I recognized my ex-husband Marcus the second he stepped out of room 1402 at the Grand Monarch Hotel, holding hands with his new fiancé.
The heavy steel doors of the Velvet Lounge burst open, showering the dim interior with the blinding flash of police lights. Sergeant Carla Jenkins, her face grim and determined, led a team of tactical officers through the wreckage. The smell of gunpowder was thick in the air.
Inside Duke’s office, Commander Hollis, still holding his smoking service weapon, was tackled to the carpet. He struggled briefly, then was cuffed, his face pale and slack with shock. He was positioned beside Duke’s lifeless body, which lay sprawled across the desk, a silent testament to his abrupt end.
I crawled from behind the sofa, my body trembling. My eyes fixed on Duke. He was gone. The man who had haunted my life, who had murdered my brother, was finally dead. But the closure I craved, the answers I needed, remained elusive.
I stumbled over to the desk, ignoring the officers, ignoring Hollis, ignoring everything but Duke. I grabbed his collar, pulling his head slightly forward. His eyes were open, staring blankly at the ceiling.
“Where is he?” I screamed, my voice raw, choked with tears. “Duke! Where is Malik buried? Tell me! Please, tell me!”
His mouth worked silently, his lips moving as if to form words. A faint, almost imperceptible whisper escaped him, but it was nothing coherent, nothing I could understand. His eyes, fixed on some unseen point, slowly faded. The last flicker of life left him.
He died. Without a word. Taking the secret of Malik’s final resting place to his grave. The weight of that unresolved loss pressed down on me, heavy and suffocating.
Paramedics rushed in, wheeling Hollis away on a gurney, his face still etched with shock and defeat. Sergeant Jenkins looked at me, her expression a mix of triumph and profound regret.
As the chaos slowly began to subside, a sharp, searing pain erupted in my lower abdomen. My breath hitched. Another pang, stronger this time, twisting through me. My hands flew to my belly. The baby. Seven weeks early.
I cried out, collapsing onto the blood-stained carpet in the hallway, the world spinning around me. The red and blue lights flashing through the shattered windows seemed to pulse with my pain, illuminating the abrupt, unfinished end to my long war.
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