Page 98 of Reaper
She’s leaving.
“Adriana, wait,” I call out and run after her.
I can’t lose her now — I have to catch her before it’s too late.
Chapter Forty-Three
Adriana
I’ve heard enough. Heard enough to know I’ve been a trusting fool. Enough to feel sick and disgusted with myself for letting that sick monster inside me. Enough to know I’ve never been more wrong in my life; the man who I loved, the man who I believed deserved a second chance — is directly responsible for my sister’s death.
I should kill him.
But I can’t.
Because there’s a piece of me that loves him.
“Adriana, wait!” His voice pulls at me as I slam the hallway door behind me and step into the din of the Triad den. I keep going.
Tears spring at the corners of my eyes. Tears for Vanessa, tears for him, tears for me, tears for the love that turned out to be nothing more than a painful, vicious lie.
I’m halfway down the stairs when his hand hits my shoulder.
“Don’t touch me,” I snap.
He doesn’t listen. “Wait.”
I whirl, and in the motion of whirling, bring my fist up to crack him in the face. It hurts — the stitches in my abdomen scream at me — but it’s a necessary pain. The force of my fist hitting his face breaks open something inside of me, and I cry out in a way I haven’t cried before. Not even when I first heard about Vanessa’s death and realized that the little sister that Iloved would never laugh or sing again; I release a lifetime’s worth of agony in a single cry. Then I hit him again.
“I fucking hate you, Reaper. I fucking hate you for killing her. And I fucking hate you for making me love you.”
“Don’t, Adriana,” he says. “Just stop for a second and talk to me.”
“Talk to you? Talk to you? Is that how you won my sister over? Pretending like you want to talk, like you give a shit, like you have a fucking heart, and making her trust you enough that she’d turn a blind eye to the fact that you were dragging her into a fucking drug war? A fucking drug war, Reaper. Fuck you, you heartless, murderous prick.” My words fail me, and my mouth becomes nothing more than an opening-and-closing impotent maw. Fire and pain burn through my blood, and I imagine wrapping my hands around his throat and squeezing until the life leaves his eyes, and the thought of hurting him more brings more tears to my eyes. Fuck him. Fuck him for making me give a damn even now. I love him; I wish he were dead.
His words are fast, frantic, even, the rapid-fire speech of a liar spinning his wheels. “It wasn’t — I mean, it was — but there’s more to the fucking story. Will you just hold on for a — “
My answer comes as the most satisfying punch I have ever thrown in my life. It snaps his head back, clicks his jaw shut, and reverberates up my elbow with blissful rage.
“No. No, I will not ‘hold on.’ If I ‘hold on’ any fucking longer, I will fucking kill you, and that’s something you don’t deserve. You don’t deserve an easy way out, Reaper. You don’t deserve that, and you don’t deserve me.”And I don’t deserve you, echoes through my heart with bitter agony. “I hate you. I fucking hate you. If there’s even an ounce of love for me in your heart, you fucking monster, you’ll let me go.”
“Adriana — ”
Once more, I hit him. Hit him and scream with all the pain that I cannot hold inside. Then I turn, and race down the staircase to the floor of the Triad den, shouldering aside gamblers, drunkards, and addicts as I push my way through the crowd to the exit. Every step further from Reaper makes me freer — freer to feel the pain of my loss, freer to realize that I’ve given up my job in pursuit of vengeance against the man who killed my sister, freer to realize that I can’t kill him and I’ll spend the rest of my life knowing I let my sister down and gave my heart to the man who took her life; I’m left with nothing but my pain.
Alone, eyes burning with tears, I step into the night air and let out a cry before charging down the sidewalk. I don’t know where I’m going, except that I want to get as far away from here — as far away fromhim— as I possibly can.
The Sacramento streets blur past me through the haze of tears. My feet carry me forward without direction, just away, always away from the Triad den and the man who destroyed everything. The gun digs into my lower back with each step, a cold reminder of what I should have done but couldn't.
I stumble over a crack in the sidewalk and catch myself against a lamppost. My breath comes in ragged gasps that turn to sobs. Vanessa's face flashes in my mind - her laugh, her stupid jokes, the way she'd call me when she was scared. And I let her killer touch me. I let him inside my body, inside my heart.
The neon sign ahead flickers weakly: "Murphy's." Half the letters are burned out, but it's a bar, and that's all I need right now. Drinking won't bring Vanessa back. Won't erase the feeling of Reaper's hands on my skin. Won't make me less of a fool. But it's something, and I'm already at rock bottom - how much worse can it get?
The door sticks, warped from years of neglect, and when I finally wrench it open, the smell hits me first. Stale beer,cigarettes, and something else - desperation, maybe. The kind of place where people come to disappear.
Conversations die as I step inside. Every face turns toward me, and I feel their eyes crawling over my tear-streaked cheeks, my disheveled hair, the way my hands shake. I'm fresh meat thrown into a cage of predators, and they can smell the blood in the water.
Good. Let them look. Let them see another broken woman stumbling through their domain. I've got nine millimeters of equalizer pressed against my spine, and honestly? I don't give a damn what happens to me anymore. Vanessa's dead. My career's in ruins. The man I loved is a killer.
