Page 92 of Montana Falls
The thud of her body hitting the ground was sickening, and I felt my knees buckle beneath me. With a scream tearing from my lips, I collapsed, the gun slipping from my hands, my body shaking as I stared at Retta’s lifeless body lay crumpled on the floor, the blood pouring freely. Her eyes still wide and seeing. Blonde hair staining red.
It wasover.
It was finally over.
But the relief I should have felt didn’t come. Instead, all I felt was a hollow ache in my chest, a deep, gnawing sorrow that threatened to consume me because of one horrible, horrible thing I saw when I turned to my men.
“Misha.” Lincoln slowly approached his brother, tears streaming down both their cheeks, as harshly as mine. “Give me the gun.”
Misha didn’t blink. Didn’t speak. He just held the gun in his hand, still aimed at his mother.
Still pointing right where he’d shot her…killedher…
My sobs came in sharp gasps as I knelt there on the cold, hard floor. I could barely breathe. My chest felt tight, my heart shattered into a million pieces. I had loved Retta. I had trusted her. She had been a part of my family. But she truly washisfamily.
She was his mother and… Misha…Mishahad pulled the trigger that took her life.
“Misha…” My voice cracked, barely a whisper. “I’m sorry,” I whispered, though I wasn’t sure if I was apologizing to him or for my lack of action.
I should have killed her sooner.Faster. I should have taken that guilt and burden on my soul because he didn’t deserve it. None of them deserved it, but especially him.
Lincoln took the gun from him, switching the safety on before he stuck it in the back of trousers and wrapped his arms around his brother, as the other guys made their way to me.
Only then did Misha crack his silence. His gasping cries poured out as his knees buckled, and he sobbed into Lincoln’s shoulder. Only then did I scream and sob and curse to high heaven, as Kody and Price wrapped me in their arms and whispered things I couldn’t even hear.
I didn’t know how long I sat there, Retta’s blood quickly soaking my dress and skin.
I didn’t know how long I cried and screamed and… and felt nothing but pain.
Did it make me selfish to be glad I didn’t have to kill her? Did it make me horrible that I was relieved that one of the Leroux boys had taken away that horrific decision, and saved me from a lifetime of wondering if they secretly hated me?
Did it make me selfish that I didn’t get up to comfort Misha because I was too busy being so fucking relieved that things wereover?
Cassie was gone. Mystalkerwas gone.
My daddy’s death had been avenged, as had all the others she’d committed.
I was sorry for what my great grandfather had done to her. I was sorry for the innocent little girl she had once been. And I was sorry for Retta Leroux – a woman I loved and considered family. I wasn’t sorry for the fact that my stalker was dead and the one responsible for ruining my life over and over again was now permanently unable to touch.
I wasn’t sorry that I was… I wasfree. I was finally free. From the fear. The pain. The vengeance.
I was just Sapphire now. The girl with the gang and the abundance of goals in life she wanted to achieve once she paid for a brilliant therapist and fought through all of her trauma. Iwasn’t a victim anymore, waiting for her monster to come back and play another round.
I was just me and I would find a way to survive whatever consequences this horrible night had.
Chapter Thirty
The hospital room was eerily quiet, save for the soft beep of the heart monitor beside Logan’s bed and the steady hum of the IV drip attached to his arm. The pale light of early evening filtered in through the half-drawn blinds, casting long shadows on the walls, making the sterile white of the room feel like a cold tomb.
It was a tomb, almost. Just not for us.
I sat by Logan’s side, watching him sleep from the comfort of his hospital bed. His chest rose and fell in a slow, even rhythm—an innocent, peaceful rhythm that felt so out of place after everything we’d been through and just how much my brain was racing with thoughts I could barely understand.
Logan looked just like he was sleeping on a regular day, if you didn’t look at both of his legs in casts, and the bandages on other little burns along his thighs.
Ilooked normal. In Price’s T-shirt, hanging low enough, it was a dress. A pair of Misha’s socks that almost reached my knees, and had pictures of Pikachu all over them. I had a Glock on the table; Malone’s Glock. A coffee on the way from Kody, as well as some take out he deemed not disgusting.
All of them were outside the door, whispering and explaining and doing whatever I ought to have been doing.
