A lot of good it did me, in hindsight.
I should get those apologies back.
“For a man with so many filthy dealings, you still look clean,” I speak through uneven breaths, fighting through the pain with a forced smile. “Must be all the money.”
It’s true, just like that day, he looks like he’s never held a gun a day in his life.
But I suppose underworld financiers don’t need to hold guns or learn how to kill.
Money is their weapon.
And money can always be cleaned.
Money kills all on its own.
“And for a violent Taiga brat, you’ve given me a lot of trouble,” he huffs through his nose with obvious indifference, before pulling out his phone.
His men tie harsh, tight ropes around my hands, knees and ankles, before taping my mouth. They do the same with Baal and the other men, who I’m impressed are still alive, before more of them enter the room—more enemies.
When they throw my mother to the floor, hands tied and mouth taped like the rest of us, her expression is wild and vicious.
But when she sees Aster’s body, the fight vanishes from her eyes instantly.
She stumbles. Her eyes widen… and the grief—the denial—in her energy makes my heart sting.
She crawls to him and I glare at August as she does—as he takes his photos from a cheap phone.
“With this, the Taiga family is done.” He snaps the phone shut. “And there’ll be a new legacy for this city.”
Mama’scries, even through the tape, are visceral. It burns my eyes and a similar agony rises up in my chest to meet hers as she grieves.
This can’t be the end of it.
There’s no way this could possibly be the end.
The hatred in my eyes doesn’t recede, even when August raises his hand, giving the order for his men to raise their weapons.
Even if I die here, I’ll haunt them all.
I’ll follow them around like a curse and take them to their graves as a ghost.
But the moment they prep their weapons, I’m seeing a familiar face in my mind’s eye.
A vivid vision of a shapeshifter I love.
Whose energies are pure and beautiful.
Suddenly, he’s passing through my memories like a moving photo. His smile. His ferocity. His exasperation. His voice.
His love.
And for the smallest of seconds—
I don’t want to die.
I want to see him again.
The regret—thesadness—is so sudden, it’s unexpected. It’s so intense, that for the first time… I am afraid of death.
