you feel like less of a fuck up. First, that street whore and now my defective daughter.”
My jaw feels ready to crack, the might in which I’m holding it shut strong enough to split stone. The ridge of my fury is ready to spill over like a volcano, violence my own reign of lava. The trust Dominic forced upon me forgotten about, my need to kill clouding my vision.
“Anyone ever told you to live in the moment, Shay. That focusing on the past will only drown you.”
“Kendall,” I ground out, my voice like sandpaper. “Where is she?”
She laughs at me. An ear-piercing chuckle that leaves me cold.
I surge forward, unable to control myself, my hand wrapping around her throat before she can register what’s happened. Her skin is warmer than I imagined it. I pictured the cold touch of death to coat her skin. Instead, the thick, healthy rhythm of her pulse throbs under my touch. The wildfire in her eyes dies out, replaced by tears of pain, the blue staring back at me glossed over in evidence of her lack of control.
Still, I feel five steps behind her, waiting for the penny to drop and my world to fall away.
“Shay.”
Pulling my gun from the waist of my jeans, I hold it up to Tivoli, halting his movements. He contemplates me for a beat, feet balancing over the threshold of the shitty apartment.
My hand, still eagerly wrapped around Sarah Rein’s throat tightens in panic.
She smiles—the psychotic bitch—barely able to pull a full breath, grins at me in triumph. I grip harder, shooting my eyes back to Dominic’s man, my chest expanding in want as I feel Sarah struggle to breathe under my palm.
Her eyes bulge in her face, looking too big to be normal. The sickly shade of her skin is marred with large, red blotches, teasing me with the promise of how she’d look dying slowly at my hand.
Hands raised in surrender, Tivoli looks unaffected by the scene before him. He expected this. Or maybe Rein did. Either way, he’s not surprised or panicked by the barrel of my gun aimed at his heart.
“Get out,” I command, my fingers twitching to close completely around the slim line of Sarah’s neck, wanting to steal the last of her breath completely.
It’d be so easy. Two to three minutes and she’d pass out, a few more and she’d be as good as dead. Rid from the world and more importantly, my nightmares.
I feel out of my depth. Control slipping from my resolve with every second that passes blindly by. I’m better than this. I’ve trained myself to be better. I’m the cunt that laughs at the motherfuckers who get caught in their heads, unwilling and unable to foresee their own downfall.
“You know I can’t do that,” Tivoli murmurs, edging closer.
I crack my neck in unfiltered rage. For the first time in my life, I don’t know what to do. I’m strung up, held between my savage need for vengeance and my newly formed fucking conscience.
The thought of killing Sarah Rein has been at the top of my to-do list from the moment Marcus stepped foot into my apartment, unfurling the truth like a never-ending ribbon.
I want this.
I fucking deserve this.
I was convinced I needed it.
Not anymore.
Dominic’s trust aside, doesn’t he fucking deserve a slice of the pie? He had to live with this piece of shit for years, knowing she was betraying him. He lived in fear that she’d steal his daughter away. She and Marcus ruined my life, but she forced Dominic to live in hell for years.
Confident Tivoli won’t jump me and force my hand before I’m ready, I turn my full attention back to Sarah.
“Why’d you do it? Lila? Why did she have to die?”
She stares at me blankly before opening her mouth to speak. My hand, too tight around her neck, cuts off her ability to make a sound. It makes me smile and pisses me off all at once. I enjoy using her like a puppet, knowing her waste of a life is so feeble in my hands. I feel like a god, her completely at my unbalanced mercy. But I want answers. I want to hear her traitorous mouth tell me why she thought she could play God with my mom’s life.
I reluctantly loosen my grip and she sucks in a thick breath, almost choking on it.
“I should’ve known you’re fucking useless. Of course, Dominic found me. You’re just the little bitch he sent to bring