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Everyone who wasn’t already looking at me turns to me. People are suddenly recording us on their phones. I smile up at Dad.
Yes, I did this. Mayor Romano’s daughter.
Not kidnapped.
Not held against her will by the Coldlake Syndicate.
Standing on her own two feet and facing the man who murdered her mother.
This secret has been hell to keep, and I feel it pouring out of me in an unstoppable tidal wave. The people at this rally know the truth. It’s spreading out across the whole of Coldlake. Everyone is going to know the truth.Everyone.
There’s nowhere to hide, Dad.
His expression flickers with an emotion I’ve never seen from him before.
Fear.
I hold his gaze for a moment longer, and then turn and walk away. I squeeze past people who are still reeling from what they’ve seen.
At the end of the row, Cassius and Salvatore close in on me from either side and we walk quickly away from the crowd. We’re the only three people in the vicinity who have their heads held high, while everyone else gapes at Dad or mutters in confusion. A few whispers of vindication reach my ears.I thought there was something they weren’t telling us about the way the mayoress was murdered.Now you know. I’ve torn the mask from your mayor and shown you the killer that he is.
I’ve done my part. It’s up to Coldlake what happens next.
As we leave the building, I make a call on my phone. A deep, deadpan voice answers. “Yes?”
“Thank you, Thane. That was perfect.”
“You’re welcome. You and the Strife men, are we square?”
I smile. “We’re square, but I hope this isn’t goodbye. I might need you in the future and you might need me. I hope we can start fresh.”
“No targets on our backs courtesy of your boyfriends?”
“No targets. We’re…friends?”
The wordfriendhovers awkwardly in the dead air between us. I can feel Thane’s wariness and mistrust, or maybe it’s just Thane being Thane and he doesn’t care one way or the other.
Finally, in his usual flat voice, he replies, “Cool. Later.”
I hang up with a smile.
A black 4WD Mercedes is waiting out front and Vinicius jumps out of the back seat to hold it open for me. Once we’re all settled inside, Lorenzo guns the engine and we race down the street and away.
“It’s not too late for me to go back and shoot him in the face,” Lorenzo says as he drives.
That was the first plan that was floated, but murdering my father never felt like enough. I don’t want him dead. I wanted him exposed.
I shake my head. “Thank you, Lorenzo, but this is better. Everyone in Coldlake hates him now. This is his worst nightmare.”
Let him live his nightmare, as he made me live mine.
Vinicius reaches back and squeezes my knee. “I’m proud of you, kitten.”
Cassius wraps a hand around the nape of my neck and kisses my forehead. “We all are.”
I relax back on the seat, safe with my men in a fast car on the streets of Coldlake. Streets that are mine now. Streets that are ours. Me, them, and this little one inside me.
“How did vengeance taste, baby?” Salvatore asks, his blue-green eyes bright and his handsome face radiant.
