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But none of it had mattered anyway in this corrupt town.
I’d handed the ring back to Aiden, but I could still feel it pressing against my palm as if it had burned me.
I weighed whether to tell them or not. Aiden would be happy to help me kill Aster. But he obviously wanted his father alive.
I debated it even as Xander went and got the boat and pulled it up to the marina dock behind the warehouse. Dominic easily carried Foss’s unconscious body over one massive shoulder as we all stepped into the boat.
We rode over the choppy water, the engine growling as a sudden rainstorm whipped around our faces. Dominic came up from below carrying a rainslicker, and he stepped on Foss’s outstretched hand in his focus to keep me dry and warm. I let him take care of me, but I was barely there with them.
“Selena,” Aiden said quietly, and I looked up to realize the three of them were watching me carefully. “Is this what you want? Killing Foss?”
“Yes,” I said without a second’s hesitation.
“What’s wrong, then?”
I shook my head. I couldn’t say the words. That his father had killed mine.
“Wake up Foss,” I said. “I’ve got one more question for him.”
The guys exchanged a look. But they gamely tried to wake him up. It took a long while for Foss to come to, and he looked terrified, eyeing the edge of the boat as if he might plunge off into the stormy sea. Drowning might be a more merciful death.
I squatted so I could look Foss in his eyes. Or at least, the one eye that was still open, since the other was swollen completely shut.
“Killing my parents was a favor,” I said, thinking of his exact words. “And who did that favor?”
Foss raised his terrified gaze to Aiden, then looked back at me, looking perplexed. “Gavin Crude.”
Aiden stiffened.
The wind whipped around us mercilessly, and the boat rocked up and down against the waves.
“We’re here,” Xander called over the noise of the storm.
“Give it to me.” I held my hand out to Xander. I couldn’t bear to look at Aiden right now. But I could focus on the one thing I was going to do next.
Foss hadlaughedabout what he did to my family.
“Get him up,” I said.
Dominic yanked him up. I stepped forward and fastened the collar around his neck. Foss kept begging me to stop, to save him.
“I couldn’t if I wanted to,” I told him, as the collar shut with a click. “They’d kill you anyway.”
I couldn’t make myself laugh, like he had, even though I tried. “And I don’t want to.”
The guys forced him off the boat onto an outcropping of rocks. He begged as we pulled away, leaving him stranded, slipping on the rocks.
Xander handed me the detonator, but once I gripped it, he didn’t release it. He gave me a long look. “You wanted me to keep my hands clean. Selena, is this really what you want?”
I nodded. “This is who I am.”
He nodded. “As long as it isn’tallyou are. You’re not just a Belladonna, you know.”
“I know.”
The four of us turned to watch the man screaming on the rocks. The wind tore his last words away.
I pressed the button, and Foss exploded into red mist.
