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He was wearing a bullet-proof vest—he always did now that he was a senator; I wondered if she would know even that about him. Probably not. Because in the end, she only cared for herself.
The knife clattered to the ground. He gripped her by the wrist. “I’m officially out of your reach, and I have been for some time. Enjoy prison and take one look around you at the empire we’ve built that you wanted to destroy down to your own Family. You want to know what love is? It’s when you sacrifice everything for them, rather than sacrificing them, for yourself.”
Tank stepped forward and put her in cuffs. “She escaped prison, with the help of a few of her men and was assumed dead after finding her clothes and some of her teeth near the burning escape car, one of our own was in on it and on payroll, they wrote up the case as death by burning and helped her re-establish herself.”
Phoenix cursed, finally speaking up. “How long ago?”
“Two years ago.” Tank revealed. “We just put two and two together this morning after Junior captured the picture and infiltrated. With King and Ivan’s help, we were able to set this up. Well, that and Bella, who probably needs medical attention.”
I stared down at Mil. “What? No last words before prison? No, thank you?”
“It was always mine,” Mil rasped. “The De Lange Family was mine.”
“Then you should have taken better fucking care of it,” Phoenix snarled.
“I was going to fix it!” Mil screamed. “I was going to fix everything!”
I released a sharp laugh. “Didn’t you know? We already did, without your help.”
Chase was the first to turn his back on her, Phoenix second, and slowly every single person turned away, a sign of cutting that person from memory.
And finally, I did the same as Tank carried her away while she screamed.
“Did you know?” Nixon asked Phoenix.
Phoenix sighed. “I considered her dead as well. She just barely survived that day, but get one thing straight, she died that day, to all of us, and the dead should stay buried.”
“Risky.” Chase pointed out.
Phoenix shook his head. “I thought so many times to let you know she had made it and then when I visited her one last time, I didn’t recognize her anymore. Her soul left that day. What you see now is a shell. It would have been more painful to give you hope that you could still save her when she was already gone, she spoke in riddles all the time, the injuries weren’t kind and caused brain damage as well.”
Chase nodded and pulled Phoenix in for a hug. “You did the right thing.”
Andrei walked up to all of the old bosses. “Does this mean we can go now?”
“Rude, always so rude, Russians,” Phoenix said under his breath.
I laughed, then winced, forgetting about the bullet in my upper shoulder, and looked over to Junior, pulling the ring from my hand.
“Nope.” He held up his hands. “I actually like the early retirement thing, might learn how to golf with my dad.”
“You’re twenty-six.” I pointed out.
He nodded. “One of us has to raise Bam-Bam, plus my dad’s still fully running the Nicolasi train wreck.”
“YOU IDIOT!” Serena’s scream was actually the most terrifying sound ever as she sprinted toward Junior with Bam-Bam chasing happily behind her like they were playing tag.
We all gave Junior a wide berth while King scooped up Bam-Bam and ran in the opposite direction; I mean, it was nearly a full-on sprint, I didn’t know he could run that fast.
The rest of the bosses followed, leaving Junior completely abandoned.
“Huh.” Nixon laughed. “Bet he wishes he was dead now. She’s got a temper.”
“Shocked.” I smiled over at him, then stopped when his glare was all I received.
“You.” He jabbed a finger at me. “Good thinking on making her De Lange. That was smart. You protected her and me, and in the end, you did… good.”
I made a face. “On a scale of one to ten, how painful was it to say that out loud, Dad?”
