Total pages in book: 57
Estimated words: 52592 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 263(@200wpm)___ 210(@250wpm)___ 175(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 52592 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 263(@200wpm)___ 210(@250wpm)___ 175(@300wpm)
CHAPTER 20
ELLE
“You don’t understand, Elle,” my father sputters as he and his accomplice sit at the table in front of me. “It would have ruined everything—me, my career, your upbringing. Our entire lives would have been destroyed—she was going to destroy them.”
I’m still in shock that Nico did this, that he brought my father and my mother’s killer back to his apartment and to me. At first, I was horrified, terrified, and furious. Hell, I was pretty much every emotion in the book all at once. But then, a sort of strange calm came over me when I realized he did this for me. Nico is giving me the closure that I’ve spent my whole life searching for.
“You don’t have to listen to him, Elle,” Nico says as he stands behind both men, ready to smack the butt of his gun against their skulls if they make any sort of move toward me. “Just because he’s your father doesn’t mean that you need to listen to him spout lies and bullshit.”
“I know,” I nod. “And it’s okay, I want to hear what he has to say. I want to hear his story.”
I turn back toward my father and can’t hide the look of disgust that I feel. “You destroyed us, Dad. You destroyed my childhood, my whole world. The only thing that you protected was yourself, and the corruption that you were trying so hard to hide.”
“She was going to leave us, Elle,” he whines like the broken man that he is.
Funny, I’m finally seeing now that my father was always a broken man, and I just never wanted to believe it. But as he sits here now looking pathetic as he tries to make up excuses for having done the unthinkable, I see him for what he is—a weak monster.
“She wasn’t going to leave us,” I correct him. “She was going to leave you. And if I’d known all that she knew about you back then, I would have done the exact same thing.”
I listen as my father rattles on about all the reasons that he “did what he did”. He has a laundry list of excuses, all of which are paper-thin, ranging from needing to make more money to support his family to being “disillusioned” by the promises the mafia made to him, and finally landing on at least a partial truth of just being a flawed and greedy man overpowered by his selfish ambitions.
When he’s finished, he dares to ask for my forgiveness.
I can hear Nico take in a sharp breath, as if he’s angered that my father would even think he is deserving of any mercy or redemption. Nico and I have grown closer in a way that I’m unable to describe. It’s as if this joint, depraved quest of ours has allowed us access into each other’s innermost thoughts.
He reaches across the table to hand me his gun, knowing that I know how to handle one already and trusting me enough to call the shots of how things go from here.
I take it from him and wrap my finger around the trigger, aiming it down at the table for now.
“Whatever you choose to do here, Elle,” Nico says quietly. “I’ll take care of any consequences or mess that ensues. You don’t need to worry about anything other than claiming the closure that you need. I’ll make the rest disappear.”
My father squirms in his seat. He knows exactly what the Ghost means by that. I could kill my dad right now, shoot him right in the chest, the same way that he had my mother killed, and no one would ever come knocking on my door about it. Nico would make sure of that.
It’s tempting to want to avenge my mother, and to meet the violence she endured with more violence. I don’t feel at all sorry for my father. In fact, I hate him more than I have ever hated anyone, except for the man sitting next to him who pulled the trigger that night. But I still don’t want to kill him. It wouldn’t bring my mom back to do so, and it would only make me feel worse and feel more like him.
“Please, Elle,” he begs. “If I could go back and do things differently, I would. I’ve learned my lesson.”
“No, you haven’t,” I frown at him. “And killing you won’t teach it to you either. Here’s what you’re going to do, Dad. You’re going to quit the police force for starters.”
“What? I can’t,” he protests. “Being a cop is my whole life. It’s all that I know how to do. If I’m not on the force, then I’m nothing.”
“You are nothing,” Nico growls from behind him.
“You’re going to quit the force immediately,” I repeat. “And then you’re going to leave Las Vegas. I don’t care where in the world you go, but it better be far away from here, and you’d better stay far away from me. I never want to see or speak to you again. Do you understand me?”