We’d done it. We finally caught the Snake, ending his terror. I still couldn’t fucking believe it. Maybe it would eventually sink in tomorrow, but for right now, I was near delirious.
Killian and Dante went to search the bodies for a pair of keys to get us the hell home. I waited in the parking lot, the past hour still reeling through my mind. Tomorrow, I’d send a few guys over to deal with the bodies, but for now, I just wanted to get home. The sun had already started to rise, washing the sky in pastels of pinks and oranges. Clouds lazily flit through the air, completely oblivious to the tragedy below.
They returned minutes later, keys in hand. Dante hit the alarm, figuring out what car they belonged to. When the first town car beeped, he shut it off, popping the trunk instead.
We drove in total silence. I didn’t think it had hit us yet what we’d just done. That all of this shit was finally over, and we could go back to normal. Or as normal as we possibly could after everything that had happened. I couldn’t even think about what our futures would look like right then. Exhaustion weighed me down, and all I could think about was getting home to sleep for the next week or so.
As Dante pulled onto the highway, I reached over, taking his hand in mine. He gave it a squeeze, eyes locked on the road. The morning light fell across his face in a soft glow, making him look more like an avenging angel than a human, and my heart skipped a beat.
“Dante, where are you going?” I shot him an odd look.
He frowned. “Back to the safe house?”
“We can go home,” I pointed out.
He nearly stomped on the brakes when the realization hit him. We didn’t have to return to the safe house…we were finally safe. He glanced over at me, the turn to get off the highway coming up. “Are you sure you want to go back there?”
I glanced out the window, shoulders dropping. “I’m sure. It’s time to go home.”
37
SIENNA
Even after crawling into bed, I hadn’t been able to sleep. My mind had been going too fast for me to even think about sleeping, and my thoughts kept turning back to what had happened the past few hours. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw her. I watched the bullet dig into her skull, watched as her eyes widened in surprise before the light fled from them. I could hear the thud of her body hitting the deck echoing around the room.
Dante had passed out right away, snoring softly into the pillow. I’d laid there for a few hours, staring up at the ceiling until I couldn’t lay there any longer. Slipping from the covers carefully, I’d slipped out of the room without waking him up. I’d made a cup of coffee, then another, and I’d been waiting here on the couch ever since. For what? I had no idea. For the pain to disappear, maybe. For the memories to suddenly melt away. But they didn’t, even as the minutes ticked by into hours.
A part of me was still mourning the woman I’d thought was my best friend. But, that girl wouldn’t have been killed for betraying her best friend.
That woman, the one who had spied and plotted, didn’t even deserve to be buried. She deserved to be incinerated until there was nothing left of her but ash. She didn’t deserve the memories. She didn’t deserve the grief I felt.
But I couldn’t stop myself from feeling as if I’d lost everything.
And my mother…
Just thinking about it sent a fresh wave of pain rushing through me. I gasped, trying to take a breath, my heart thudding against my ribs painfully. But I welcomed the pain. Because that meant that I could still feelsomething.That Gemma and Mateo hadn’t turned me into a complete monster.
I’d sent word to my mother’s cousins in California. We were supposed to hear back from them soon about what had happened out there. Gemma didn’t deserve a fucking burial, but my mother? She deserved everything.
My eyes squeezed shut as I tried to block out the images of Gemma dropping to the deck, of her blood slowly pooling beneath her. I tried to ignore the ghostly feeling of the gun in my hand, of my finger pulling the trigger. The sound of the gunshot still echoed in my ears even now, making my stomach churn. It wasn’t the first time that morning that I found myself in the bathroom, burning my throat as I tossed what little was in my stomach into the toilet.
Groaning, I sat back against the bathtub, fingers raking through my hair. I knew that it had to be done. Gemma couldn’t live after betraying me like that, just as Mateo couldn’t. If they had, it would undermine my power as Don, and I couldn’t let that happen. Not when we were weak from Mateo’s games.
“Are you alright?”
Whipping around, I found Dante leaning against the door frame, watching me with dark eyes. “I’m fine,” I snapped, feeling a headache coming on.
“You didn’t have to be the one to do that,” he said, a dark shadow passing over his eyes. I knew exactly what he was talking about.
“Yes.” I tried to stand, my legs still shaking. He reached out, helping me up. “I did. It was my mistake to fix. They were my responsibility.” I avoided looking at him, keeping my gaze locked on the kitchen counter. Dante moved closer, wrapping his arms around me.
He was still watching me, scanning my face, but for what, I didn’t know. “You don’t have to act like it doesn’t hurt, Sienna.”
I turned away from him, hiding my face. Damn him. “It doesn’t.”
I could feel the heat of his body against my back, his breath tickling my neck. Soft fingers brushed down my arms, barely a whisper of his touch. “You can’t blame yourself.”
“It’s not that simple,” I bit out, feeling the anger tear through me. “I can’t help but feel that it’s my fault. That I didn’t see how she felt and ignored her all these years. That I didn’t see Mateo’s betrayal coming. It’s like I failed.”