HIS DOE, HIS DAMNATION (An Erotic Billionaire Romance) novel Chapter 181

Meadow’s POV:

“MEADOW!” I could hear the raw panic in his voice. “MEADOW, ANSWER ME—”

My heart slammed back hard into my chest. The phone was on the floor, right beside Tyler’s body. “Fuck! Fuck, say something. Talk to me, baby. Please-”

I realized then that he must’ve thought I was the one who had been shot.

“I’m fine, Alaric!” I forced myself to yell. “I’m okay. I’m okay, it wasn’t me.”

“Could be,” I heard Juniper murmur before she crouched, picking up the phone like she was unimpressed.

“Oh, calm your tits,” she said casually. “She’s alive.”

My hands were shaking so badly I thought I would pass out. But I forced myself to focus on the ropes again. I didn’t stop. “If you lay a hand on her, I swear-”

“I know you’ve already got our location pinged,” Juniper cut in coolly. “So stop wasting time and come over. This ends tonight.”

Alaric didn’t get another word in before she ended the call.

“Is he always so… bossy?” she asked me, rolling her eyes. “Sounds overbearing to me.”

“He cares about me,” I snapped before I could stop myself. “Which is more than I can say about you.”

Juniper arched a brow. “If I didn’t care about you, you’d be dead by now.” She leaned in, lowering her voice. “I would kill you just to spite him. To make him as miserable as he made me. A loss for a loss.” She stood back up. “But I’m being generous… oh, wait, you’d be the miserable one.”

My lips quivered.

“Either way, it’s a win-win for me.”

“Alaric didn’t kill him-”

“Well, we’ll have to wait and see, won’t we?”

I shook my head. “Juniper-”

“You can’t convince me otherwise, Meadow. I’m sorry…”

“You won’t get away with it, Juniper,” I breathed just as the rope gave a tiny, almost unnoticeable snap. Hope violently surged through my chest as it finally broke apart and my hands were free.

My ankles were still tied but all I needed was less than a minute of distraction in order to release them. I bit down in my lip to keep from making a sound.

Her mind was made up. She was fully convinced that he did it and there was nothing else I could do.

“He didn’t love you, Juniper,” I murmured. “I told you the last time we spoke. He definitely didn’t love me, but he didn’t love you either. You know that.”

Her eyes flashed. “You know, I have no plans to kill you, sis, but you’re making it extremely difficult for me to keep to that.” She twirled the gun in her hand, pointing it at me. My throat clogged.

“So many reasons to end your life right now. In fact, I should fucking kill you, shouldn’t I?”

“Juniper-”

“You hated him,” she cut in, letting out a bitter laugh as she took a step closer, gun still pointed at me. “If you say Alaric didn’t kill him, does that mean you did? Did you kill our father, Meadow?”

My heart fell to my stomach when her finger moved over the trigger.

“I didn’t kill him,” I breathed, chest heaving up and down with fear. “I didn’t kill him, Juni. None of us did. Maybe he just-”

“Did it on his own?” she said dryly. And then her gaze shifted to something behind me. “Kinda like the way you freed your hands on your own?”

My breath hitched.

She knew.

“You know I’m not stupid, Meadow. I know what you’ve been doing. I just wanted to see how pathetic you would look trying to escape.”

I swallowed. “You don’t have to do this.”

“Yes, I do.” She stepped forward again, the look in her eyes murderous. She was going to kill me.

Where was he?

Where on earth was Alaric?

Tyler and Juniper must’ve taken me to a place so far.

“All of a sudden,” she said softly, slowly. “A better idea has come to mind.” A slow smile crept onto her face. “I think I’m gonna kill you, and then take your place. It shouldn’t be that hard, right?”

Despite the situation, I couldn’t help the short, bitter laugh that came out of my mouth. “You still think you can be me?” “Why not?” She tilted her head and narrowed her gaze. “It can’t be that difficult. Boring, yes, but not difficult… or maybe not even boring at all. Alaric looks like he fucks good…” she trailed off, watching me carefully because she wanted to gauge my reaction.

I didn’t take the bait.

“You can never be me, Juniper. Never. Alaric will spot your bullshit from a mile away and take you back to the loony bin.” I shrugged a shoulder. “Or maybe he’ll kill you himself.”

A few seconds of silence passed before Juniper hummed.

“I guess we’ll see.” She cocked the gun.

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