“What the hell are you talking about? I had nothing to do with Afrim’s death!”
The fact that he’s not even trying to deny his involvement in my mother’s death makes my blood boil and my hands fist on the table. “Maybe not directly. But discovering everything you’d done—and were still planning—must have been too much for his weak heart. The betrayal triggered the heart attack that killed him.”
“A–Afrim was the one who found the ledger?” He goes even paler and grips the edge of the dining table like he might fall out of his chair.
“I thought that information might make you happy,” I say coldly. “Something to comfort you before I kill you.” But it seems to be having the opposite effect. Interesting.
He glares at me with sudden viciousness and quickly moves his hands under the table, retrieving the gun I know he always keeps stashed there. He raises it up at me, “I’m not going out without a fight. You and your men are going to die tonight, either by my hand or my men’s.”
At that moment, the dining room door opens and Gjon walks in, flanked on both sides by leaders of the other five Albanian families. Three of them head local operations, and the other two answer to no one but their own bloodlines. All of them have one thing in common—they’re done with Fabian.
I couldn’t have timed their entrance better if I’d tried.
"How many powerful leaders do you think you and your handful of men can kill?” Gjon asks calmly, his voice carrying easily through the silent room. “Your betrayal has consequences, Fabian. And you can’t kill us all. If you try, your men will die right alongside you. That would mark them as traitors to the Albanian family too. It’d be a suicide mission for everyone.” He pauses for emphasis. “This doesn’t have to get messy, Fabian. Stand down.”
Fabian’s head whips around frantically, like he’s desperatelytrying to find someone still on his side. But the guards stationed at the door are already lowering their weapons, Janick stepping away from his side.
No one is coming to save him.
He goes impossibly paler as realization dawns, and the hand holding the gun begins to tremble as his gaze lands on me. "Come on, Roan. It's me,” he pleads, his voice breaking. “Uncle Fabian. Family."
I don’t feel a single thing for him as I rise to my feet, pulling my gun from its holster and leveling it at his chest. “I know exactly who you are.”
He stiffens, sweat beading on his forehead. “You would kill your own family?” he asks, his panicked eyes bouncing around the room.
I click my tongue as I shake my head at him. “You’re no family to me, Fabian. You forfeited that right. Not only were you involved in my mother’s death, you’ve been chomping at my empire’s heels—not just in the past decade, but especially these past few months—trying to sabotage my progress—” I pause when he blanches. Oh yeah, he didn’t realize I was onto his recent activities too.
I move away from the dining table, taking a purposeful step towards him as I continue, “Your betrayal sent my father to an early grave. So yes, Iwillkill you."
“Not before I kill you!” he screams, squeezing the trigger of the gun aimed at my chest, but it answers with nothing more than a hollow click. His eyes widen as he stares down at the weapon like it just betrayed him.
“Did you really think I wasn’t aware of the gun you always keep there? I spent entire summers here growing up, remember?” I shake my head in disappointment. “Come on, you taught me better than that.”
“R–Roan, please, I?—”
I pull the trigger, done with this interlude.
The bullet hits him squarely in the chest. Not the head—and that’s on purpose. Because I want him to feel the pain as he dies. I want him to realize he’s dying and that nobody is coming to help him. That he’s completely alone at the end.
Fabian’s body jerks back in his chair, and he gasps, eyes wide in disbelief, clutching at his chest as blood soaks through his expensive shirt. Bracing one shaking hand against the edge of the table, he slides from the chair to his knees on the marble floor, coughing and choking as life drains from him inch by inch.
I watch him die, feeling nothing. “See you in hell,uncle,” I spit at his corpse.
He makes one last pathetic, gurgling sound, then his body goes limp, collapsing sideways. Only then do I look away from him.
Gjon steps forward, glancing briefly at the body before shifting his attention to Janick and the rest of Fabian’s men, each wearing varying degrees of worry. “It’s done,” he says quietly.
I nod once and turn away, trusting that my men have my back as I pull out my phone. Now that Fabian’s been dealt with, I need to check in with Dhimitër immediately. My hands are steady as I dial, but my heart is a drum in my chest. He should have called me himself by now. The fact that he didn’t means something must have gone horribly wrong.
Dhimitër answers on the second ring, and at first I can’t make out anything over the noise in the background—shouting, gunfire. My blood turns to ice. “What the fuck is going on over there, Dhimitër?”
A tense silence stretches. Then, the squeal of tires. I stay on the line, frozen still as I wait for my second-in-command to answer. “We have Kayla,” Dhimitër finally says, sounding breathless and like he’s in pain. “But Katie—she’s been shot.”
My ear pops, and for one surreal beat, everything goes quietaround me. Katie’s been shot. The words echo endlessly in my head, but it takes several seconds to actually process the senseless statement.MyKatina has been shot?
“What?” My voice comes out low, deadly, daring him to repeat what he just said.
Dhimitër inhales sharply and hesitates for a moment before continuing. “She’s alive, but it’s bad. She got Kayla out and took a bullet to the side while shielding her.”
