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“I—I’m sorry. P-please. I’ll s-s-stop. Just don’t k-k-kill me.”
My finger tightens on the trigger. “You don’t deserve my empathy. Only my wrath.”
“Wren.”
Jules takes a warning step closer as Lucia stares up at me pitifully, tears staining her flushed face. I narrow my eyes, and I grit, “This is going to hurt.”
Lucia screams and slams her eyes closed as I pull the trigger of my unloaded gun.
“Bang, you’re dead.”
She opens her tear-filled eyes in incredulity, gaze flicking from me to the gun and back again. “W-w-why?”
As I drop the gun back into my bag, I regard Lucia with nothing less than undiluted disgust. “Because I’m not you. I won’t allow the poor decisions of others to change who I am. I’mstrongerthan that.”
Then I pivot and stride toward the door, stopping to look back one final time to pin her with a dark look. “But that doesn’t mean I won’t play dirty to get what I want. Breathe a word of today to another living soul, and you’ll live to regret my kindness.”
I slide my still-recording cell from my back pocket, holding it up for her to see. “Your full confession to sending those men to attack Vaughn, alongside confessing to your part in sex auctions.” I pop a brow and pair it with a half-smirk. “Come at anyone I care foreveragain, and I’ll see that you spend the rest of your life behind bars.”
Her face fills with an almost comedic horror before I leave her speechless, exiting the brownstone and swiftly crossing the street to slide into the SUV.
Jules jumps into the driver’s seat, twisting about to take me in with new eyes.
“If I hadn’t witnessed it with my own eyes, I’d never believe it.” He shakes his head as an unbelieving smile graces his lips. “I’m actually disappointed that we need to keep this between us, because you were fucking amazing!”
CHAPTER30
VAUGHN
“We need to talk.”
Ford steps inside my bedroom, his voice low even as his tone is firm. “I don’t know how you’re going to take it, to be honest. But it’s important that you know.”
Interest sufficiently piqued, I sit higher with my back against the headboard, gesturing that he comes closer. He takes a seat in the bedside chair on my left, spearing me with piercing eyes.
“It’s about Wren.”
I sit forward immediately. “What about Wren?”
My chest tightens as my lungs constrict. “I knew I shouldn’t have agreed to let her meet Elodie for lunch. Tell me she’s okay.”
He nods as a smile blooms on his face, reaching his eyes and making them sparkle with mirth. “She’sbetterthan okay, but that’s my ownpersonalopinion.” He shrugs with a slight grimace. “You might not think so 'cause you’re an ornery so-and-so.”
I narrow my eyes at the insult. “Spit it the hell out, Holloway, or so help me—”
“Jules took Wren to Lucia’s townhouse today.”
My jaw unhinges. “Jules didwhat?” I move to throw my legs over the side of the bed, but Ford jumps to stand, palms pressing my shoulders down.
I’m taller, almost as broad, and on a regular day, I’d kick his fucking ass, but today isn’t a run-of-the-mill day. And as such, I can’t shrug him off.
“Stay. Put.” His words are soft but deadly. “You’ll do more harm than good if you exert yourself too much.”
I raise my hands, palms up in a motion of surrender, and after a beat, Ford relinquishes his hold, sinking back into his seat.
“Now, if you’d let me finish, you’d know that she came out on top.”
My brows pucker. “What do you mean by that? She hasn’t even come home from her non-lunch with Elodie yet. How could you…”
