Page 148 of Ruin My Life

---

“I’m not that girl, Damon. I’m not soft, or sweet, or made for silk sheets. That girl died six months ago. You want to save me? You’re too fucking late.”

“I was going to tell you,” he says, desperation cracking through his voice. “Once I had a plan—”

“I already have a plan,” I snap, turning back to the man at my feet.

I lock eyes with Alexander. My voice drops to a growl.

“Tell me who your partner was. Give me aname.”

Alexander smirks, blood staining his teeth. He looks at Damon. Then Monroe. Connor. Chavez. And finally, back to me.

“You know how loyal Songbirds are,” he says. “Even shunned by my old man, that shit still runs in my blood.”

Then he tilts his head at Damon, and his voice softens with something close to cruelty.

“But he knows. Even if he doesn’t know he knows. IwishI could see your face when you figure it out, D.”

I can feel the rage vibrating off Damon as he takes a step toward Alexander.

But my anger has already simmered too long.

BANG!

The bullet rips through Alexander’s forehead. Blood spatters like paint across the stonework behind him.

His body slumps forward, chin hitting his chest like a puppet with its strings cut.

Dead.

Finallydead.

I drop the gun, and it clatters onto the floor like it weighs a thousand pounds.

I stare at his lifeless body—the body of the man who killed Amie.

And I feel…

Nothing.

No triumph. No closure. No relief.

Just silence.Numbness.

My knees hit the concrete hard, and my palms land in the warm blood still pooling on the floor.

It wasn’t supposed to be like this…

This was supposed to be the reason I lived. The thing that justified everything. The one truth I could hold onto:Amie deserved justice.

But this?

It doesn’t feel like justice.

It feels like I was used. Shaped into a weapon by the same people who ruined my life.

A pawn built from trauma.

I thought I was fighting fate—but I walked right into its hands.

---