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I don’t have to look at his lifeless body slumped in the chair, blood flowing freely from his head, to know it’s true. But I can’t stop myself from doing just that.
A deafening scream fills the barn and it takes me several seconds to realize that I’m the one screaming. My entire body trembles as time seems to warp around me. Blinking rapidly past the tears flowing down my cheeks, I try to steady the gun that’s bobbing back and forth as my hand shakes violently.
I tell myself to shoot. I will myself to put a bullet in the man who put a bullet in my father, but for some reason I can’t make myself do it.
That split second of hesitation is enough time for Dimitri to grab the gun, snatching it out of my hand with ease.
I stumble backward, feeling the walls start to close down around me.
“Get her out of here,” I hear Mateo say again, but the instant Dimitri’s hand hits my arm something inside me snaps.
I launch myself at Mateo, getting within a couple of feet from him before an arm snakes around my waist and jerks me backward.
“Let go of me!” I scream, thrashing with everything that I have.
“Calm the fuck down, Mila,” Dimitri growls in my ear.
“Fuck you!” I scream. “Fuck you all!”
Another man steps in, helping Dimitri hold me in place. It takes me a moment to realize it’s Javier.
“I hate you!” I spit at Mateo. The two men may have me restrained but that doesn’t deter me one bit. “I fucking hate you! You are no better than he was. No, you know what, you’re worse. Because you pretend to be something you’re not. You can spin your shit all day about how you want to be better, to do better, but at the end of the day, you can’t change who you are at your core. And you, Mateo Rivera, are a monster. Now let me go!!” My voice is shrill, anger and betrayal pouring out of me like lava erupting from a volcano.
“Take her back to her room. And make sure she stays there.” In an instant, my feet are dragging the ground as Dimitri and Javier pull me toward the door.
“No!” I scream, fighting with everything that I have. “No!” I turn, biting Javier’s arm so hard I taste blood.
He rips his arm away, giving me the leverage I need to pull my weight forward. Dimitri tries to hold onto me, but his grasp also gives when I rear back violently, feeling his nose crack against the back of my head.
I stumble forward, preparing to go after Mateo, when my feet stop dead in their tracks. Because now it’s not Mateo I’m looking at, it’s the barrel of his gun.
Defiance ricochets through my body, and instead of cowering like he probably expects me to, I square my shoulders and step forward, pressing my forehead into the gun.
“You going to kill me now too?” My voice is low, and despite the fear surging through me it holds strong. “Go ahead. Fucking kill me.”
“Mila, please.” For a moment his mask slips and what I see isn’t what I was expecting. Desperation.
“I am not going back into that house. I am not staying here for a second longer. So if you think I am, you might as well kill me now. You promised me that when this was all over I was free to go. Or were you lying about that too?”
“I wasn’t lying.” He lowers the gun to his side, and while I try to keep my expression neutral, there’s no way he doesn’t catch the relief that briefly floods my face.
“Then let me go.”
“Is that what you want?”
“Is that what I want?” I balk at his question. “You lied to me. You used me. You just killed my father! The only parent I had left. And then you have the audacity to ask me if that’s what I want.” Tears slide down my cheeks. And as much as I don’t want to show an ounce of weakness, I don’t have the power to stop them. “What I want is to walk out of here and never see your face again for as long as I live.”
Without a word, he tucks his gun into his holster and takes a full step back, his chin tipping toward the door.
“Then go.”
I hesitate, feeling like this might be a trick, but when he shows no sign of trying to stop me, I spin around and take off out of the barn at full speed.
It has started to rain again, the wet pellets peppering my skin. I have no idea where I’m going, but I know I can’t stay here. Without stopping to think about it for too long, I veer down the gravel driveway. Rocks bite into my skin as I run. Tears blur my vision. Rain soaks my hair and clothes. But I don’t stop.
I push my body harder than I ever have before. I let my anger and devastation fuel me. I let it carry me a mile, two miles, five miles, until I’ve gone so far I don’t have the physical ability to run anymore.
I slow to a walk, refusing to stop even though my feet are bleeding and my lungs feel like I’ve inhaled tiny particles of glass. If I stop, if I let it all sink in, I’m not sure I’ll have the strength to keep going. And right now, Ihaveto keep going.
