Page 130 of Notorious

I hang up with Alden. “Now you need to post on AD/Vice that you’re sorry.”

“Not fucking sorry—” Gary snarls.

“Rowan?” I say.

Rowan presses the knife harder against the worm’s throat.

“Okay, okay,” Gary says. “Fuck. Fine. Let me pull it up.” He navigates to his social media account and glares at me.

“Type the following: ‘I want to apologize to Velvet, Tawni, and every other actor I have ever done wrong to.’”

Gary opens his mouth to protest but thinks better of it. He starts typing, muttering something under his breath that I choose to ignore.

“What I did was vile and unforgivable. I sincerely regret my actions, and I am very sorry,” I dictate.

He types.

I put my hand on my hip. “Post it.”

Gary can’t resist another eye roll before he hits post. I pull up the AD/Vice app to make sure it’s on his account and public. It is.

“So what do we do now?” Rowan asks.

“We let him go,” I say, then face Gary fully. “You’re not gonna tell anyone about this, are you? It’d be much, much worse for you if you did.”

“Are you gonna tell anyone?” Rowan asks.

Gary spits at him.

“That’s not an answer.”

“Of fucking course not,” Gary sneers. “But I’ll get my payback someday, little man.”

Now it’s Rowan’s turn to roll his eyes. “Whatever. I’d like to see you try.”

We all take a step back. I don’t trust Gary, but I also don’t know how else to end this. I look at Rowan, and just then, Gary rises from his seat and grabs for Rowan’s knife.

A gun goes off, loud and startling, and a body falls to the floor.

Gary lands to the side, eyes open wide, mouth slack. Wetness is splattered beside him, and I nearly throw up. Pieces of bone, blood, gray matter. It’s sickening.

My vision whites out. A pool of blood slowly starts leaking from the body.

“Shit,” one of the big guys says.

“You were defending me,” Rowan says. “I saw it. We’ll handle this.”

I start stuttering, “He … he … he’s dead. That fucking asshole. He … he raped my husband.”

“I know,” Rowan says quietly.

I race outside into the sunshine. Footsteps sound after me. It’s Rowan.

“What the fuck … what do we do?” I wanted vengeance. I didn’t want this. Did I?

“Deep breaths,” Rowan says. “Is that the first time you’ve …”

“Seen someone die? No. I mean yes. I mean … My high school boyfriend, he—with a razor blade—I saw the aftermath. His parents discovered him, but I’d come over just after. I saw the blood.”

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