Page 86 of Edge of Control

“Didn’t she? She killed herself. Because of you.”

Leo looked down at the ground. He affectionately stroked the gun in his hand. I half expected a tear to slide down his scarred cheek. “She didn’t kill herself.”

“Then how… You did it?”

“I didn’t kill her. I had Gio do it. She figured out what was going on with Pressure Point. And, well, it wasn’t exactly my choice, but I have someone above me who calls the shots. It doesn’t just end with me. They didn’t want Marielle bringing what she found to the police.”

My jaw dropped. It stung from where I’d been hit. I heard a pop somewhere in my face. Maybe it was broken. “You hired a hit on your own daughter. How the fuck do you fall asleep at night?”

“Like a baby. I’ve made peace with what I had to do. Was I happy about it? No. Like I said, I loved Em. She was bright, caring. She was daddy’s girl. But she was too smart. Too close to the truth.”

This guy made me want to pound his face into the concrete. What a piece of fucking shit. He’d thrown one child to the wayside and had another one murdered. He made me physically sick. Except there was nothing I could do. I was at his mercy. He could end me as easily as he did his daughter. And with that silencer attached to his pistol, no one would be any the wiser. I’d show up floating on the Hudson River days later. Maybe someone at Stonewall would be able to figure out what happened, but theodds were stacked against them. I could tell Leo Valdoni was an expert at covering his tracks.

“So what’s the end goal here?” I asked. Gio had moved so that he stood to my left, no longer directly behind me. That allowed me more room to maneuver my fingers and try to work out the knots.

If I had to die, then I’d do it fighting.

“The end goal is tying up another loose end while adding another knife into my son’s traitorous back.”

“Why do you hate him? What did he do that made you turn against your own flesh and blood?”

“Because he reminded me too much of myself. Because he wouldn’t conform how I needed him to. Because I hated myself, and I hated him. And because everyone around me seemed to love him more than anything else. It infuriated me. I took out my pain on him, and I turned any speck of compassion I had for him into cold hatred.”

A knot came completely loose. I froze. Did they notice?

“They say abuse is a cycle. Hurt people hurt people, after all. Well, I was hurt. A lot. My uncle abused me. In many ways. Pain became a reward for me. It also became a goal of mine. Inflicting pain made me happy, and so I directed all that to Theo.”

“He didn’t deserve that.”

“Really? The man going around killing people and implanting wings into their backs didn’t deserve that kind of treatment? Huh. Interesting.”

“He didn’t,” I repeated.

Leo lifted the gun. He aimed it directly at my forehead.His wicked smile felt as lethal as the bullet that waited in the chamber, ready to explode outward and end me.

I’d dealt with fantasizing about death for much of my life. It had become a struggle for me, one that I had been able to overcome through hard work, therapy, and medication. It was a years-long fight to stop wanting to die. To wake up and find a reason to keep going.

And now, suddenly, I was faced with death, and I wanted nothing but to survive. The old Jace would have welcomed this. It would have been an easy way out. But this new Jace wanted to keep living. This new Jace understood there was beauty in life, found in the nooks and crannies of even the worst days. There was always something to hope for, a better day to work toward.

I didn’t want this to be my end. Not when I felt like I was just beginning.

There was so much more left to do, to see. And yes, a large part of me wanted to keep exploring what I’d formed with Theo. I realized that even with his truth laid bare, I could see there was someone worth loving, someone who could be saved, forgiven. Same as I was saved. Everyone had a redemption arc, and I wanted to be there to help Theo realize his.

Maybe that was wrong of me. Maybe it was being in the presence of the grim reaper that muddled my thoughts and muted my conscience. I wasn’t sure.

But one thing Iwassure of was:

I didn’t want to die.

Leo thumbed the trigger. “Well, let’s see if my son deserves finding out the love of his life wasshot and killed because of—” A crash from upstairs interrupted him. He looked at the ceiling, eyes narrowed to slits. “Gio, go find out what that was about.”

Gio nodded and walked up the steps. He opened the door, closed it. I listened, but all I could hear was Leo’s heavy footsteps as he walked toward me. He smiled as he raised the gun, brought it to my mouth. He pressed the muzzle against my lips. The steel was cold, like how I imagined death’s embrace would be. He pushed it forward, opening my mouth. I could taste the metal. My jaw strained.

“This should be fun,” he said.

His arm twitched. He was seconds from pulling the trigger, seconds from blowing my brains out.

Then the door behind Leo opened, and my knight in shining armor appeared, rescuing me for a second time since I met him.

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