MyMia Rose.
The Artist green card had been mailed to my residence yesterday. Travis had brought it with—the first thing I’d asked to see. I had a way back and forth to the states. Mia had dual legal citizenship, with a little help from Lynch.
I fucking did it, and all I needed was for her to walk through those iron gates so we could get married and go home.
Where areyou, love?
“Are you sure you said three?” Travis asked. His heavy glare did nothing to ease the ache rising inside my chest. I couldn’t think under all the weight, and I leaned over the hood of his car and tried to breathe. The burn in my chest only intensified with each passing second.
“She’s coming.” I opened the door and set the bouquet of roses over the passenger side. The clock read ten minutes past three. The air was still cold, but sweat pricked my forehead. “She’ll be here.”
Epilogue
“In the wakeof death,
a monsterwas born.
His namewas Karma,
and he cravedrevenge.”
—Oliver Masters
Ethan.
THERE WAS FIVE STAGES OF GRIEF. Psychologists had fucking figured it out in five bloody stages. I had passed denial a long time ago, but never reached bargaining—stuck in a continuous cycle of Anger.
Anger, my most trusted and loyal friend. I could count on Anger. It was there when I woke up. It was there when I closed my eyes. Anger even took me in my sleep. The rage had become a part of me—a monster—and I fed that bloody beast every godforsaken day.
Sixteen Months Ago
It had been a year since I’d walked up the steps of Dolor, but it seemed like just yesterday I saw her face.
“Don’t you look snazzy in your new uniform,” Livy says. “Are youegg-cited? I’m so proud of you.” Her hand grabs mine as she always did to get my attention, and a small smile washes over her face as she looks up at me with matching blue eyes. Her use ofegg-citedstarted one year on Easter when we were younger, but it had bled into an all year thing between the two of us.
I know Livy is proud of me, but I’m mad at her at the moment. She was taking off to a reformatory school to get help. She said I wouldn’t understand, but one day I would. And all I see now as she smiles up at me in admiration is the fact she did not trust me enough to confide in me. We were supposed to be family. We were supposed to be in this shittogether.
The least I could have done was thank her, smile, or given her a lick of appreciation or acknowledgement, but I had walked away, holding onto a fucking grudge against her.
A bloody fucking year.
If only I’d known what I knew now.
I waited outside the door for Lynch, when, finally, the door creaked open and he greeted me with an outstretched hand. It took me a second to swallow the beast inside and shake his hand—it took everything. Even while shaking his hand, I wanted to snap his wrist for not doing the one thing he’d promised: Keep Livy safe.
“Mia is important to me,”he had said over the phone when he had called me for help about a matter. I hadn’t spoken to the chap since Livy’s death, and he had the nerve to call me with a favor. I should’ve told him to go fuck himself. Livy had been important to me, too. She had been in his care, his responsibility. He was supposed to help Livy. She was the only family I had left, and here I fucking am, back at Dolor because he needed me.
Little did Lynch know, I had other plans in mind.
My heart warned me with every step I took up the stairs as I followed Lynch. It told me it would leave me too if I continued this path of vengeance, but the monster inside shut that bastard up.
Side by side, we walked past Livy’s old wing. I turned my eyes away, anything to lessen the blow and shield myself from the memories threatening to resurrect. I’d kept those memories locked up, but now the monster inside pounded against my skull, rattling in its cage, thirsty for redemption.
Not yet, my dear friend. Your timewill come.
Livy’s death had reminded me there were no second chances. No rewinds. No going back in time to erase the damage. You only have one chance, and I’d missed it by a long shot.
Late, without so much as a decent excuse.
