I raise the rock. My eyes bore into his, probing for evidence, for truth, for any reason to do what I know I must do. I hear my sister’s voice screaming at me. Imploring me. I have no other option.
“You killed her?”
“I killed her.”
I raise the rock, my eyes still buried deep within his, boring into him the same way I’d bore into a suspect in an interrogation. “Tell me again.”
“I killed your sister. I killed Vanessa.”
My grip on the rock tightens. I’m ready. With a long, last look, I see exactly what I’m after.
And I bring the rock down.
Chapter Fourteen
Reaper
In the swelling rage of her bitter brown eyes, I see everything I’ve hoped for. This isn’t the way I wanted to go — I wanted to go after settling things with Ruslan Volkov, to die knowing I’ve saved Vanessa’s sister from the Russian’s wrath — but maybe it’s better this way. Why should I get to choose how I go? Vanessa didn’t.
Adriana raises the rock, and I exhale, a soft sigh of relief.
This is it.
The right kind of death. One that will make things right for Vanessa. To give her the revenge that she deserves. A little something good to make up for all the things that I couldn’t give her when she was alive. When that rock arcs high above Adriana’s head, I shut my eyes and whisper a prayer to her.
“I’m sorry, baby.”
Thud.
Then silence except for Adriana’s heavy breathing.
I open my eyes. She stands in front of me, fists clenched tight, tears streaming down her cheeks, her lips quivering with a seismic mixture of sadness and fury.
“What the fuck are you doing? Pick that thing back up and kill me,” I say.
Instead, she punches me.
It rocks me backward, sends me flat on my ass in the dirt. She advances, and I look up at her as she towers over me, standing astride my chest like a colossus.
“I killed your sister. Vanessa’s dead because of me. Pick that fucking rock up and do what you came to do, you fucking bitch.”
Then she laughs, punctuating the mirthless staccato sound with a sharp punch and then raising her right foot and kicking me square in the face.
“You’re a lying piece of shit, Reaper. You’re a lying piece of shit, and there’s not a chance in hell that I’m going to kill you.”
Chapter Fifteen
Adriana
Shattered, bleeding, ready-to-die, Reaper lies on the ground beneath me. He may blame himself for Vanessa’s death, he may believe it to be true, but there’s one thing that he didn’t count on: that I’m too smart to fall for some fervent, self-deceiving bullshit no matter how good it sounds.
Those lies he tells himself?
They’re lies. And I’ve heard dozens more believable lies from dozens more crafty criminals and con-men than Ricky DeMarco. He might be a dangerous biker, a killer, he might be responsible for many other deaths, but he didn’t kill my sister.
I see it in his eyes; hear it in his voice; the way it shakes when he says her name; the way he looks away, ever so slightly, when he says he killed her.
And that little prayer?
