Page 78 of Until Death or Defeat

“Leave me out of your circus, Max,” Roman sighs as he tries to ignore our bickering.

I put my hand over my mouth, contemplating whether I’ve fucked up yet again, and if this ends up not yielding results, it would hurt her.

“Look, is it fucked up? Yes. Is it probably morally wrong? Yes. Is it?—”

“Skip to the fucking point,” I seethe as I turn to him.

“We can’t help figure this out if we don’t do this, right? Giselle doesn’t need to know if we don’t find anything. We’ll put her mom right back where she belongs, and she’ll be okay. And hopefully we get answers, and I know Giselle feels uncomfortable with it but she’ll be relieved to have answers.”

I run my hands over my face, sighing. God, I hope this was worth it. I grab my phone, needing to check if she’s okay butrealize I have no service. Of course. I slam my phone down onto the small table.

“Lenny is with her, don’t worry too much. The moment we get out of here and hit service again, I’ll call him,” Roman assures me.

I don’t fucking like being this disconnected to her, anything can go wrong in a short period of time like this. Not just her safety, but I fear the possibility she shows up and he turns her away. He could be unwilling to talk about any of it, and that would devastate her right now.

It feels like hours before Garrett calls us to come down again, and we go down the metal steps again as my eyes linger on the body covered in a white cloth.

“So, she was certainly shot twice,” he starts as he lifts the cloth, showing us an exit hole represented by a large spread fracture near where her cheek would be. “This one is the fatal cranial wound. The entry point is posterior occipital, back of the head and slightly right center.”

He covers her again and slides over a CT image. “The defect is small and relatively clean, which is consistent with an entrance wound. If this had been frontal impact, we wouldn’t see beveling like this.” His finger traces a line on the image. “Based on the trajectory, I’d have to assume the perpetrator was behind her but elevated, and that likely they were a significant distance from the victim due to the nature of the exit wound.”

I nod as he goes on, following along with his explanation as I examine the images.

“The second wound is here,” he explains, pointing to the neck on the image. “The soft tissue is gone, obviously, but the anterior damage to the cervical vertebrae suggests projectile trauma. There’s abnormal fracturing along C2 and C3. I’dtheorize from my experience this was the first shot and was a miss, the fatal shot would be to the back of the head.”

“In that case, it couldn’t have been a professional sniper,” Roman states, looking at me.

I look over at the pathologist who shrugs. “I only specialize in the dead, not the living. I can only tell you the facts.”

“Well, we can’t hang longer man,” Maxim says as he shakes Garrett’s hand. “We gotta get her back.”

He helps us get her gently back inside her coffin, and we use his gurney to bring her back to the SUV, pushing the coffin back inside and closing the trunk.

“You have the papers?” I ask Roman, and he holds the documents Garrett gave us up for confirmation. “Let’s get the fuck out of here,” I say with a nod as I take a last look around and get in the car.

The pathologist confirmed what we already suspected could be possible, but I can only hope that this will be enough for her to realize she can’t trust anyone in her family. I hope that it isn’t too late for her to believe the truth.

19

Giselle

When I finally get to my uncle’s penthouse, I feel a rush of emotions. It’s overwhelming, thinking that my whole family dynamic has been a lie; to know that everyone around you was lying and hiding secrets. I deserved to know these things and now that I know it’s happening for me after all of this time...I don’t know what to do with myself.

It’s strange how in this moment, I imagine Artem here with me. How I can imagine his larger-than-life energy enveloping me and my anxieties. How he seems to always be there to make sure everything I need happens.

Fuck. When did I get so tangled into his web? It’s hard not to get so caught up when someone becomes your everything so quickly. In the span of these few weeks I’ve basically lost my whole family. I spend every day hanging out with Max, and when Artem is home we bicker and eat . . . and okay sometimes we do other shit. But a girl needs relief sometimes, okay? The point is I’ve created a new family, even if I didn’t want one. But I have to at least try to fight for my old one.

My uncle moved to this building after he suddenly up and left our family following my mother’s death, and I never came to visit him because my father made it seem like he never wanted to be involved with any of us again.

By the time I take the elevator and stand in front of his apartment, all of my insecurities come fluttering up from my stomach. Does he really not want to see me ever again? No, that can’t be true, he came to my wedding on his own. But he also didn’t come speak to me. Fuck, what do I do? Do I leave?

I force myself to raise my hand and knock on the door. I wait for a moment until I hear the sound of a chain lock being undone, and soon the door opens, and my uncle’s face is suddenly right in front of me.

“Gigi?” His voice is just how I remember. It’s been twelve years, but I can feel my heart relax when I hear him utter my nickname.

“U-Uncle Rob.”

“What are you doing here? Is something wrong? It’s almost midnight,” he asks as he pokes his head out and looks both ways down the hallway to make sure no one else is there.