Page 7 of The Beautiful Dead

I flicked my knife clean, watching Rutter’s tears fall freely, his face a portrait of utter devastation.

I drank it in, savoring it.

The agony.

The submission.

The end of a man who once thought himself untouchable.

I smirked as I tucked myself away and dialed my father’s number.

“Is it done?”

“Yes.”

“Name?”

“Calloway. A Gallo enforcer.”

“Fuck! Get it done.”

The line went dead, and I knew my night wasn’t over yet. No one would be left standing in our way. I’d pick the Gallos off one by one if I had to because Marlow Heights was ours.

CHAPTER 2

REMI

“Are you ready to go, kid?”

I grunted in acknowledgment and stuffed the last of my clothes into my backpack.

It felt strange—leaving the only place I’d ever known. A fourth-floor walk-up wasn’t much, but it had been home. Now, it was nothing more than an empty shell, stripped of the life we’d carved into its walls.

“Get moving then,” Arti grumbled, already heading for the door. “I can’t wait for ya any longer. The drive’s gonna take a few hours, if not longer. Your mother needs to get to the home so her condition stays stable.”

Like I didn’t know that.

I hated the way people spoke to me—like I was slow and needed things spelled out. Just because I wasn’t wide-eyed and wagging my tail at the world didn’t mean I was stupid. People never got that. They saw a kid who didn’t fit into their neat little boxes and decided he was broken. That was fine. Let them think what they want.

I bit the inside of my cheek, doing a final sweep of the apartment to make sure I hadn’t left anything important. Itwasn’t like I could afford to replace things. I knew that better than most.

The last year had been hell—balancing school, finances, and working nights at The Hollow bussing tables just to keep food on the table. Every penny from Mom’s insurance—along with anything else I could scrape together—had been funneled into her medical bills, as if keeping her breathing mattered more than keeping the lights on.

And now, after all that, we were leaving.

Leaving Cedarbrook. Leaving behind the life I’d tried so damn hard to hold together with my own two hands.

All for a woman who didn’t even know she was alive.

I should have been relieved when she woke up from the coma. That’s what agoodson would have felt. Instead, all I could think about was how unfair it was that she came backlike this—half a person, her brain wrecked beyond repair. She needed oxygen just to get through the day. Couldn’t move without help. Couldn’tspeak.

Existing like that wasn’t life.

It was suffering.

She should have died. I knew it, and maybe, somewhere in that broken brain of hers, she knew it too. It would have been a mercy.

Instead, she clung on, breathing, blinking,waiting. And now we were moving across state lines so she could waste away in some nursing home under the care of an aunt I’d never met. That was her future. That was mine.

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