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“My name isLakeor Siren,” I shout angrily. “And Siren says...”
I pull the trigger.
My heart races, and my breathing quickens. Massimo writhes, but his shrill screams are drowned out by the roar of my anger in my ears. Blaze sets his hand on my shoulder to help ground me.
“Are you okay, Siren?” Blaze pulls me to his chest, kissing the top of my head.
But I remember everything now, from the night my mother died, and I can never forget.
“I have no energy for him anymore. He has taken almost everything good from me.” I swallow thickly as hot, angry tears fall.
“He killed my mother, made it look like she had an overdose. He injected her with something to make it look like she’d OD’d before he raped her. Before he left her dying on the kitchen floor while he called Dad to say she’d overdosed. I was only six. I was there, in the same room, and I saw the whole thing.”
I feel Blaze’s noiseless gasp in the way his chest expands.
Massimo stops his pain-induced thrashing, his eyes practically bulging out of his head at that surprising fact. Tearing myself from Blaze’s arms, I take the last step to Massimo and stand between his bloodied legs. My vision is entirely blurry from tears as I bring the barrel of my gun directly to his chest and rest it over his heart. Right before I pull the trigger, I give Massimo the last words he’ll ever hear.
“You won’t hurt anyone I love ever again.”
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Lake
Two Months Later
Christmas Day
I’ve been seeing a psychologist once every other week since the day I killed Massimo.
She says because I was so young, and my mother’s murder was such a traumatic event, my mind had blacked out most of that night. Dissociative amnesia is the clinical term. She says it would be best for everyone, most of all me, to talk about it often and get it off my chest, something about a burden being halved when it’s shared.
It was difficult to relay everything that happened the night Mom died to Dad. He took it surprisingly well. I think he’d always somehow known Mom didn’t overdose on her own. He admitted to feeling stupid for being so naïve and not knowing Massimo had gone behind his back in trying to take over the city.
I’ve officially moved into Blaze’s apartment with him, and Dad has had the company of Lucifer and Adriana, a pretty at-home nurse we hired to help take care of him while he has been healing. I think she has been taking care of him in more ways than one.
Blaze and I visit Dad almost daily and are at his place for dinner almost every other day of the week. And Adriana has suspiciously been there for dinner at least once a week.
“Siren, are you almost ready?” Blaze calls out.
Geez, what’s gotten into him today? He has been restless all day.
“Almost done,” I call back, touching up my lipstick before stepping back to take in my reflection. It’s a lot colder than normal for this time of year, so I’ve donned a cropped burgundysweater, a black skater skirt, black stockings, and tan boots.
When I step out of the room, Blaze’s eyes become an inferno as he takes in my outfit.
“You’re not too bad yourself.” I grin coyly, bending to grab my handbag before announcing, “Okay, I’m ready.”
Blaze suddenly grabs me and pulls me to him, saying, “I’m not sure I even want to go now. You look amazing.”
I roll my eyes at his confession. Although I wouldn’t mind a quick release, and maybe it’d help relax him a little from the tension he seems to be harboring too.
“No, Dad and Adriana are waiting. She probably wants to get home to her own family.”
He grabs my ass as we walk to the elevator.
“Okay. Later then.”
***
