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I stood again, then I glanced toward Lakelyn.

She remained beside Willow, holding her sister’s hand while she watched me. There was pain in her face, but she wasn’t turning away.

I returned my attention to Chalis. “One more thing.”

He stared up at me.

I smiled. “Lakelyn still ain’t gon’ want yo’ ass.”

Then I raised the gun and pulled the trigger.

The shot echoed through the foyer.

When the sound faded, Chalis lay lifeless on the same marble where he had left me six years earlier.

Killing him didn’t give me back the first time my son walked, his first word, the nights my woman cried herself to sleep, or the ring still sitting in my pocket when my life ended. But Chalis could never take another second from us, and that was enough.

I lowered the gun. “It’s over.”

The same force that had dragged him across the room closed around his body and pulled him toward the darkness beneath the staircase.

Lakelyn gasped behind me as he disappeared from sight, followed moments later by the two men near the entrance.

The weapon vanished from my hand, and whatever Miss Veda had done to the mansion erased the remaining evidence until the floor looked untouched.

When I turned back around, Lakelyn was still there.

“Well.” Miss Veda’s voice came from behind me.

I turned to find her standing near the staircase, but the purple robe and matching scarf were gone.

Apparently, she had decided that if she was going to make an appearance in front of the living, she was going to do it properly too.

She had changed into a long black dress with sheer sleeves, a fitted waist, and enough silver jewelry to catch the light whenever she moved. Her hair was styled neatly away from her face, and she looked less like somebody who had just been summoned from the afterlife and more like an elegant auntie who had shown up late to the function and still expected everybody to make room for her.

She surveyed the foyer with her arms folded before settling her attention on the spot where Chalis had disappeared.

“Finished?”

“Yeah.”

“Good.”

Lakelyn moved closer, clearly trying to understand how another person had suddenly appeared in the middle of all this. “Caspian… who is she?”

“Somebody I want you to meet, baby.”

Miss Veda approached with a gentler expression. “Hello, sweetheart.”

Lakelyn hesitated. “Hello.”

Willow leaned toward her. “Caspian… is this another ghost?”

Miss Veda cut her eyes toward Willow. “Girl, don’t start.”

Willow’s mouth fell open.

I laughed. “Yeah. And y’all gon’ get along just fine.”