She set down her glass on a small end table near the chair where her purse was. She did not break eye contact with me as she went for said purse. “You, clearly, don’t know me, though. I was expecting you to—” Her hand must’ve felt around the purse and found nothing, because she stopped talking immediately.
On the far side of the room, Fang spoke as he twirled her small handgun around his finger, “Looking for this?”
The look on her face was priceless, and the way her spine snapped straight was something I’d always remember. She tossed a glance toward Fang, then returned her glare to me. “You didn’t come alone.” Even though she tried to hide it, the shock in her voice was plain, at least to me.
“Nope,” I said, slow in standing. “Guess maybe I’ve changed after all, huh?”
She knew she couldn’t possibly take out me and Fang together, not without a gun, so she turned and started a dashtoward the exit to the hall, but she only made it a few feet before Mike rounded the archway, his arms folded over his chest, making all the muscles there pop in quite the intimidating fashion.
Yeah, much as I hated to admit it, no one could stop people in their tracks like that guy.
Tessa swallowed, her eyes back on me. I grinned at her and said, “The old me never would’ve worked with these two, but you know, unlike you—my actual blood—they care about Laina as much as I do. They’d never lay a single finger on her with the goal of hurting her, which is so much more than I can say for you.”
She laughed, but it was a bitter sound. “You’re so full of it. You think you’re so righteous because you’re in love? Please. Don’t make me sick. You’ll get bored of her and wish you would’ve come to your senses sooner.”
I shook my head once as I approached her. “No, I won’t. We’re forever, something you won’t see. Now, if you don’t mind, I’m going to show you how to properly kidnap someone.”
She swore at me, and she made the mistake of turning around and trying to rush Mike. The guy was an immoveable object, a freaking mountain, so he was easily able to fend her off. And, since she’d given me her back, it made her an easy victim.
Never give someone your back.
I wrapped an arm around her body, pinning her arms to her sides, while my other arm went around her neck and squeezed. The former wasn’t the easiest thing to do with that silly belly around her stomach, but I managed.
Tessa fought me. She struggled. She tried to stomp her heels on my feet, but she missed—and with every second that passed, she grew weaker and weaker. She smacked the arm around her neck, wordlessly asking me to loosen my grip, but like she’d said: it was far too late for us. Whatever bond my sister and I hadbefore was done, finished, kaput. There would be no salvaging this.
It was like a weird déjàvu moment for me. This was exactly how I’d taken Laina all that time ago, only I’d hunkered down in her closet. Back then, I knew I couldn’t kill her, but I had no idea where things would go, how everything would end up.
Her body fell limp, and I waited a few more seconds before I released her and let her slump to the floor. I watched as her body collapsed, wishing I felt more smug, more satisfied. Sadly, I didn’t think I’d truly be satisfied until she was dead, buried in a hole somewhere, far away from Vance’s resting place.
“Well, that was easy,” Fang said as he tucked the gun into the waistband of his pants. “Time to load her up then?”
“Yeah,” I said. “Laina and Lola will be waiting. Go cut the power.”
Fang went to do as he was told. Mike, meanwhile, eyed me up as he said, “Let me guess, you want me to carry her?”
I grinned at him. “If you wouldn’t mind. I mean, I could, but you’re much more suited to carrying around bodies than I am.” It was sort of a compliment, if you ignored the tone of my voice when I said it.
He rolled his eyes but went to pick her up all the same. Seriously, it was like watching a giant pick up a puppy. He picked Tessa up like she weighed nothing, and limp as she was, she looked like a toy ragdoll in his arms. It was comical.
It took Fang a while to get the power shut off, but once he did, I dialed our lovely driver—a man named Harvey, who I’d gotten to know a bit better while working for Sylvester these lastfew months—and told him we were ready. The moment he showed up, the police outside would look the other way as Harvey pulled all the way up to the house.
Loading Tessa in the car was easy. Honestly, I only wished I could’ve done more. Bagging and tagging her was all fun andgames, sure, but the payoff didn’t belong to me. No, Laina had that honor, and when my sister woke up, she’d realize what a mess she was in, a mess she’d never escape from.
My sister was, for all intents and purposes, toast.
Goodbye, Tessa. See you in hell.
Chapter Twenty-Six – Laina
“You sure you’re ready for this?” Lola said, holding what I’d asked Viper to find in my house: my claws. The way she looked at me, I could tell she would be supportive of me either way. Hell, if I asked her to walk in that room and finish it for me, she would.
So would any of the guys, other than Jason.
But no. This was my plan, my idea. I wanted to see Tessa myself, to talk to her, to tell her exactly what was going to happen to her. I wanted to watch as the realization of it fully hit her. She might’ve been a good liar, but by now, she had to have known she lost.
She lost, and there would be no more games after this one. This time it was winner take all, and I planned on taking everything.
“I’m sure,” I said. My guys were outside, waiting to take me home after I had my little chat with Tessa. We were in an old house, one of many the Lucianos had transformed into holding cells, so to speak. When you were a high-profile mafia family, you never had a shortage of enemies or people who tried to steal from you. Places like this came in handy all the time. This specific location, however, would be mine for the foreseeable future.
