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I looked back at Chalis, and he was still pointing the gun at me, only then, his hand was trembling harder.

I laughed, not because anything about the situation was funny, but because I couldn’t believe that was how the night was ending.

I had a ring in my pocket, my woman was waiting on me, and that bitch-ass nigga had really allowed jealousy to turn him into a murderer.

I shook my head. “That’s all you got?”

His face twisted. “Fuck you!”

The gun went off again.

That time, my legs gave out beneath me, and I hit the floor hard enough to feel the impact throughout my body.

For a second, everything around me went quiet. Then Chalis’s breathing reached me from somewhere above, followed by one of his boys saying something I couldn’t make out.

My eyes drifted toward the staircase.

I thought about Lakelyn.

She was probably overly excited about the party and just waiting for me to pull up. She had no idea there was a ring sitting in my pocket. No idea that I had planned on asking her to spend the rest of her life with me.

I swallowed and tried to take another breath, but pain tore through my chest.

Fuck.

I’m not gonna make it.

I knew that.

My eyes moved toward Chalis, who was standing over me now, staring down like he had finally accomplished something… like killing me had somehow turned him into the man Lakelyn was going to want once I was gone.

I tried to laugh, but all that came out was a rough breath.

I stared up at him, and with whatever strength I had left, I said, “She still… ain’t…” I choked out against the blood and pain. “…gon’ want you.”

His face twisted.

I heard another gunshot, then everything went black.

I remembered opening my eyes, but it wasn’t immediate, and I couldn’t tell how much time had passed. All I knew was that one moment there had been darkness and the next I was standing in my foyer, looking down at the marble floor… at myself… at my body lying in the exact spot where I had fallen.

I looked at my hands, touched my chest, and tried to make sense of what the fuck I was seeing. There was no pain anymore, no blood pouring out of me, yet my body was right there on the floor beneath me.

Then I heard Chalis’s voice.

He was telling his men to hurry up, disable the security cameras, wipe down anything they had touched, and make sure there wasn’t a damn thing left behind that could tie them to what had happened.

I watched them scatter through the foyer and adjoining rooms, one of them heading for the security system while another started cleaning up whatever evidence he could find.

Meanwhile, my body stayed right where I had fallen on the marble floor, and I stood there watching all of it happen without being able to stop a damn thing.

I went after Chalis first.

I reached for him, intending to wrap my hands around his fucking throat.

My hand went straight through him.

“What the fuck?”