Chapter 196

“I had to do it, Fay,” Daniel says, looking at me evenly, his voice serious and heavy with the weight of the life he just took. “He couldn’t live – you know that. You’ve read enough Machiavelli to know that if he lived he’d have come for vengeance. He had to be destroyed -”

“Daniel,” I say, trying to interrupt and moving around the table now.

“I’m serious!” Daniel continues, stepping away from my father’s corpse and facing me as I come around, the bloody knife still clutched in his hand. “This is the only way we survive this, Fay – any of us. He had to die – and I – I know you’re too gentle to be able to do it – I wanted to take the blood on my hands so you didn’t have to –“

“Daniel -” I say, stepping close to him now and looking up into his eyes – reaching out a hand to place against his heaving chest.

“I’m right about this, Fay!” he protests, insistent, needing me to see it. “Men ought to be indulged or utterly destroyed – if you –“

“Daniel!” I interrupt again, wrapping my hand around the lapel of his jacket and tugging it, hard, to get his attention. And then a little smile breaks out on my lips as I open my hand and hold up the little vial still sitting on my palm. “It’s just sugar water,” I whisper.

I look up at my husband, my best friend, very carefully, loving him anew for wanting to take this from me – this inevitable thing that I wanted to save him from as well.

A hard little gasp breaks from Daniel’s throat as he throws out an arm and grabs me, pulling me close, his hand that still holds the knife held far away from both of us. “Fay,” he groans, and I can hear his voice break on the word. “Why didn’t you tell me that part of your plan?”

“Because I didn’t think you’d let me go through with it,” I say, laughing a little. Because, ultimately, I was right – he didn’t let me. He did it himself.

I feel Daniel sigh against me and then he lowers his head to rest his cheek against my hair. “Shit, Fay…we did this. I killed a man.”

“We both did it,” I murmur, wrapping my arms around his waist and burying my face against his chest, fighting all of the horrible emotions welling up in me. Guilt, and fear, and – perhaps worse, because I’m a murderer now, and I shouldn’t feel any of the good things – but relief and freedom, they’re there too. “We’ll share this, Daniel, all right? Me and you did it. The blood is on both our hands.”

“All right,” he murmurs, and then slowly he releases me.

“You okay?” I ask, my own voice shaking now as I raise a hand to his cheek.

He glances at the corpse next to him and swallows hard before stepping away from me. “I’ll be okay when…when it’s all done. Yeah?”

“Yeah,” I say, stepping back and smoothing my hands down over my dress. And then we both move. Fast. Because as much as Fiona has already got most of the family on her side, she is making her own moves scorched-earth moves right now against those she thought might hold out.

And there’s a chance that her efforts have failed, and those who survive would seek to hurt us when they find out what happened at this casual family brunch.

Daniel drops the bloody knife onto the table and fishes a small bottle out of his pocket. As I gather the black briefcase, he pours the contents of the bottle – I smell rubbing alcohol – onto the knife and takes a second to wipe it clean of any fingerprints with a spare napkin. Then he tosses the soaked napkin into a metal bowl and quickly lights it on fire with a lighter from his pocket.

“Is that necessary?” I ask as I wait by the door.

“I don’t know,” he murmurs, waiting to make sure that the napkin is sufficiently consumed and waving the smoke out of his face. Then he looks at me with a shrug. “My first crime scene too, Fay.”

“True,” I concede, and then when he joins me at the door I open it and we hurry through the house. We head immediately for the front door but I stop in my tracks when I see Tristin sitting primly on the couch in the parlor, Romulus still by her side, and Estrella asleep in her arms. She looks at me with wide, dark eyes.

I can tell from Tristin’s stark expression that she knows precisely what she’ll find when she goes into the breakfast room. I don’t know how she knows it but…she does.

Daniel stops when he reaches the front door and realizes that I’m not at his side. “Fay…” he says, his voice worried as he hesitates by the front door.

But I just give him a steady look before moving to the door of the living room, meeting Tristin’s gaze without an ounce of apology on my face.

“Is it done?” she asks, her voice soft.

I nod. And then my eyes move to the children, to Estrella’s perfect face, to Romulus’s dark and worried eyes. “The house is yours,” I say quietly. “And all of the money in the personal accounts.”

“What?” she breathes, shocked. But I don’t look at her. Instead, I focus only on Romulus, my little brother who has every reason in the world to come after me one day, to seek his own vengeance. Breathlessly, I hope that he won’t, that instead he’ll get out of this world.

What I’ve done today, it’s supposed to be a gift – what my mother tried to give to me.

But perhaps one day he’ll decide – as I did – that it’s not a gift he wants.

“You’ll receive the paperwork for the house in about a month,” I say quietly, looking back at her. “And the money in the accounts – you should move it to another account. I won’t come after it, but…it’s probably a good idea. The businesses, both criminal and legitimate – they’re gone. They belong to me or to Fiona now.”

Tristin’s jaw drops open as she stares at me, realizing that I’m doing my best to make amends. While I’ve taken her husband down, I’m not trying to burn her life as well. Instead, I seek to give her the means to build one for herself.

“You’re not my enemy, Tristin,” I say quietly. And then I look at Romulus and Estrella, my siblings. “And neither are they. I hope you find happiness in this world. Fiona will give you whatever you want. But honestly? I hope you sell this house, and take the money, and take them far, far away from all of this.”

And slowly, to my shock and pleasure, a very small smile curls on Tristin’s lips.

“All right,” she says, nodding her head slowly.

And I nod back, and take one more look at my siblings, and step away.

As I move to meet Daniel at the door, a man comes down the steps from the second level of the house, which makes me go rigid with fear. But when I look up, anticipating an enemy, I’m shocked to see that it’s simply their electrician – who I’ve seen here at the house before.

“Where is she?” he breathes, anxious.

“What?” Daniel asks, baffled.

And then I laugh as I figure it out. Because no house has this many electric problems, requiring the electrician to be on call. “In there,” I say, gesturing to the living room. “Take care of her.”

He gives me a strange look, but then nods, and hurries into the parlor. Laughing still a little, I take Daniel’s hand and tug him out the door.

“What the hell just happened?” he asks, looking over his shoulder as we head down the steps and over to our waiting car.

“Let’s just say I don’t think Tristin is going to come after us any time soon,” I say, pulling open my door and tossing the briefcase into the back seat. “And that she and the electrician are going to live a very happy life.”

“Oh,” Daniel says, his eyebrows raised as he climbs into the driver’s seat as I sit in mine. Our doors snap shut at the same time. “Well, that’s one less thing to worry about,” he murmurs, reaching for the cheap burner phone we picked up last week and typing in the address of our next destination.

“One less thing on a list of about a million,” I murmur, pulling out my own burner. I pull up Fiona’s number as Daniel starts the car and begins to pull out of the driveway.

“Calculating Best Route to…Pier 62, South Point Marina.” I nod when I hear the phone speak out our destination, hoping everything goes as planned when we get there.

“Here we go,” Daniel murmurs, pulling onto the road.

I finish typing my message and press send.

It’s done. Good luck, cousin.

Her response comes quickly.

Everything going as planned on our end too. Drop me a line when you get to where you’re going. Love you, baby.

I smile, thinking of all the times she’s called me Baby Fay, wondering if the nickname still applies anymore.

Can people still refer to you as baby when you’re a murderer? When you’ve killed your father and stolen the life he’s built?

When you’ve got about twenty more felonies planned for your afternoon?

Well. I guess we’ll find out.

I roll my window down and casually toss the phone out of the car, where I hope it gets pulverized by traffic. But even if it doesn’t, it won’t matter. We’ll be off the grid by nightfall.

I take Daniel’s hand as I press the button to close the window, giving his palm a little squeeze.

“Love you,” I say quietly, my eyes on the road ahead of us.

“Love you too,” he replies, quite simply.

And then we sit in silence as we drive the hour and a half journey to the coast.