Page 42
I will never understand murder.
Behind me, Thane moves.
“Drop, now.”
My knees slam wet asphalt and my fingers close around the cold grip of the Sig Sauer lying beside the unconscious foot soldier. Rain-slick steel slides against my palm and I wrap my hand around it the way my father taught me. Index finger along the frame. Thumb high on the grip. Pull into the webbing until the metal bites.
A bullet from her small caliber gun cracks over my head, burying into the brick wall at my back.
The fight behind me registers in fragments. The heavy thud of bone connecting with something solid. A guttural curse reaches across the alley. It is a voice I don't recognize followed by a second gunshot and the wet, meaty impact of a body folding onto asphalt.
I don’t dare take my eyes off the bitch in front of me. I rise with the Sig leveled at Vivienne's chest.
Her eyes widen. The first honest reaction I've gotten from this woman in years. She takes a step backward and her heel catches the curb beside her Town Car. She steadies herself with one hand against the open door. Her body guards start to move on me but two bullets from behind me drop them to the cement.
Thane.
"Neve." Her voice shifts. Softer. That fucking mask she slides behind slides back into place with practiced ease. "Sweetheart, think about what you're doing."
"Oh, I am thinking. For the first time in years I am thinking clearly." I close the distance between us until I can see every wrinkle marring the skin around her eyes.
“You were always jealous of me. You hated how my father gave me more attention. You hated not being the center of everyone’s world.”
Her face contorts with a wave of rage.
“I hated your beauty, your effortless charm. The way everyone gravitates to you. It makes me sick.” She flattens her palm against the door of her car and forces herself to stand tall. “I’ve wanted you dead since you were a child.”
Rain runs down my arms, over the gun, dripping off the muzzle. "Nice to know the truth. You could have had it all. Everything except the family crown. And that just wasn’t good enough for you."
"I had to kill him. Had to. He gave me no choice." Tears and rain smear her mascara.
"There is always a choice. You chose murder. You chose to hire a contract killer to finish his daughter. You chose every step that brought you to this alley."
Her jaw works. Those cold blue eyes dart past me, searching for the runners who were supposed to cover her exit. Whatever she finds over my shoulder drains the blood from beneath her flawless foundation. Her fingers grip the car door hard enough to bleach her knuckles white.
"Your men aren't coming." I don't turn around. The alley behind me is quiet. Thane's breathing is ragged, close, alive.
"I underestimated you." Vivienne's voice barely rises above the rain, and for once she means every syllable.
"You underestimated a lot of people. My father trusted you. I trusted you. You burned us both. Castellano blood never forgets or forgives."
Her hand pulls the lever of the car door.
"Don't." My thumb flicks the safety off. The click is small and distinct, swallowed by the rain in half a second. "Take your hand off the handle. Slowly. Or I pull this trigger and lose zero sleep over it."
She raises both palms. A gesture of surrender from a woman who has never surrendered anything in her life. Her crimson lips flatten into a thin line.
"You won't shoot me. You're the girl who whips up cupcakes for simple people. You don't have it in you."
"Apple tarts. I bake apple tarts." My finger settles against the trigger. "And you're right, three months ago I wouldn't have had it in me. But three months ago I didn't know you murdered my father."
Vivienne lunges for the car.
I squeeze.
Recoil kicks through my wrist and up my arm. The sound is deafening, cracking off brick walls and punching through the steady rain. Vivienne's body jerks sideways. Her manicured hand reaches for the car door and misses. She slides down the side of the Town Car, a smear of red against black paint, and crumples onto the wet pavement.
Her charcoal suit darkens at the shoulder. She's alive, gasping, clutching the wound with trembling fingers. Blood seeps between her knuckles, vivid against her pale skin.
