to the bridge house’s windows again, his expression still one of regret and determination. Ripping off the duct tape, he flung it aside, and his throat sounded like it’d been scoured by steel wool when he yelled, “I’m so sorry, Maddy!”
“It’s not your fault, Uncle Gene!” she called back.
“It’s like they say,” Gene said, his voice dropping to a more conversational level, making them strain to hear him. “When you choose the lesser of two evils, you’re still choosin’ evil. But I swear to you…” He raised his voice, pain and regret flowing like twin rivers through his words. “I swear it, Maddy! No one was supposed to get hurt!”
Maddy sucked in a wheezy breath, one that was filled with the horror of dawning understanding. “Are…are you tellin’ me you—” she began, but Gene cut her off.
“Tony’s guys were supposed to grab you and the girls and call in a ransom to Gerry!” Bran knew they were talking about Maddy’s father, Gerald R. Powers. “Once the money was paid, they’d have set you free, no worse for wear! But then everything went wrong and Tony wouldn’t stop! He wouldn’t stop, Maddy!” Her uncle’s voice broke on a hard edge.
“How could you?” The fear, the betrayal in Maddy’s eyes cut into Bran’s heart like a ragged piece of metal. “How could you do this to Daddy? To me?”
“It was for the greater good!” Gene swore. “Once we got the business up and runnin’, all U.S. oil companies would profit, includin’ Powers Petroleum. They’d stop havin’ to sign foreign contracts. They’d stop havin’ to kowtow to OPEC. He just didn’t see and I couldn’t make him!”