I Told You To Run But You Didn't (Georgia) novel Chapter 47

Chapter 47

* Finished

Georgia’s POV

Estevan had a doctor waiting for us when we got back to the mansion. The man, a quiet professional with tired eyes, tried to check my vitals, asking me questions about shock and adrenaline.

I let him, but my mind was a million miles away, stuck a loop of a single, repeating image: the cold, dead look in my brother’s eyes as he pulled the trigger.

He shot me! The thought wasn’t emotional anymore. It was a cold, hard, tactical fact. He identified me as an obstacle and attempted to neutralize the threat!

“She’s in shock,” the doctor murmured to Estevan, who was watching from the doorway. “It would be best if she rested.”

“I’m fine,” I said, my voice flat as I stood up. I looked past the doctor, my gaze locking on Estevan. I had only one question. “Where is he?”

Estevan’s expression was expressionless, but he understood instantly. I wasn’t asking about my brother. I was asking about the target.

“The sub-level holding cell,” he said. “He’s secure.”

I walked past both of them without another word.

The air in the sub-level was cold and barren. He was in glass-walled cell, chained to a chair. His wrist and leg were bandaged.

He wasn’t unconscious; he was sitting there, staring at the wall, his face a mask of cold wrath.

I walked right up to the glass, my hands clenched into fists at my sides. The stern, savage anger I had felt upstairs finally cracked, and a wave of raw, seven-year-old grief washed over me.

My voice, when it came out, was a choked, broken thing heavy with unshed tears.

“Why?” I whispered, my palm pressed against the cold glass. “After all this time… why would you try t me?!”

He slowly turned his head, and his eyes-the same eyes that once held so much warmth and love for me- were now completely hollow. He looked at me as if I were a stranger, an inconvenience.

“If I wanted to kill you, Georgia,” he said, his voice a deal, emotionless rasp, “you’d be dead by now.”

The tears I’d been holding back finally streamed down my cheeks.

He pushed himself to his feet, a slight limp from the bandaged wound on his thigh. He could still walk. He could still run. He walked toward the glass until we were separated only by a few inches of reinforced pane.

“If you had just stayed put,” he said, his voice a low, cold rasp. “If you had stayed Mrs. Lucas Sterling, living your quiet, normal little life, this never would have happened. You and I never would have had to cross paths again.”

“Our parents died looking for you,” I whispered, my voice breaking. “They died with your name on their lips, hoping you were still alive somewhere.”

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Sal,

Chapter 47

成83%

Finished

His face hardened, a hint of old pain crossing his features before it was gone, replaced by a stern hatred. “Their death was no accident. And the man responsible for it is the same man you’re protecting right now: Estevan Salvatore.”

The accusation was so shocking, so absolute, that it stole my breath. “What?”

“He orchestrated the entire thing. He wanted them gone.”

I shook my head, my mind recling, refusing to believe i “You’re lying. You have no proof.” My voice grew stronger, angrier. “You’re talking baseless nonsense! This isn’t a mission, Zane! This is a vendetta! A personal revenge, and you don’t care who you have to burn to the ground to get it, do you? Not even your own sister!”

“The moment you stood between me and him, you chose a side,” he roared, his voice cracking with a pain that was deeper than any bullet wound. “That makes you my enemy now, Georgia!”

His voice dropped, becoming a desperate, pleading whisper that was somehow more terrifying than his rage. “But you have to listen to me. He is a monster. He will use you until you are of no value to him, and then he will kill you just as easily as Would kill me.” He pressed his hand against the glass, his eyes pleading. “He knows I’m your only weakness. He’s using you to get to me. Now he has me. Please, Gia… you have to help me get out of here.”

“And go where, Zane?!” I shot back, my voice raw. “Righ back to the people who sent you here to die? The people who will kill you if you fail?!”

“You want to know what I know?” he snarled, “I know that Estevan Salvatore threw a grenade at a car in Colombia seven years ago. A grenade that blew our parents to pieces.”

A choked sob escaped him, the first real crack in his soldier’s facade.

“It was my fault,” he whispered, tears finally streaming down his face. “They followed me. They shouldn’t have been there. The grenade… it was meant for me.” He looked at me, his eyes full of a lifetime of guilt. “They took it instead of me. I’m sorry, Gia… I am so, so sorry.”

He slammed his fist against the glass, his voice rising to bare scream again, fueled by grief and ha if that bastard hadn’t been there! If he hadn’t thrown that grenade! None of it would have happen would still be alive! So don’t you see?” He pointed a trembling, accusatory finger through the glass me, but at the idea of Estevan.

“He is the one who killed our parents!”

I shook my head, a frantic, silent denial. “No…” I whispered, pressing my palms against my temples. The world was a spinning vortex of lies and half-truths.

Estevan’s senseless, corporate logic versus Zane’s grieving fury. Which was the truth? Who was the real monster?

The boy I had mourned, the brother who had taught me to be strong, was gone. In his place was a soldier, a stranger shaped by seven years of a war I couldn’t comprehend. I couldn’t trust him. But I couldn’t condemn him to this cell either.

My eyes landed on a biometric control panel on the wall outside the cell. My military training took over. I walked to it, my steps sure and steady, and keyed in a ten-minute delay on the magnetic lock.

Ten minutes. A chance. A test. Ten minutes for him to prove he was the phantom he claimed to be. And ten minutes for me to disappear from this entire godforsakin nightmare.

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