Page 81 of Ruthless Roses
“It’s you or me!” Clay shouts.
Ernest rolls out of the way at the last possible second. Clay stumbles on recovering. He doesn’t get to make another move before Ernest flips the script on him and spears right into him.
Again, the men are locked up in another tussle. This time on the ground as they land with a hard thud and fight for the grip on the knife.
Delphine has no idea her father’s fighting for his life at this very moment. That should Clay regain the upper hand and run Ernest through, it’s the end for him.
I consider both outcomes. If Clay wins, then so be it. He’ll be slaughtered afterward by my hand (something I neglected to mention).
If Ernest wins…
I’m much more interested in that possibility. In seeing Ernest prove what he’s truly capable of. Just so I can drive the point home. Just so I can show him he’s no different than the man he hates so much…
Ernest growls as he punches Clay in the face and finally forces the knife from his bleeding hand. He takes it in his own, husking out a rabid breath, then pauses in clear deliberation.
In a struggle with himself.
Clay pants, sweating and bleeding, as if accepting he has no energy left to fight. “You’re gonna do it?” he challenges, still defiant even now. “You’re really gonna run me through? After I was gonna help you—”
“Help? What part of that was help?”
“I was eliminating your enemy! You forget that?”
“YOU ALMOST KILLED MY GRANDSON!” Ernest roars over him, and then he does it. He drives the knife into Clay’s chest once before wresting it from the deep wound he’s created. “You were going take my daughter hostage. You were going to hurt her!”
He plunges the knife in a second time, even deeper. Clay groans, the pain too overwhelming for a real scream.
I watch from where I am in the control room as Ernest Adams murders a man. He stabs him a dozen times, drenching himself in blood, ranting at Clay’s dying form about how he wouldn’t let him hurt Delphine and Dominic.
I regard the scene before me on the monitor, my expression unreadable but my mind racing with thoughts.
Very interesting.
“Should we off him?” Fabio asks from my side. “You wanted them to fight to the death and then the joke was whoever wins dies anyway. How d’you want it done?”
A second passes before I answer. “I’ll do it.”
I leave the control room and walk down the hall, back toward the cell. The door slides open to reveal Clay’s dead body punctured beyond repair by the knife I left behind.
Ernest is still on the floor, covered in blood, heaving out deep breaths. He looks up at me with a knowing gleam in his almost-black eyes.
“My turn,” he says with a resolute nod. “I knew that would be the case. Go ahead, Mancino. Do it. I have nothing left. My wife’s gone. My daughter and grandson are too. At least I… at least I… took out Clay before I went.”
“I see it now.”
His brows push together. “See… what?”
“The similarity,” I answer. “You do too, don’t you, DA? I can tell. It’s been on your mind the whole time you’ve been in this cell. It’s undeniable, even for someone as blinded as you—we’re alike, DA. Face it.”
He grimaces at my candid words. “We’re… we’re…”
“We’re alike,” I repeat, my lips almost quirking into a grin. “Maybe that’s why you hate me so much. I’m what you could’ve been had you followed in the footsteps of the corrupt members of your family and friends. You could’vebeenClay. You could’ve been the man Leontine truly loved. Just like Delphine truly loves me.”
He scrubs a hand over his face, his eyes wide like he’s seeing for the first time.
I don’t even need him to admit it aloud. I know him well enough to gauge his reaction.
Deep down, he knows it’s true.