N9ne: The Tale of Kevin Clearwater (King, #9)(74)

I shake my head in disbelief. “That’s why you forged my signature on those documents? To point the cartel and the MC in my direction instead of looking at you and Jared?”

She slaps her leg with her free hand. “Of course. You were the perfect scapegoat until you fell for Nine and he started doubting all of my hard work because of his feelings for you. Ricci didn’t fall for it either, so I had to send them back the money so they’d stop looking for who took it. Of course, I sent it to them courtesy of you, and they didn’t fall for that either. And now, here we are, and I’ve got to take care of shit myself like always.” Her twisted smile doesn’t fit on her face, at least not the face of the Yuli I know. This person is someone else entirely. Someone evil. Demented. “Now, you’re going to die. Just like Jared did.”

I need to stall, to buy myself some time, but for what, I’m not sure. No one knows I’m here. No one is coming to save me this time. Right now, words are my only weapon, the hard part and the thing I’ve never been good at, will be choosing them wisely.

“How long, Yuli? How long has this been going on? You and Jared?” The rain is beating down harder and harder. The wind is picking up. The oil from the wires is making it more and more difficult to hold on. My feet are sliding left and right. It’s a balancing act just to stay upright.

She sighs and smiles as if remembering better backstabbing times. “Before you and Jared ever met. We made big plans for our future. It took us years to put it together, and we had it all figured out. How and when we were going to take the money. The offshore encrypted account. A nice two-story bungalow on the water in Fiji. I mean, taking all of your shit from you was my idea. The house. The car. Actually, Jared didn’t even know about that part, but I planned on telling him once we were on the beach as a running away together present.” Her gaze hardens once again. “Now, that’s never going to happen, and it’s all your fault!”

My foot slips, and I’m barely able to correct myself. The wires slice into my palms. “Yuli, don’t do this. You’ll regret this for the rest of your life!” I yell.

She rolls her eyes. “You were going to do this once, Lenny, and now, you’re going to do it again. The beauty of it is that nobody is going to question your motives for killing yourself. Your parents are dead. Jared left you. You lost the house and everything you own. The water’s a lot shallower now, so there’s no chance of you surviving the second time around.”

Trying to reason with Yuli while she’s got that crazed look in her eyes is a lot like reasoning with a herd of startled circus elephants halfway through a stampede. I switch tactics. “Think about Jared, Yuli. He was going to leave with you because he wanted to be with you, but would he really want you to kill me?”

She waves the gun around in the air. “See? That’s exactly how I know that you never knew him at all. Jared never loved you. He wouldn’t care what happens to you. He was only with you for a piece of your parents’ real estate business.”

“That can’t be true. He didn’t own it. He never got a dime from it.”

“He was planning a hostile takeover long before you came into the picture, but after your parents died, you decided to play your hand at being Wonder Woman and decided to step in and attempt to run shit yourself. That’s when we decided on Plan B, otherwise known as his fake relationship with you. But you see, the market tanked, and the company became worthless. So, we came up with Plan C, to run off with boatloads of his investors’ money, rendering both you and your fake relationship useless.” She sighs. “It’s a shame though, that I killed your parents for nothing.”

“No!” I gasp and almost lose my footing once more.

My stomach doesn’t care that I’m holding on with everything I have and lurches violently. I vomit into the water below, holding on as highly as I can until my stomach is empty.

“Oh, yes,” she nods. Her eyes are wild. “Just a little snip of a wire here. A little snip of a wire there, and in less than an hour, their little flying lesson turned into a crash course straight into the Gulf of Mexico.”

My head is spinning. Yuli’s face is twirling around above me like an evil halo.

“You see, after I killed them, I thought your panic attack-riddled craziness would send you off the rails, making it easy for Jared to swoop in and take over the company. In fact, I was counting on it so we could shuttle you off to the looney bin or attend your funeral. Whichever. No preference. It’s too bad that fall from the bridge didn’t kill you the first time.” She cocks the gun. “Don’t worry. There’s virtually no chance of you surviving it again.”

I look down to the water below. I may not survive the fall the second time around, but the chances are better than a bullet to the head. Not by much. But better.

“You’re forgetting something,” I call to her over the sound of the rain clinking against the metal of the bridge. I meet her demonic eyes with my own determined and unwavering gaze.

Yuli impatiently taps her foot against the pavement. “Oh, yeah? And what’s that?”

I smirk. “Between the two of us, I’m supposed to be the crazy one.”

I let go of the wires and lean back with my arms spread wide.

And then I’m falling.

Falling.

Falling.