Closing my eyes, I beat back tender feelings threatening to bloom. “Tell me what to say,” I reply, taking a seat opposite her. She slides the pen and paper at me and starts talking. Using my latex-covered hands, I’m slower than I should be, but she doesn’t mind repeating herself. I almost believe her fake apologies until the end of the letter when she tells me to blame the kids being born for her going off the deep end. “I won’t write that,” I say.
“Then that’s it,” Bethany snips.
I add a sentimental message at the end. “Can you sign your name?”
She snatches it from me, and Reggie moves closer. She scribbles her name. “They know I can’t write and that it wasn’t me who did this.”
“Is it because you can’t read?”
“What does that matter?”
“Because I couldn’t read. I learned recently. It was something wrong with my brain. It wasn’t my fault.”
“You are fucked up like me,” she says, grinning. There’s black rimming her teeth, making her smile look like a horror movie.
I stand, pushing away from the table and backing away. “Murder-suicide instead of the initial plan,” I state. “Bring the boyfriend in.”
My men bring in her disgusting boyfriend who is clearly petrified. My stomach lurches when I see the scorpion tattoo on his left hand. Ronnie. The Ronnie. “Where is your gun?” I ask him when he’s on the other side of the kitchen, being held at the threshold. Reggie doesn’t want him anywhere near me. I know he has one because one glance tells me exactly what kind of man he is.
“It’s in the bedroom. Nightstand on the left side of the bed.”
“Get it,” I order a guard. He comes back with it and drops it into my gloved hand while telling me there’s a round in the chamber. Bethany is screaming at Ronnie to save her while Reggie ties her back up. She looks terrified, but not enough. Folding her letter, I slide it into an envelope along with the image proving her guilt in Wyatt’s murder. I slide the envelope over her tongue while she is yelling, press it closed, and order a guard to put it in the mailbox with the flag up.
“Ronnie, do you want to kill your child-murdering girlfriend?”
He shakes his head and speaks. “She planned it all. She wanted more. She thought we could get rich off of the fight with her brother, that Jesse would lose for her. She had so much riding on that fight. When Jesse won, she had nothing. Then she heard about the fight with Riley Astor and knew Jesse would win. This would be her redemption. I love her. I have always loved her. She made me watch, become a co-conspirator. Then she made me put everything I had on Jesse and his new fight. It was our proverbial way out.” The words fall out of his mouth like vomit. A trip to confession years in the making.
It couldn’t have worked out any more perfect. A small smile lifts the corners of my mouth.
“Please,” Reggie drawls. “Let me.” He extends his hand.
“No, justice matters,” I say, ignoring Bethany’s wails of cussing and protests. “Gas the place. I don’t want anything left.”
“You don’t have to do it, ma’am.”
I aim the gun like I practiced at the range down at the docks—like I practiced a hundred times since I knew this moment would come to fruition. “Any last words?”
She’s jerking around, desperately trying to get out of the binding, her face red from screaming. It makes it easier now that she resembles a wild animal. Taking a step forward, I bring the gun to her stomach. “He’s too weak to kill you with one shot,” I whisper.
“Drew, please. No,” she whispers.
She knew. She knew all along. I pull the trigger. Blood blooms on her stomach, and a wave of disbelief rolls over me. I did it. I fire again in her shoulder, then bring the gun to her head and shoot. Silence descends. I can hear my men spreading the cans of gasoline that came from the back of Johnny’s truck.
With a shaking hand, I hand Reggie the gun. “Make it look like a suicide as best you can.”
“Are you okay?” he asks lowly.
“I’m fine. I’ll be at our car. Burn it down. All the way down. All the fucking way down.” I swallow down emotion. “The mailbox needs to be intact.”
Reggie nods. I tighten the belt on my coat and exit into the night. My breathing is rapid, and I let a few tears cut down my face because I killed someone. You killed a monster, I remind myself. It feels different than I thought it would. I’ve witnessed so much death since joining the family that I thought I’d feel nothing, except right now, I feel liberated. Proud. I look up at the night sky and hope Jesse’s soul has peace. I finished it. It went down in flames the same way it began. The day his life was destroyed, and today is the day his revenge is complete. I see the SUV down the street as I walk toward my own vehicle which is secluded on a side road.
I suck in breaths as fear tingles my spine and flips my stomach. The lights are off, and the SUV is blacked out. I break into a sweat. No one is supposed to be out here. It’s why Reggie stayed behind to see it through. I can’t let anything happen to myself because it will be Reggie’s head. I slide my hand into my pocket and turn the safety off on the pistol that resides there. The passenger side door opens, and a large figure sweeps into the darkness. I recognize his frame, and I realize this could be worse than some seedy gang member pissed I killed Bethany and Ronnie.
It’s Riley. My steps slow as I decide what to do. He knows it’s me, and he knows what I’ve done, I’m sure. The location alone would give it away. The smoke billows behind me so thick and cloying it will be seen and smelled for miles.
Yanking my coat’s belt nervously, I bite my lip when Riley’s golden gaze lights on me. “I had a loose end to tie up,” I explain.
Riley stares at me for a few silent moments. “Is it done, then?”