The rideback to the clubhouse is somber. The sunrise is truly something, vibrant with pinks and oranges. And reds.
Red. The only color I’m able to see. The red is the same crimson color as the blood oozing from Conrad’s stomach.
I insert the knife into his stomach.
And I don’t realize the full extent of what I’ve done until he’s dead on the floor. Bleeding out.
The man who approached me in the grocery store parking lot a mere few weeks ago. Is dead. Because of me.
The king of the O’Neills.
The Venom Vultures clubhouse will be in deep shit as a result.
I clamber off the bike when we make it back with Otis still pressed into my chest. My knees buckle. If it wasn’t for Skipper rushing to catch me, I’d be ass over tit.
The guilt cuts through my chest like a…well. A knife to the chest.
The adrenaline was clouding my head. Carter was on the floor in a state I’d never seen him in before, sucking in what I thought was gonna be his last few breaths.
Otis was in Skipper’s arms, his innocent eyes peeled open as he watched everything unfold. Seeing gun violence on TV is enough to screw a toddler up real bad. But in real life? The damage could be irreversible.
Not to mention what happened after that…
I was teeming with anger. Felt it coursing through my veins like hot lava that had to come out. Conrad told my son who his father was, and I was meant to stand there and do nothing?
Anger drives you into insanity. I wasn’t Carmen in the warehouse. I was that crazy woman flapping on stage again, determined to do whatever it took to drag my son and myself out of hell.
And to my surprise, I won.
“Here. Let me take him.”
My first response is to tense up and turn the other way. Unless it’s Sadie I’m handing my son over to, I’m not interested.
But then I see Skipper’s steady arms and hand him over. He’s way more composed than I am about all of this.
“You need a minute alone,” he says.
He knows what I need more than I do.
“Um. S-sure.” I let go of my son. There’s no fight in me left.
For now.
I’m a killer. And if things had been different, I’d have killed more than one person last night.
Conrad is dead. But that doesn’t mean the O’Neill empire is. And just because Conrad’s dead, it doesn’t mean his words are in the grave with him.
He saw right through me. He cut me where it hurt.
He was manipulating me, but everything he said was true. I’m not a good mom. Good moms don’t tangle their children up with bad guys. They also don’t tend tomurderother people when their kids are watching.
Otis was in my house, undermycare.
And I left him unattended for a few hours.
I take a breath. The air is clean. An undeserving kind of clean.
I retch on it, thinking about Carter. Two bullet wounds in one leg? Are you kidding me?
