Page 149 of Fall Into Me

My phone buzzed in my pocket again, and I rolled my eyes at the persistence of my best friend.

I walked back over to stand in front of my father, but not too close because right as I looked at my watch, he folded over his legs and emptied the content of his stomach onto the floor.

My lip curled back again but this time in disgust, “Gross,” I murmured, shaking it off so I could get to my actual point.

Turns out I was a fan of the theatrics. Who’d of fucking guessed?

“Yoo-hoo.” I snapped my fingers to get his attention, watching as his glazed eyes lifted to meet mine. He leaned back into the couch, his chest heaving, the words he couldn’t say swirling in the haze of his expression.

“You could have avoided all of this.” I gestured lazily between us. “But you had to go ahead and threaten my mother. Mywife.” I shook my head in mock disappointment. “I was actually going to just…let you go!” I scoffed, checking my watch again as my phone buzzed for the third time against my leg. “I should bethanking you, really. I imagined you like this—time and time again. But the reality? So much better than what I pictured.”

I bent down and picked up the bag I’d set at my feet.

“I want you to know that no one will remember your name.” My voice was cold and heavy. The fucking hand of the grim reaper reaching out to grip him by the throat. “And if they do, they will know just how insignificant you were. How spectacularly short you fell.”

“You…” he wheezed, chest working exceptionally hard now.

“One more time.” I cupped a hand around my ear, tilting my head toward him and frowning in concentration.

“I’m…going to…fucking…kill you.” Sweat dripped down his face, his mouth twisting in pain and desperation.

“Oh.” I nodded, straightening back up. “No, you’re not,” I said, giving him a small, pitying smile. “But I bet you wish you did, huh?” I said with a wink.

The very same that Cali seemed to be so fond of. My father, though, didn’t seem to hold it in quite the same regard.

The noise he made was full of his last dispatch effort to move. A pathetic belief that he could fight the arsenic in his blood. The delusion that nothing and no one could touch him finally torn to bloody ribbons while I watched him take his final breaths.

I held up my middle finger as his chest rose and fell for the last time and then my phone buzzed again. This time, it didn’t stop.

“You know,” I said, my tone bone-dry as I answered, “I’m in the middle of something.”

“You’re taking forever. I thought he got the better of you,” Ash said, his words muffled, likely around a mouthful of food.

“Your faith in me is inspiring,” I muttered, heading for the elevator and pressing the call button. The doors opened immediately.

“Coraline has been calling me every two minutes, ripping me a new asshole because we’re running late.”

“What’d you tell her?” I’d set my phone todo not disturbfor everyone but Ashton. I didn’t want a single part of this to touch Cali.

“That we’ve gone fishing. What do you fucking think I told her?”

It was silent for a second while I waited for him to go on.

“I don’t fucking know?”

“She thinks you’re getting her something special. Like down-on-one-knee special.”

My face fell. “Are you fucking kidding me? You hadonesecret to keep.”

“I didn’t give her specifics,” he grumbled as I walked out of the elevator, leaving the bag behind. I nodded at two of Ash’s guys as they passed me, their small nods returned in kind as I made my way through the lobby and out to the waiting car.

As soon as the door closed behind me, I removed the phone from my ear and turned offdo not disturb. A flood of messages from Cali, Delilah, and Sammy filled my screen.

The last one from Delilah was a bride emoji.

“I’m going to actually kill you,” I bit out, glaring at Ash.

“Well, and I was hoping you would have learned this already, but the first rule is not to tell the other person what you plan to do.”

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