He shrugs. “I have no idea.”
“I will find her. And when I do, I will make sure she feels every ounce of pain I deliver.”
“What did she do exactly?” he asks, like he’s truly curious. “For you to be so angry, I mean?” I see Gianna tense up through my peripheral. “So what, she killed your cousin. Is he enough reason to start a war? You killed my cousin, who was more important and more powerful than that piece of shit cousin of yours ever would have been. Trigger Toni was going to rule the fucking industry and then you came along and ruined everything—El fucking Jefe.” He leans up, staring hard into my eyes. “You will go down burning with this stupid bitch at your side. And when you do, she will laugh. She will laugh her ass off and relish in her victory while sleeping naked on a bed made of money. After all, it’s all she’s ever wanted, besides power: for you to go down, for you to be forgotten. Forever.”
The urge to grip his throat and crush it until he turns blue consumes me, but it’s too late. Gianna steps beside his chair, points her gun to his temple, and shoots him. His blood splatters, some hitting my face. Most of it lands on my shirt and hand as his body slouches back in the wheelchair.
I blink hard and step back, brows furrowed, glaring up at her.
She grimaces down at his limp, bloody body, and then at the skull. Putting her gun back into the holster at her waist, she snatches the skull up and hurries through the garden to the double doors that lead to the basement.
She stomps down the steps, and I run after her, reaching the floor of the basement and watching as she rushes around, looking for something. She tosses the skull down on the floor and continues searching for something—I have no idea what—until she finds what she’s after.
When she grabs the handle of a sledgehammer and lifts it up in the air, a shrill cry floods my eardrums. Her cry is louder than any noise I’ve ever heard come out of her, the hammer all the way in the air. It comes flying down with full force, crushing the skull into pieces. She does it again, and this time the hammer breaks the skull into many fragments.
Her breathing is wild, chest heaving, loose wisps of hair now hanging in front of her face. Her eyes are deranged, darker than I’ve seen them, and for a split second, they are foreign to me.
This isn’t the girl who was terrified of me. The girl who looked like she wanted to jump a bridge and end her life while under my roof.
No.
This is a woman—a powerful woman who has finally found her strength. A woman who knows all about the dirty ways of this fucked up world and is tired of putting up with its shit.
“Fuck Henry,” she pants, and the heavy end of the hammer hits the ground as she stands up straight. “And fuck Trigger Toni.” Her eyes pull up to mine, still panting. She shifts sideways, swallowing thickly.
I want to tell her how stupid she is for doing what she just did—killing the only source that could have gotten us to Hernandez—but I don’t, because she did exactly what I would have done.
She killed him.
And with no remorse in her eyes.
No fallen tears.
No regrets.
She pulls her gun out again and storms past me, rushing up the stairs.
Before I go, I look back at the shattered skull. The pieces of him. How he was whole before and had a little meaning, but now, he is nothing but a shattered, worthless pile of shit.
When I make it up the stairs, Gianna is digging through Henry’s pockets. She fishes out his cellphone and his wallet.
“What the fuck happened?” Clark asks, trudging up the hill. When he makes it up to where we are, he looks down at Henry with a screwed up frown. Pointing at him, he says, “Whoa! What the fuck happened to him? He has no fucking limbs!”
I ignore his exclamation, focusing on Gianna again. She’s scrolling through the cellphone now. Her eyes light up several seconds later, and she points at the screen.
“What did you find?” I ask.
“Someone just sent him a text, said they’re on the way to get him. We have to go.”
“Come on.” I rush her way, yanking the cellphone out of her hand, sliding it into my back pocket, and then clutching her wrist, running down the hill and across the wooden bridge. Our feet drag in the sand with the weight of our boots, but I don’t stop, not until we’re all in the van, loaded up, and driving away from the house.
Guillermo takes the hidden dirt road I created for getaways. When we reach a safe distance, I release a sharp breath, pulling out the cellphone.