"Too bad, I have the gun, don't I?" Dean O'Sullivan shrugged, he was talking at a slow and calm pace like he was having small talks about the weather, "Listen, what we want is simple, kill Romeo and that's all you need to do."
"I never believed that monsters are real until I met you." Said Velika O'Sullivan with a smirk, then she turned to Astoria Leontes, "Do you trust someone like this?"
"That's not something you need to take into consideration," Astoria Leontes smiled, a smile that Velika O'Sullivan so used to see and know it wasn't out of good intentions, "Just do your job if you want your son to be safe."
Before Velika O'Sullivan could say another word, the wood door of the house was pushed open, and within a blink of a second, she heard gunfire, and Astoria Leontes fell on the floor. It was at the same second that Dean O'Sullivan pulled Landon Hetherington against him and pointed his gun as his ex-wife's new husband.
It was Romeo Leontes and Adelaide Henderson, the woman who Velika O'Sullivan admired for so long and yet to meet, and she never expected to meet her idol under this situation. The atmosphere in the room was oddly exquisite. Romeo Leontes shot his sister-in-law and now was aiming at Dean O'Sullivan, Adelaide Henderson was aiming at both Velika O'Sullivan and Daniel Heinrich.
"One happy family reunion." Said Romeo Leontes coldly, "What makes you think that everything would work the way you expected? This was the most delicate trap that I've ever set. Thanks to Ade."
"You were behind all these?" Asked Daniel Heinrich with disbelieve, how could he got set up by someone without knowing it.
"Romeo approached me and told me that my husband is working for Valentine, and he needed my help," Said Adelaide Henderson, she had a soft yet firm voice that was naturally convincing, "So I agreed. Bryce is an old friend of mine, so I told him that I have the intension to save Velika, and I know that he would not only tell Velika but also Astoria, as that is who Bryce is as a person. Then, it was in my calculations that Heinrich would visit and Astoria would find out everything about Valentine, then tag Dean O'Sullivan along with her. All I had to do was meet up with Romeo, and whoa-la, we are all here today, aiming at each other."
"I thought you wanted this to be over with, and that you don't want to be involved in this business no matter what the cost is." Daniel Heinrich said with rage, this petite brunette was unpredictable, he didn't know how much of her words that he could take into account.
"True, and that's why," Adelaide Henderson said with a nifty smile, suddenly she turned her gun and shot Romeo Leontes in his chest when he fell on the floor with shock, she continued, "I'm sorry Romeo, you and your family are just insane and I have to protect my own family from this insanity."
Then she threw one of her guns to Daniel Heinrich, pulled another pistol from her pocket, and threw to Velika O'Sullivan, the one used to belong to Blake Konigsberg. And the next second, everyone was targeting Dena O'Sullivan, who had Landon Hetherington against him as his last line of defense.
"Let Landon go." Velika O'Sullivan said coldly, still gritting her teeth, "Let him go."
"You would kill me for him? How pathetic." Dean O'Sullivan smirked again, "Remember, I have your son on the line."
Another gunfire disrupted his words, it was Astoria Leontes struggling to get up and shot Adelaide Henderson in her leg, and Adelaide Henderson quickly returned the shot but hitting her former boss in the chest. In between this short chaos, Dean O'Sullivan got slightly distracted which allow Daniel Heinrich to shoot his arm, he then let go of Landon Hetherington, who was pulled aside swiftly by Velika O'Sullivan. She then followed and shot Dean O'Sullivan on his right shoulder.
She walked up to her ex-husband, who was on the floor struggling in pain, picked up his phone and said:
"This is Velika O��Sullivan, I have your boss under control if you want to stay alive, leave my son Laken alone."
She then passed the phone to Daniel Heinrich, let him handle the rest. Kneeling on Dean O'Sullivan's side, she said, in the coldest tone that she ever had:
"I loved you, Dean. But you are the most pathetic human being that I have ever encountered in my life. You took me as ab object and thought that I would be loyal, or obsessed to you as long as I have my last breath. This is where you fail, you don't even know that I took advantage of your blind ego, drag along in it. If you ever loved me right, treated me right, we would not be in this state today. But the past is the past, and we should let it be. I would not kill you, for the sake of that we were once married, but if you ever dared to harm the ones that I love, I will hunt you down."
She turned around, held her husband's hand, and walked away, left Dean O'Sullivan on the floor with the Leontes. Daniel Heinrich helped Adelaide Henderson to get up, and they all walked through the door, to a brave new future.
It was dark outside, but there were lights among the clouds.
###
What happened after this was simple, they returned to Los Angeles. At first Velika O'Sullivan was intended to shut down Natural, but out of a large number of people worked there, she couldn't decide to close the whole division down. So, Daniel Heinrich and she decided to take over and run the company like it was intended to when it was first started back in the old Leontes days. Valentine was shut down and all the experiments were aborted, subjects were sent to hospitals for treatment. Kyle Henderson recommended Aaron Carling to be appointed as a professor at the university he worked at.
Landon Hetherington decided to move to Los Angeles, took Laken Hetherington with him. It had been too long for the family to be separated and he knew that his son needed his mother. He found a better position in the new city, trying to live an ordinary life, aside from the part that his beloved wife was the boss at an assassination agency. But he accepted the fact that was who Velika O'Sullivan, or Velika Hetherington was, and that she was the best at her side of the world. He had also resolved his conflict with Aaron Carling, and Aaron Carling forgave the twisted fact that his adopted son married his old lover. They started keeping in contact more often, and the Hetherington's would visit Aaron Carling when holidays came around. Clarabelle Lewis was sent to a care facility and was fully recovered after several months, she and Daniel Heinrich decided to reignite their past, without all the black-market business and dirty assassination work. She was now trying to go back to school for a degree in nursing, which was his passion before she joined all the craziness.
"I'm glad that we didn't become lovers, Heinrich, even if I wasn't married with a child." Said Velika Hetherington lightly when they were sitting outside on a bench, enjoying their coffee break and the warm sunlight, "Or everything will become more complicated than it already was."
"That would add on to all the drama that we already had," Daniel Heinrich laughed and gave her a wink, it had been so long since he had a genuine laugh, "Though I have to admit, at one point I thought I fell in love with you, O'Sullivan."
"It's Hetherington." Velika O'Sullivan laughed too, but didn't acknowledge Daniel Heinrich's statement, she stretched her arms, "It's so nice to be myself."
"What was your name before you were Velika O'Sullivan?" Asked Daniel Heinrich out of curiosity.
Velika Hetherington was about to answer, but then she swallowed back what she was about to say: "It doesn't matter, I'm Velika now, and will only be Velika."
Sometimes when she was free, she wondered where the man named her was. She hadn't heard anything about him ever since they left the house on the island. However, it wasn't under her concern, as long as he didn't preach her boundaries. For the first time in years, she felt free, like the burden that she had been carrying for the past almost a decade finally faded away, and all she had in front of her was a bright future and a life that she truly wanted.
With a light heart, she stood up and tossed her coffee cup in the trash can:
"Let's get to work, Heinrich, time won't wait for you."
Her partner in crime rolled up his green eyes, with a smile, he followed her.