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“You love me?” she asks again.
I press my forehead to hers. “I do.”
“I love you, too.”
“I know.”
She chuckles at that, and I’m sure if she were feeling better, she would fire back a witty retort. Instead, she leans into my body and lets out a sigh.
As she does, Lorenzo strolls into the house.
He takes inventory of the dead body beside us, followed by the pool of blood slinking our way. “I see you couldn’t wait . . .”
I lift a brow. “Nope.”
He takes stock of the rest of the room, fixing on an open door with a bloodstain in the shape of Payton’s tiny hand on it. “And now I have to clean up your shit.”
“Yep.”
“Ass . . .”
“My sister, Erin, is in the basement.” Payton looks sheepish. “I think I kind of knocked her out.”
Lorenzo looks at Payton and nods at her with appreciation.
“I like her. She can stay,” he says to me, and I narrow my eyes before he laughs loudly and moves to find Erin.
“What will he do?” she asks after he disappears down to the basement.
“We’re better off not knowing.”
She nods.
I’m not sure how this will end yet, but I know Payton will be by my side.
And I know I wouldn’t have gotten here without that letter.
I forgive you, Dad.
Epilogue
PAYTON
Twenty-two.
I’m finally twenty-two.
Guess I made it.
The past few months have been a hell of a ride.
Not just because I almost died, twice, but also because in the end, I didn’t let Lorenzo just cover up the crime.
That would have been too easy for Erin.
We decided this pathway was for the best. We needed to move through the events as they happened. Not bury them deep and let the lies fester like they had in both our lives before we met.
Similar to what his mom said in the atrium the day I talked to her for the first time, we needed all the secrets we found after Ronnie’s death to come out in the daylight. That way, we could now start fresh and clean.
