Chapter 14 - WHAT JULIETTE FINALLY DID
The next five minutes crawled.
An officer came out first and shouted for paramedics.
Grant stopped breathing.
Then Juliette appeared in the lobby doors.
Alive.
Her white dress was torn at one shoulder. Her hands were empty and raised. A female officer guided her toward the ambulance.
Grant took one step forward, then stopped himself.
Victor came out behind her in handcuffs.
The gunshot had struck a wall after Juliette knocked his arm aside when he fired at the door.
No one had been hit.
When Victor saw me, he smiled.
“You always were difficult to kill.”
An officer pushed his head down and put him in the car.
Juliette sat on the ambulance bumper wrapped in a gray blanket, almost exactly as Tessa had earlier.
I walked toward her.
She looked up.
“Caroline.”
“I’m here.”
Her face crumpled. “I’m sorry.”
“Stop saying that like it is a key.”
She flinched.
“I know.”
“No, you don’t. You left me behind during the fire. Maybe that was panic. But months later, you learned I might be alive.”
Tears ran down her cheeks.
“And you killed me again on paper.”
“I know.”
“You signed my life away because returning it would cost you money.”
“I know.”
I wanted to scream, but my voice stayed quiet.
“Why?”
Juliette looked past me toward our father.
“Because the company was failing. Dad was drinking. Creditors were calling. Victor said if the transfers were reversed, Mercer Urban would collapse and thousands of people would lose their jobs.”
“So you chose everyone except me.”
“Yes.”
The honesty hurt worse.
Grant approached slowly.
Juliette looked at him. “You shouldn’t marry me.”
“No,” he said. “I shouldn’t.”
She nodded once, accepting it.
Then she looked back at me.
“There is one more thing you don’t know.”
I felt cold despite the blanket someone had placed around my shoulders.
“What?”
May you like
Juliette swallowed.
“The burned body they identified as yours was not random.”
