Page 94 of Torched

“So why us? Where do we fit into your story?” Kane wonders.

“God, you are so thick sometimes.” Cristina dares to roll his eyes at him, and he stomps on her foot in retaliation. “Ouch! ¡Joder!Because Dax was going to help me kill you in exchange for the diamond! I wanted you dead so I could take over.”

“Do you hear that, Liam?” Kane snickers. “I always thought she was smart, but turns out she’s just as stupid as Junior.” He turns his head back. “I guess you’re lucky your daddy died, because now you don’t have to tell him you failed.Again.”

“Fuck you!”

“Did he know?” I ask her. Frank Reyes was a bad man who deserved what he got, but the few times we met, I’d seen the annoyance he felt for Junior. Yet Cristina, he spoke highly off. She was his favorite girl in the family.

“Of course, he didn’t!” she spews. “I was meant to tell him after we killed Liam. After we took the Carrillo empire.”

“You wanted to prove yourself.”

“I wanted him to see me for who I am! The true Reyes heir. The one who should take over the business when he retired, instead of the one who was doomed to destroy everything my father built with his sociopathic behavior.

“You never planned to let Junior take over, didn’t you?”

“Junior was a fool!” she spits through her burst lips. “He was a psychopath who had no clue what he was doing. He was a dog in a henhouse.”

“And you weren’t?” I hear the mocking tone in Liam’s question, though I keep my gaze fixed on Cristina.

“Unlike Junior, I know how to think ahead. I don’t run around like a headless chicken.” Her tone grows smug. “Not to mention the fact that any man with a working dick is easily tempted by a woman.”

“Girl, you’re delusional.” Kane scoffs.

“Am I? It worked on your brother. It worked onyou. My dearest cousin has you wrapped around her little finger, and you know it.”

“Wrong,” I bark. “That’s what happens when you love someone. You compensate. You make sacrifices.”

“You grow weak!”

“Well, by the look on your face when soldier boy just walked out, I guess that’s happened to you, ain’t it?”

Her face sours.

“Funny enough, I’m pretty sure he was willing to go the distance for you. He seemed smitten. But even for him, your track record was just too tainted for him to take the risk. I warned you about that,” I clip with a smile. I saw the look in Dax’s eyes when he spoke of her. He cared for her, but he also knew she was always a lost cause. Cristina doesn’t love anyone but herself. He was right. Cristina will always be a one-woman team, no matter how much she wants to convince herself she’s capable of more. Her childhood completely destroyed her ability to fully trust.

“Dax is a pussy like all other men! Now give me my fucking necklace!”

I put it back in my pocket. “Nah, I’m going to keep this for a while. You won’t need it anyway where you’re going.”

The metal of the gun sits firmly in my hand, and I raise my arm.

“What are you doing?”

“Ending this, Cristina.”

The look in her eyes is nothing less than the way I imagine the devil’s to be, her flushed cheeks filled with contempt like she has no fear.

She huffs, entertained. “Andyouare the one who’s going to end it?Por favor, niña. We all know you’re way too sweet to kill anyone. You’re not capable of killing. Unlike the people you surround yourself with, you actually have a heart.” She spits out the last words as if having a heart is an illness, reveling in more of how her fucked up mind works. “You can’t do it. I know you can’t.”

“You don’t know what I’m capable of, Cristina.”

She smiles. “Si, but I do. You’re not enough, and you never will be because you’re notme.” There is triumph in her voice, followed by a psychotic chuckle, and I laugh with her. A few months ago, this would be the point where I would freak out. Letting my insecurities take the best of me, but right now I just realize I agree with her.

“You’re right, I’m not you.” I pause, long enough for her brain to register the cold look in my eyes and for hers to widen. “I’m better than you.”

Then I pull the trigger.

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