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His face turns sticky white and he places his hand atop of mine, his lips turning blue.
“No, no, Papa, stay with me.”
“I-I’m so happy I got to meet you before I died, Georgie…”
“No, Papa. You promised to be with me every step on the way. Stay, please. We didn’t spend any time together.” Tears fall down my cheeks as I press harder.
He winces, but the blood won’t stop. Not even a little.
My dad is dying. I feel it and my heart is slowly but surely breaking because of it.
“P-Papa…”
“I love you, Georgie…” he whispers as his hand turns heavy in mine and his eyes stare at nowhere.
“Nooo, Papa!”
“Paolo…” Lucio’s haunted voice cuts through my grief like a knife. “It’s all because of you.” He points the gun at me. “You’re the reason he’s dead.”
Jasper appears by his side and I know, I just know that he will take the bullet for me like Dad did. He’ll die for me.
I can’t have him do that. I can’t let Lucio take any more people from me.
Rage wooshes inside me like a current. I let it take complete control as I snatch Papa’s gun that fell to his side, aim at Lucio’s chest and fire.
No hesitation. No trembling of my fingers.
As he drops to the ground, his face contorted between shock and horror, everyone else around us seems to freeze for a second.
That man took my mother and now my father.
He ruined mine and Jasper’s lives and now he pays with this.
He pays with blood.23JasperBy the time everything ends, Petal is beat.
She’s still in the same dress from the doomed party, her hair disheveled and her mascara has streaked to the side of her eyes.
Paolo’s men listened to her when she asked them to clean everything up. Even some of Lucio’s men, who now have no place to go, have decided to stay.
Enzo and Angelo are keeping an eye on them in case they change their minds or come after my little Petal.
They wouldn’t have a reason to, and both Stephan and Marco died in the gunfight that took place, so there’s no loyalty to Lucio; there’s only loyalty to Costa, and at the moment, my little Petal is the only Costa alive.
The only Costa alive.
I let that information soak in as I watch her.
She asks one of Paolo’s senior guards to go to the morgue and that she’ll shower and meet him there.
He’s a big man with tattoos and a beard and gives me a quizzical glare when he sees me following her, but thankfully, he keeps his mouth shut.
My little Petal is a bit dazed as she goes into her room. I follow her, closing the door behind us.
For a second, she just stands in the middle of the room, the light coming from the bathroom casting a soft hue on her pale skin.
It’s like she’s taking her time to process what happened, to deal with the loss of her father, with being the only Costa alive. All of it.
My little Petal might have lived a hardened childhood, but nothing could’ve prepared her for what happened tonight.
Every particle of my being is telling me to go there, grab her by the neck, kiss her, make it all go away, but I force my hands into my pockets instead. Even I recognize she needs the time to deal with this on her own first.
A few minutes pass with her standing there, emotionless, almost like she’s in a trance, then suddenly, her hand shoots to her back and she struggles with the zipper, groaning in frustration when it doesn’t come off.
I walk to her and wrap my hand around hers, softly peeling it away and pull down the zipper to the middle of her back.
Her skin comes into view, pale and a bit scratched at the top from all the struggling that happened. In the silence of the room, I allow my fingers to trail over her skin. She’s trembling, her teeth chattering as if she’s cold.
“It’s going to be okay. You’re a strong woman, you always have been.”
A sob erupts from her throat and she abruptly turns around. Her arms wrap around my middle and she buries her face in my chest, crying softly, so softly, it’s barely audible even in the silence.
“It hurts…” She sniffles. “It hurts so much.”
I stroke her hair, pushing it from her face and murmuring soothing words in her ear, like it’s going to be okay, I’m here for her.
She cries harder for what seems like hours, wrapping all her limbs around me and lets the dress pool to the ground.
It’s hard to concentrate when her naked body is molded to mine, and I’m only separated from her by her panties. Her bare tits push against my chest, but I manage to hold her through it.
We end up on the bed, me sitting down and her wrapped all over my lap.
