Total pages in book: 97
Estimated words: 89840 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 449(@200wpm)___ 359(@250wpm)___ 299(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 89840 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 449(@200wpm)___ 359(@250wpm)___ 299(@300wpm)
He still remembers.
She’d burnt her hand on the stove while staring off again, and he wrapped it for her. This was the third time that month she’d burnt herself by not paying attention. She was fidgety. Anxious. Looking all around the cabin and whispering “They’re coming. I feel it. They’re coming.”
Dominic hadn’t slept well in weeks and felt his mother was becoming more of nuisance every day.
“Mom, why don’t you just go?” he’d said after finishing up with her hand.
Her big, wet eyes focused on him. “Go where?”
“Away,” he muttered, exasperated. “Just . . . go away so I can live a regular life. Maybe if you do, there won’t be any more voices. You’ll be free . . . and so will I.”
He didn’t think she’d go the route of suicide. He’d hoped she’d run away and never return so he could permanently live with his uncle. He imagined what his life would be like without her and the idea of it was bliss. He wrote the suicide letter after she passed as a way to make amends and to better the situation. He didn’t want to feel guilty for telling her to go. Writing the letter didn’t help, so he hid it. Why didn’t he burn it? Why keep it? Is it because he imagined she would be grateful for whatever excuse he conjured up for her? In a way, that letter was his way of making peace with her death and releasing the blame, and perhaps that was why he’d hidden it and kept it all these years.
He shakes the memories away as Jolene enters his childhood bedroom. But it’s when he’s inside the room that he realizes it isn’t just Shavonne and Brynn waiting. They’re tied and bound to the chairs, heads hanging and clearly unconscious. But there’s another man here and Jolene stands in the corner with her arms folded as he charges toward Dominic and tackles him to the ground.
SIXTY-THREE
JOLENE
It doesn’t take long for Ricardo to capture Dominic, take the guns, and knock him out. After all, that’s Ricardo’s forte. It’s why he and Daphne travel so much, and why she can’t talk much about his job. It’s also why sometimes she disappears without so much as a heads up.
Ricardo was born and raised in Colombia. He does private work for a cartel and moved to the states to become an international hitman for the Colombian cartel, so to speak. He doesn’t like to refer to himself as a hitman. He likes to think of it as handling dangerous business and being paid under the table for it. When Daphne first told me what Ricardo was, it sounded unreal—like a chapter out of Ozark. I literally laughed in her face by how ridiculous it sounded. In my world, things like that didn’t exist. But they are real. Sure, we have the fictionalized TV shows and movies about mafias and cartels, but no one ever thinks a member of those would be so close to home.
If someone steps out of line, Ricardo handles it by making them disappear. And by doing so, he’s paid hundreds of thousands of dollars. In a way, he’s just like Boaz. Tonight, Ricardo will make Boaz’s body disappear for a few hours, right after he ties my husband up. I had to offer him a lot of money to do this for me. It’s one thing handling random low lives involved with a cartel, but it’s another to deal with a governor. But he takes care of Dominic with ease, each action a well-performed habit. Dominic is out cold, and Ricardo grunts as he lugs Dominic’s body up.
“Where to?” asks Ricardo.
“Kitchen table.”
He drags Dominic out of the room with a few bumps, thumps, and some clattering. I glance at Brynn and Shavonne. They’re out cold. Ricardo chloroformed them because he didn’t want them seeing his face.
This was not part of the original plan, but Brynn’s plan was so stupid. I’m sorry, but it was. She had this whole idea of getting Shavonne taken by Dominic so she could have a reason to “come out of hiding” and shoot him. She wanted this poetic sort of justice, but it only would’ve led to holes, and I couldn’t have that. If Dominic was going down, he had to really go down. He had to be the blame and no one else. I didn’t want him to have any outs when it came to this night, so my plan took form.
I leave the room to find Ricardo has situated Dominic on a chair at the table and is now walking out of the cabin. He returns several minutes later with a wide, flat wagon that looks like it could be used at a coroner’s office. He stands over Boaz’s body that he dragged in after dealing with Brynn and Shavonne. With Dominic’s gun, Ricardo shoots Boaz’s corpse in the head.