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Chapter Twenty-Six
Hazel
I’d done it for them, everyone he’d ever killed, tortured, or hurt.
I turned the gun from my own forehead to his chest. It’d been reckless, without thought or calculation. He could have easily shot me with his gun in retaliation. I wouldn’t have blamed him if he had.
My finger squeezed the trigger. It was the only way to put an end to what he’d done. I couldn’t go home again. Nikolai would never stop hunting me down, demanding that I do as he wanted because we were blood.
Franco had been arrested, but with the head of the mafia dead, another leader would rise from the ashes, and I would be forgotten. At least I hoped I would be forgotten.
The room spun; the world felt in slow motion.
Lincoln kicked the gun away from Nikolai as he lay on the floor, bleeding out.
I stumbled several steps backward before hitting a warm body. Jaxson removed the gun from my hands. I felt cold and empty, alone.
“I’m sorry,” Jaxson said into my ear. The cold, rough metal of handcuffs clasped onto my wrists as he secured them behind my back.
“I understand.” I expected nothing less. They’d cart me off to jail. I’d be going to prison for a long time.
“Are handcuffs really necessary?” Lincoln shot Jaxson a glance.
“It’s just a formality,” Jaxson said. “I need to know that my family is no longer in any danger. I’ll call the sheriff and let him know what happened.”
Aiden bent down with Nikolai lying on the floor.
Blood pooled around Nikolai, his skin pale, his eyes closed. I didn’t have the courage to ask if he was still breathing. I wanted to kill Nikolai after all he’d done to destroy my life, but I’d never believed myself to be a murderer. Guilt weighed heavily on me. I’d acted in self-defense, not only for my own life but of those around me. Nikolai would never have let any of them go.
Jaxson made a quick phone call to the sheriff while I sat on the floor beside my brother. His skin looked cold, but I couldn’t touch him, my hands behind my back.
Aiden pressed against the wound, attempting to stop the flow of blood oozing out of the wound. With his other hand, he felt for a pulse and shook his head. “He’s dead.”
I collapsed onto my knees, staring down at my brother. Stepbrother or not, he was still family. Blood was blood. “You’re with Rebecca now. It’s better that way,” I whispered staring down at Nikolai. I had never met Rebecca, his biological sister. He’d spoken of her greatly when we were younger, how her life had been cut short, murdered by another gangster. It had driven our father to become the head of the mafia, to rise up in retaliation.
I wanted it to be over, all of it. The carnage. The slayings. The killing for blood.
* * *
I’d given my statement to the local sheriff. The team from Eagle Tactical had given their statements, as had Ariella. We had been taken individually into a room, questioned, and then asked to provide in writing what happened.
I confessed to shooting Nikolai.
It seemed Nikolai had also killed his driver, Sacha, though I had no answer as to why.
I had expected to spend the rest of my life in prison, but the handcuffs came off, and I was free to go.
The D.A. wasn’t going to press charges. Had Nikolai been alive he would have been charged with multiple counts of murder after raiding the compound and killing dozens of men, women, and children.
I thought I might vomit when the sheriff informed me what my brother had done in retribution for the resort. It was all over.
I headed out of the police station, surprised to find Ariella waiting for me.
“I never did thank you properly,” Ariella said. She leaned against her sedan, her hands in her jacket pockets. “If you wouldn’t have offered yourself as you had, I don’t know how we would have gotten out of that situation.”
I shrugged. “It was nothing.” I didn’t want her to make a big deal of it. “Have you heard anything about Mason?” I wanted to see him, to make sure he was all right, and thank him for saving my life. He was one of the reasons that I was still standing, alive, and breathing.
“We’ve already chartered a flight to Fargo to visit him in the hospital. Do you want to come with us?” Ariella asked.
