Something broke in me when Pierce walked out the door. He’d begged me. He’d begged me, and I gave him the same face my father gave my mother so many times. She only wanted to be loved. He only wanted to be loved.

The sight of him lying on the floor, blood dripping down his face, broke the rest of whatever I’d been clinging to in order to keep Pierce at a distance. Nothing left between me and my feelings for him. All I could do was face them, go head to head, and hope I came out the other side in one piece.

Argyll staggered to his feet, and I allowed him to stand for a second. “I give up,” he announced. His tone, however, said fuck you.

He shuffled sideways, and I couldn’t react fast enough. He kicked Pierce again. Something clicked in me, I aimed at the bastard’s knee, and pulled the trigger. The gun jerked back, but I held on as Argyll slammed to the ground screaming.

I held up the weapon. “You know; I don’t even need this.”

Argyll clutched his knee in both his hands, rocking on the side of his hip. “I have something so much better.”

“What?” he screamed.

I leaned in and met his eyes. “I have little Patricia. She looks so adorable in that tutu. And I have baby Erin. It’s so sweet how his sister calls him Ari. I love that.”

I settled my eyes on the other man held tight by Gerry and gave him a sugar-coated smile. “And I have Theresa. Does your wife know all the naughty things you two do when she’s not in town? And Sam. You want her to take over your family one day, don’t you? I can’t wait to meet her.”

I waved the gun around. Sure, I looked like a lunatic. But I needed them to believe I sat just on the wrong side of sane. I needed them to look at my face and see my father.

I reached in my pocket to pull out a pack of smokes Fox bought only twenty minutes ago. The plastic crinkled faintly as I pinched it, pulled out a cigarette, and stepped up to Benedict again. His eyes widened as I fished a lighter from his breast pocket I knew he kept there.

My father had done that very same thing hundreds of times. I lit the cigarette, took a short drag, crossed my arms, and angled my head back. The perfect imitation of his classic ‘I’m debating on how to torture you’ stance. Another move my father did expertly. The same pose he took when he considered how to punish someone, and who’d be next to die. I glanced over my shoulder, and Benedict shivered in Gerry’s grip. “Do you think I’ll kill every single person you love?”

He scanned me head to toe and nodded twice. “Good, keep that in mind as you find a replacement to take over your family.”

I crouched and extinguished the cigarette an inch in front of Argyll’s pain drawn face.

Then I stood, planted my foot, and roundhouse kicked Benedict so hard, he hit the ground, his face smacking on concrete.

I knew this should be harder, and yet, every time I looked at Pierce laying in a small pool of his own blood, I couldn’t force myself stop.

Gerry nodded once and wiped his hands on his pants. “Where’d you learn to do that?”

“Both my sister and I earned black belts in martial arts as teenagers.”

A voice broke in from the corner. “This would be following the assassination attempt, correct?”

I stepped into the shadows and caught sight of Prospero, injured and leaning against the wall in the corner. “It was.” I answered.

A few of Pierce’s guys hovered at the door. I snapped my fingers and pointed to Prospero. One of them came over and helped the man out of the room. “Take him to his family. They will get him the help he needs.”

I focused back on Argyll, and I itched to empty the whole fucking gun into him. His boot still shiny with Pierce’s blood. I pointed at Gerry. “If I kill him, do you have the resources to make sure he disappears?”

“Sure, Boss.”

Anger flashed through me as I peered down at this man. The one who’d ruined my chance at happiness. The bastard I’d love nothing more than to gut. I couldn’t just let him walk away. So I stepped forward, shifted the mantle of leading this fucked up group of assholes onto my shoulders and aimed. It probably should have been harder to pull the trigger. The sound of the gun echoed through the room again, and Argyll jerked as the bullet struck his torso.

I flicked on the safety and handed it to Gerry. “You know; I think I missed something important. If he lives, send him back to his family, and tell them to choose another representative. If I see him ever again, I will kill him.”

The other two goons sat on the floor, staring at the once lauded leader of the Aristo family. I addressed them now. “You two go home, tell your family, tell your friends, tell anyone who will listen that I am head of the families now, and if anyone so much as breathes the word rebellion, I will come for them, and their children, their dogs, and their fucking yard gnomes. Nod once if you understand.”

They both nodded frantically, and I gestured at the men by the door to get them out of there.

Lucien sat on the floor, eyes wide as I untied his hands. Then I gripped him under the arm and helped him. “We’ll take you to the hospital with us.”

Gerry came back, lifted Pierce from the floor, and I trailed after him. We went straight the hospital, and I installed him in my family’s private wing.

The doctors explained the extent of his injuries, and I broke down in tears, collapsing to the floor in the middle of the hospital hallway. Fox lifted me gently and set me up beside Pierce in his hospital bed.

Waiting for him to wake up was a kind of helplessness I never wanted to feel again.