How to Stay Afloat

~42: Where She Gets Caught in the Middle~

CHAPTER 42:

Where She Gets Caught in the Middle

I could feel my heart pounding in my chest. A chill ran down my spine, settling into the tense atmosphere of the room.

He motioned at me with the gun, a silent command that sent shivers down my spine.

"Step back," the man warned, his voice carrying a dangerous undertone.

Mr. Hastings stood up from his desk, a mixture of defiance and fear etched on his face.

"Who the hell are you, and what do you want?" he demanded, attempting to mask the subtle tremor in his voice.

The strange man's eyes flicked from me to Mr. Hastings, and his lips curled into a sneer.

"Oh, you don't remember who I am?" he chuckled coldly. "I suppose that's not too surprising. After all, people like us mean so little to you. You believe you can do whatever you want to us and then keep on living your perfect life."

"I don't know who you think I am, but—" Mr. Hastings started, interrupted abruptly.

"Shut up and sit down!" The man's voice boomed, and he raised his gun in Mr. Hastings's direction. His hands were shaking, and his eyes briefly darted toward me. "You too, sit down. If anyone tries to leave this room, I shoot."

The blood in my veins turned to ice, and I could see the color draining from Mr. Hastings's face.

Slowly, I walked back toward the chair I'd been sitting on. My eyes never left the man.

"I'll jog your memory, don't worry," he spat out, returning his attention to Mr. Hastings.

"Remember Marianna Johansen?" The mere mention of her name caused Mr. Hastings's entire body to go rigid. Fear and panic danced in his eyes.

"What happened to that girl was a tragedy, but it has nothing to do with me, I assure you," Mr. Hastings stammered.

I tried to push down the panic that threatened to consume me.

The deranged man chuckled coldly, "You know, one of the jurors who'd been bribed during the trial recently got out of jail." Mr. Hastings's hand started to tremble, and the man smiled. "I managed to track him down. You know what he confessed to me while he was begging for his life? It wasn't the lawyer who'd offered them the bribe; it had been his father. You." His eyes flashed dangerously, "You even paid him a truckload of money to keep his mouth shut and go to jail for a couple of years."

Suddenly, my mind raced with the things Archer had told me about Jordan.

Damien O'Malley, Derek O'Malley's son—the person who was on trial for murder—was a skinny nineteen-year-old boy, and Jordan believed he was innocent when he talked to him.

Everyone told Jordan that it was a lost cause, but he took it anyway. To everyone's shock, he managed to win. A week later, Damien O'Malley was found bent over the bloody and beaten body of a poor thirteen-year-old girl, confessing to all three murders on tape in exchange for a reduced sentence.

An investigation later revealed that the jury had been bribed in Damien's initial trial—the trial Jordan had won. The payments were made anonymously and in cash, never officially tying the bribe to anyone, but people immediately blamed Jordan. The hate he received only grew after that.

I could feel the blood rushing in my ears, my heart threatening to burst out of my chest. What this man was saying—it couldn't be true.

"Tell him it's not true," I whispered, desperation creeping into my voice. But even as I said the words, the puzzle pieces started to make sense in my head. Mr. Hastings refused to look at me or respond.

Rage and anger consumed me. "How could you?" I demanded. "Even after you saw what your actions did to Jordan, how could you just sit there and stay silent like a coward!" My entire body trembled.

"Whatever I did, I did for his benefit!" Mr. Hastings' voice suddenly boomed. "He was going to lose the most high-profile case of this century and ruin our family legacy and his career. I was just trying to help him." 

I shook my head in bewilderment and disgust. "You are truly deluded if you believe that."

"I will kill you! You took away the most precious thing in my life. Now you will die, alone and afraid, just like she did." The man's voice shook with unadulterated grief and rage.

My attention turned to him in an instant. 

 "She was your daughter, wasn't she?" My voice was gentle when I spoke.

The man kept his hate-filled gaze trained on Mr. Hastings, but his eyes flitted to me for a moment and gave me a jerky nod. "Will you tell me your name?" I asked softly.

"Isaac Johansen," he whispered.

"Isaac," I said carefully, the gun in his hand still aimed at Mr. Hastings.

"Isaac," I repeated his name, louder this time. His bloodshot eyes turned to me.

"This will not bring her back, and it won't bring you peace," I told him. The weight of the words hung in the air, a melancholy truth that needed to be acknowledged. "Taking another life won't heal the wounds, Isaac."

I took a step closer, mindful of the tension in the room. "There are other ways to find justice, to make him pay for what he did."

Isaac's grip on the gun tightened, but there was a flicker of uncertainty in his eyes. "He deserves to suffer."

"And he will," I assured him, my voice steady. "But killing him won't fix what has been broken. It won't undo the pain. There are legal avenues, a system for people like Mr. Hastings."

Isaac's eyes wavered, torn between vengeance and reason. "You don't understand," he spat out, the pain in his words palpable.

I swallowed, "I do understand. I lost my family too and for the longest time I let all the hurt and anger I felt take over my life only to realize that those things were actually what were preventing me from healing."

A look of uncertainty passed over Isaac's face as he slowly started to lower his gun. I gave him an encouraging nod, hoping to sway him toward reason. However, out of the corner of my eye, I noticed Mr. Hastings quietly reaching under his desk.

He pulled something out.

My eyes widened in horror as I watched him retract his hand, and something small and metallic flashed in the dim light. It all happened so fast, the atmosphere charged with a sudden tension.

I watched in shock as Mr. Hastings aimed, his gun trained at Isaac's head.

"Stop!" I found myself screaming, the urgency in my voice slicing through the silence that had descended upon the room.

I leaped out of my seat.

The sound of a gunshot echoed.