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A muscle in his jaw tightened. Miguel would’ve lunged for me, I bet, if he didn’t have Damian’s men aiming at him, not to mention those red dots lit up on him. He looked like he wanted to kill me, but the feeling was mutual.
“Fine,” Miguel growled out the word. “I’ll admit to everything. This was my plan all along. You—” He pointed to the audience. “—you have power and influence most people can only dream of, and what do you do? You keep yourselves contained to Cypress. Why? You could take the entire state if you wanted to. You could run for Senator and fucking win. You could do anything you want, and yet you hold yourselves back. It’s a waste.”
Miguel wasn’t done with his little speech yet, because he went on, “I wouldn’t let power like that go to waste. I’d never sit idly by and say I had enough. You’re all short-sighted fools, and the world would be a better place if none of you were in it.”
Luca quipped, “Projection, much?”
Everyone was staring at Miguel. His little outburst had been enough for Randy and Molly to see his true colors. The looks on their faces had hardened.
When Miguel’s dark stare returned to me, I could see the fury residing in its depth. If he could get away with strangling me, he would. This time he would not gloat as he gleefully told me the truth. This time he would not waste a second proving to me what a man he was by forcing himself on me. This time he would simply wrap those hands around my neck and squeeze until my skin turned blue and the blood vessels in my eyes popped.
A man full of hatred who had molded me in his image for too long.
“Now what?” Miguel demanded. “You going to arrest me? Lock me up so you and your crew can gloat while I wither away?”
“Oh, no,” I told him, aiming my gun at his chest. Four feet away, it’d be impossible to miss. “Some debts are only paid with blood, Daddy, you should know that.” My finger rested on the trigger, my arm steady.
Behind Miguel, Ezekiel had stepped out of the way. I think everyone around us held in a collective breath, waiting for me to pull the trigger and put an end to this man for good.
Miguel chuckled. “You’re not going to kill me. You don’t have the—”
After a quick adjustment in my aiming, I pulled that trigger, mostly to prove him wrong, but also to shut him the fuck up. The kickback was more than I thought it’d be, and the sound of the revolver going off was louder than I’d anticipated, too.
The bullet hit its mark: Miguel’s forehead. At such close range, with a larger than average bullet size, it tore through his skull and made it pop like a balloon from the force. By the time Miguel’s body fell back, his brains splattering on the ground and blood seeping out from the sudden lack of skull, his face was near unrecognizable from the nose up.
The scent of piss filled the air as Miguel’s corpse relieved itself, and I didn’t look away, even as I lowered the gun. Strange as it was, it felt like a dream, like he wasn’t really dead. A part of me was waiting for him to get up and attack me, prove to me he was the man who would never die.
But he was dead, and the longer I looked at his crumpled body, the more I couldn’t deny it.
I won.
Chapter Twenty-One – Giselle
Shay told the guys to take me home, that they’d clean up the mess. I wasn’t exactly shaken; more like caught in a never-ending dream. A dream I thought I’d wake up from once I rid myself of my demon.
Did I feel happier now that Miguel was gone? I didn’t know the answer to that question. Maybe it would come in time. Maybe I was still in some kind of shock right now.
I think, besides the mess, there were other things Shay and Atticus had to come clean about to Randy and Molly—such as the whole Cobra thing. How could Miguel pin something on a dead man? He couldn’t. They had to come clean about the fact that the Cobra, Shay’s brother, was still alive.
But, hey, at least the crazy dude wasn’t in Cypress anymore.
Cade, Ezekiel, Damian, Luca, and Zander came home with me. Zander brought Gianna with him, because the woman had no place to go, and I’d meant what I said when I’d said I’d take care of her.
We went to the mansion Miguel had moved us into before even getting that spot on the Hand. He’d been so confident in himself this entire time; it shouldn’t surprise anyone he’d been willing to annihilate them all just to get what he wanted.
The first thing I did was shower. A long, hot shower that helped wash it all away. Everything. All the pain and misery of the past, the girl I used to be—who Miguel made me—and the blood splatter that had sprayed on me when I’d killed Miguel.
Miguel was gone. It was official. I’d had my revenge, gotten my justice, and now… now what?
That would be a concern for tomorrow’s Giselle. Right now, I just wanted to sleep. Skip any form of dinner and go straight to bed even though it was still pretty early in the afternoon. It’d just… it’d been a day.
I didn’t know how long I stood in the shower, but it was probably at least twenty minutes. A long time to zone out, but nothing felt real just yet. Again, like I was caught in a dream. When I was done, I wrapped myself in a towel and wandered across the hall to my old room.
Figured. Miguel hadn’t touched it. Nothing was on the walls, and the dressers and closet were empty from my move-out. The bed was untouched, and I crawled onto it, slammed my face down into a pillow, and let out the world’s biggest sigh.
A soft knock bounced through the air, and I didn’t say a word. I didn’t want to talk to anyone. However, that did not stop whoever it was from coming in. Their footsteps were soft and light, which told me it wasn’t one of my guys. It was Gianna.
She sat on the bed beside me, and I turned my face around to see her. The golden cross was in her hands. She set it near me. “I think you need this back now,” she whispered. Her hand lightly touched my shoulder, and she gave me a look.
