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Giancarlo
PLAYLIST: ? GRIEF - EARL SWEATSHIRT ?
“He’s dead,”Fozzi says. “We took him to one of the rooms underground and handled him. He claimed it was an accident—she got away without him knowing.”
“It doesn’t fucking matter,” I grit out. “What the fuck was he doing bringing her downstairs in the first place?”
“The kid said she begged him for some fresh air.”
Falynn. You sneaky little bitch.
I don’t say anything else as we pull up outside the shittiest slab of plaster and wood I’ve seen in a long time. The apartment building resembles every low-rent motel off the side of a freeway, with truckers spending the night and prostitutes available for only a couple bucks.
Her best friend, Tasha Henson, lives here.
Surprisingly, Falynn doesn’t have many personal ties. Years ago, she was disowned by her family, and she doesn’t have a lot of friends. The men she’s been involved with have been her only real personal relationships, but even those were fleeting.
My brotherkilledher ex-boyfriend, Lorenzo Espinosa. The couple of guys before him are no longer in town.
There’s no one else she could’ve gone tobutTasha. Unless she decided to chance it on her own. Another possibility I consider as we walk up the stairs to the second floor. Fozzi pulls out his gun, twisting on his silencer, and takes aim at the doorknob. He blasts it off with a subdued bang and then kicks the door open.
If Falynn and her friend are home, we’re giving them no chance for a reaction. No time to flee.
Falynn’s coming with me, where she belongs. Her friend will be disposed of.
You’d think I’d be angry at her disobedience. I’d be in a rage over her escaping me. After all, it’s just another sign she refuses to be mine. But I’m not. My high’s worn off, and more than anything, I’m impatient to return to the new order I’ve established.
Me occupying my brother’s throne—mythrone—and his Queen—myQueen—by my side. Falynn running off ruins the order of things. She’s broken the law—mylaw.
Which means she needs to be punished. I’ll make her pay, but not out of malicious intent. I don’t have enough range for malice. My revenge is its own justice system, where criminals are punished for their wrongdoing. She’ll learn the hard way she’s not to disobey, to break laws. The rules I’ve set out for her are the rules she’ll live by.
This time, I won’t stop myself. I won’t go easy when I make her mine. I’ll make sure every inch of her understands shewillobey, or her life will be a hard and cruel one.
“Nobody’s here,” Fozzi says, scoping out each room. He kicks open the bathroom door in the hall and peers inside. “It looks like nobody’s been here forat leasta few hours. They must’ve dipped out.”
I stand in the middle of the living room and peer around. Falynn’s friend does her best to keep the small apartment clean, though its age and wear-and-tear make it unsightly. Most of her belongings remain.
“They left in a rush,” I say. “It was unplanned.”
“Looks like it.” Fozzi disappears into one of the bedrooms. His voice echoes through the walls. “All her clothes and shit are here. You think somebody else got to ‘em?”
“And who would that be?”
Fozzi emerges again, giving a quick shrug. “The Lovato’s? They have a score to settle with Giovanni and Miss Falynn for what went down with Tony.”
“Possibly.”
I move to the kitchen, where I spot our biggest clue yet—on the counter is a set of keys. Tasha’s gone and didn’t take her keys. Either it’s a fake-out, and they want us to think they left against their will, or they reallydidflee at a moment’s notice. I scoop up the ring of metal keys into my palm and study the jagged edges.
Heat boils in the air, making the apartment feel stuffy. The cramped space doesn’t help. It doesn’t surprise me that a place as shitty as this doesn’t have working air conditioning, regardless of its desert location.
I wipe my brow and pocket Tasha’s keys. I can’t think without another hit. It’s been too many hours. So long, my brain feels like it’s melting from the inside.
I know only one thing for certain. Falynn wants to play cat and mouse with me.
She’s making me work for it. The same way she made my brother work for her when she escaped his clutches.
This issupposedto happen. Falynn, being a free little bird, was always going to fly away from the nest and force me to bring her back. She’s incapable of learning her place any other way.
