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“Can you take Vera home?” I asked Callan after zipping up my jacket around Vera.
She huddled next to me, shoulders shaking still, and buried her face into my chest. “No. Don’t leave,” she whimpered, shaking her head. “Please, don’t go. I don’t want to be alone with anyone, except you.”
I cupped her face. “I have to finish this, Vera. My mom … she doesn’t deserve to live.”
Eyes widening, Vera stared up at me. “Are you going to kill her?”
“If that’s what it takes,” I whispered, not daring to tell Vera thatIhad killed Jim with my own two hands. Not only that, but I’d found pleasure in doing it too. It was wrong to take a life, but not when that person had threatened everyone and everything you ever cared about.
“I can’t take her home,” Callan said. “Nobody can see me leaving here with you.”
“They’re going to know something is up if you walk out of here, unwounded, anyway.”
Callan drew his tongue across his teeth, reached into his pocket, and pulled out a knife. Before I could stop his fucking psycho ass, he shoved the knife into his thigh and growled. Blood soaked through his pants.
“What the fuck are you—”
“Leave,” Callan repeated, handing me the keys to his car. “I can’t be seen with you. If anyone asks, say you stole my car.”
After quickly seizing Vera’s hands, I pulled her up the stairs and out of that underground chamber underneath the main building at the town beach. She clutched on to me as I hurried with her to the parking lot.
Some people from the Redwood mob lay dead on our path to the beach, others squealing out of the parking lot and away from Poison. We rushed down to João’s car, and I tucked Vera inside the backseat.
“Where’d my mother go?” I asked.
“She escaped,” João said, grinding his teeth together and glancing back at Vera. “Did they touch her?”
I pressed my lips together. “I don’t know.”
João growled and nodded to the others. “I’ll take her back to Kai’s place until you’re finished with everything you need to do. She and her family will be safe. I never do shit like this, but I promise.”
“Blaise,” Vera said, glancing up at me from the backseat. Her eyes trembled with tears. “Please, be careful and come back to me. I need you so badly.”
“I promise,” I said, leaning down to kiss her one last time. “I promise I will.”
Once João and Poison drove off with Vera, I headed to Callan’s car and slid into the driver’s seat. I didn’t know if Mom was stupid enough to head back home, but that was where I needed to start.
Not giving a fuck anymore, I pushed the pedal to the floor and sped through Redwood toward our gated community. When I reached the house that I hadn’t been back to in about a week now, I got out of the car and slammed the door.
I grasped the gun that Kai had given me and wondered if I’d actually be able to use it. Fury had taken control of me earlier with Jim, but I didn’t know if I could hit Mom. I didn’t want to torture her—she didn’t deserve to be alive longer than only a few more moments. I wanted her dead.
After pushing open the front door, I heard Mom and Dad screaming at each other from somewhere inside the house. Glass was being thrown again, paintings torn off the walls and littering our foyer.
“You were trying to getourson arrested for a murder thatyouordered?!” Dad shouted.
“I wouldn’t let him take the fall for it,” Mom yelled. “But she deserved death.”
“All because, what? You think I fucked her?”
“Stop it!” Mom screamed. “Stop gaslighting me! Stop lying! I know you did! I’ve seen it.”
“You haven’t seen shit,” he growled. “Because it never happened.”
“Stop acting like I’m crazy!”
I hurried toward the back living room, following their voices as quickly as I could.
Mom sobbed, “You’ve been cheating on me since that bitch came to work for—”
