Chapter 10 - THE BULLET“Willa!”
Everett dragged himself across the concrete.
She was on the floor.
Blood everywhere.
Then Willa sat up.
“I’m okay.”
Everett stared.
The blood wasn’t hers.
Whitfield had been shot through the shoulder.
He screamed, clutching his arm.
Ruth sat frozen nearby.
Everett grabbed the gun.
Whitfield laughed through the pain.
“Kill me.”
Everett pointed it at his face.
“You deserve worse.”
“Then do it.”
Willa grabbed Everett’s arm.
“No.”
He looked at her.
“Move.”
“No.”
“He murdered Fisk. He destroyed you. He poisoned me.”
“I know.”
“He took your mother.”
“I know.”
“Then move.”
Willa’s voice softened.
“If you kill him now, he gets to die before answering for any of it.”
Everett breathed hard.
Sirens approached.
Whitfield smiled weakly.
“You think prison scares me?”
Willa crouched beside him.
“No.”
She looked directly into his eyes.
“But being exposed does.”
Federal agents stormed the warehouse.
Whitfield was taken alive.
Ruth was freed.
She looked at Willa, confused.
“Are you my nurse?”
Willa’s eyes filled.
“Yes, Mom.”
Ruth smiled.
“You’re a very nice nurse.”
Willa hugged her.
Behind them, Everett turned away so nobody would see his face.
Two days later, prosecutors arrested Grant Allison after his private jet was forced to land in Toronto.
Financial records connected him to Whitfield.
Whitfield, facing decades in prison, began talking.
Sterling talked too.
Each man blamed the others.
The conspiracy unraveled fast.
Fake shipments.
Money laundering.
Illegal medication distribution.
Harold Fisk’s murder.
Everett’s staged crash.
The forged medical authority.
Willa’s false disciplinary case.
Three weeks later, the Illinois nursing board formally reopened Willa’s case.
She sat beside Everett when the call came.
“They’re vacating the finding.”
Everett smiled.
“You’re getting your license back.”
“Maybe.”
“You will.”
“How do you know?”
“I’m usually right.”
“You spent eight months in a coma.”
“Still right.”
She laughed.
Then Everett became serious.
“There’s something else.”
He placed a folder on the table.
Divorce papers.
Willa stared.
He said, “You were forced into this marriage.”
She didn’t touch the papers.
“You deserve a choice.”
Willa looked at him.
“And what do you want?”
Everett hesitated.
For the first time, the feared Everett Kane looked unsure.
“I want you to stay.”
Her chest tightened.
“But I won’t make you.”
Willa looked at the divorce papers again.
Then at him.
“What happens if I sign?”
“You walk away with enough money to take care of Ruth forever.”
“And if I don’t?”
Everett’s eyes held hers.
“Then we figure out whether this marriage can become something neither of us was forced into.”
Willa opened her mouth.
Before she could answer, Marcus rushed into the room.
His face was white.
“Everett.”
“What?”
“We have a problem.”
He dropped a photograph onto the table.
It showed Everett’s wrecked Bentley.
Marcus pointed toward the passenger seat.
“There was someone else in the car the night of the crash.”
Everett stared at the image.
“No.”
Marcus nodded.
May you like
“And whoever it was disappeared before the police arrived.”
Cliffhanger: Just when they thought the conspiracy was over, a missing passenger threatened to change everything Everett remembered about the night he nearly died.
