scoffed, his posture far too relaxed. "It's not slut-shaming, Maddie, it’s just the fucking truth. You're so dumb, you know that? People out there are trying to kill you, and all it takes is a text from a trusted number to make you open the door. How stupid can you be? That's why, Maddie. That's why you'll only ever be good for fucking. God knows your brain isn't worth shit." With each insult he spat, he was inching closer. He thought I hadn't noticed, but really...
"I'm fucking done with this, Scott," I told him in a flat, emotionless voice. "I'm done with you terrorizing me. I'm done with the packages and the phone calls and the photos. I'm done. Kiss my ass, motherfucker."
Bang.
The gun kicked in my hand, but my aim was true. Scott inching closer had made sure of that for me. The bullet hit him clean between the eyes and sent his body sprawling across the black and white tiles of the foyer.
For a moment, I stayed exactly where I was, my gun aimed at Scott's body. But when the puddle of blood began to spread, I decided he wasn't getting back up to grab me like in a horror movie. I gingerly stepped over his legs and hurried down the hallway to the gym, where the music had just shut off.
The door burst open as I arrived, and all three guys rushed into the corridor, probably having heard the gunshot.
"Um," I said, licking my lips and looking down at the gun still clenched in my hand. "Something happened."
47
The guys cleaned up my crime scene with professional efficiency. There was no suggestion to call the police. Not only were almost all of them under the payroll of one of Shadow Grove's gangs, Scott's brother was a cop. Even with all the guys’ connections and payoffs, it was unlikely Shane could be kept quiet.
Kody found Dallas’s phone in Scott’s pocket, and a quick call to the hospital confirmed he was still there by Bree’s side, totally unaware anyone had stolen his phone. He hadn’t planned to leave the hospital until visiting hours were over in another hour.
Archer called his security guys—the ones watching Scott's house—and told them what'd happened in a rather abridged version of events. He also told them to search the property fully and subdue anyone who interfered.
"Why bother?" I asked when he hung up the call. I sat on the bottom step of the stairs, watching with cold detachment as Kody and Steele wrapped Scott's body in plastic sheeting and scrubbed the blood and brain matter off the walls and marble floor. The Persian rug in the entryway was a lost cause, though, so they just rolled it up and stacked it beside the body.
Scott's body. My stalker's body.
Archer crouched down in front of me, his body blocking the sight of the plastic-wrapped dead man that I'd been staring at.
"He could have been a copycat stalker," he told me quietly, repeating his theory we'd discussed previously, "or he could have been working with someone. I want any scrap of evidence from inside his home to be sure."
Dread washed through me, and I felt my face drain of blood. Another stalker?
Archer was quick to reassure me, though. "I doubt that's the case. The tone of all his messages was possessive, obsessed. People like that don't share, and the terminology was all wrong. It was mine not ours." He stroked my hair back behind my ear. "Searching his place is just a precaution, okay?"
I nodded, still trapped in a weird halfway point between terrified and numb as fuck. He leaned in to kiss my forehead, and I let my eyelids close briefly. I was so damn tired, but this... this was the beginning of the end. Wasn't it? My stalker was gone. Dead. Now I just needed to get the hit on me canceled, and it was smooth sailing forever.
Right? That was how these things were meant to work out? The bad guys got caught, killed, dealt with in some way, and then the heroine gets to skip off into the sunset for her happily ever after?
I snickered out loud at that thought. Bree always defined her storybook happily ever after as the main character getting marriage and babies in the end. It was something we’d had many, many arguments about—because shouldn't a kickass woman who'd saved the world deserve more? But I was fast coming to terms with the fact that people’s perceptions of happily ever after