Elect(63)

I tugged Trace closer and kissed her forehead, speaking up. “I want you. I need to be with you, Trace. Having Nixon gone, it’s killing me.”

“Chase, you can’t…” Trace shook her head. “You can’t be like this. We can’t do this!”

“We aren’t doing anything,” I said in low tones, reaching for Trace’s hand. “Don’t you?” I looked directly at the shadow, hoping to God I wasn’t hallucinating, I mean, two seconds ago I was pretty sure I had died or something. “Don’t you feel the same way?” I looked above Trace’s head at the shadow and then back at Trace.

She jerked her hand away from mine. “It doesn’t matter what I feel. It’s not about me, Chase.”

“But it is.” I reached for her again. This time her hand stayed firmly in mine. She needed to play along or she was going to die. She didn’t know that, but I did. Because I’d just seen my father watching us from the side of the house. Meaning, he had to believe I’d bought it, I’d follow his assignment.

“It isn’t,” Trace sighed. “It never was.”

I jerked her toward me again. She fell against my chest and looked up into my eyes. “What are you doing?”

I sighed. “What I should have done a long time ago.”

I kissed her, hard, and then slid my mouth to her ear to whisper, “I’m going to shoot my gun. This is very important. I need you to collapse against me, okay?”

She nodded and clung to my shirt as I shot my gun into the side of the coat, making a muffled sound as it rang out into the night air.

Trace collapsed on me.

With a curse, I picked her up and carried her back inside.

The men were watching and hopefully so was my father. He’d think I’d tied up one loose end. Oddly enough, this might make him play perfectly into my hands. The sick thing was, that as much as I’d asked all my men to protect her, nobody ran to my side when I shot her—nobody blinked. My family officially sucked.

When we reached the kitchen I told her to crawl down the hallway and into her room, locking the door until I came and told her all was safe. I closed the blinds to the windows, pulled out my knife and sliced down my arm so that I would have actual blood on my hands. Ripping my shirt, I sliced part of my side, using as much of the blood as I could, and then I bandaged myself up.

A knock sounded at the door.

If it was my father, retribution was going to happen a hell of a lot sooner than I’d first thought.

To my utter shock and surprise, and most likely bad luck, I was knocked to the ground by a fist to the face.

“You son of a bitch. I swear I’ll kill you if you actually shot into her perfect body.”

“Nixon?” I gasped.

“No. I’m an angel of death coming to take you to your maker, you ass. Yes it’s me.”

“B-b-but—” I stuttered.

“We don’t have time. I just had to make sure she wasn’t actually shot. You’re lucky I saw Uncle Tony or I would have shot you on the spot. And ruined everything. Nice ring, by the way.”

“Am I dead?” I checked my body for gunshot wounds and was treated to another punch to the jaw.

“Answer your question?” Nixon tilted his head to the side. “Or do I need to make things more clear?”

“Still an ass.”

“Still more like a brother than your cousin, don’t you think?”

I froze.

“Look, I can’t stay. I shouldn’t even be here. I just needed to make sure they made you boss… What did Uncle Tony say tonight?”

“That I deserved to take your place—oh, right, and he told me to tie up loose ends.”

“Trace.” Nixon cursed.

“Yeah, Nixon. What’s going on?”

“Just act normal.” He paced in front of me. “I’m already dead, all right? But you guys, you’re alive, get it? If this goes badly…”

Aw shit. He was telling me what I didn’t want to know. If it went badly, and he did die, then he didn’t want Trace to mourn him all over again.

“But how are Luca and Mr. Alfero—”

“Sorry. This is where our conversation ends.” Nixon raised his hand to my head and everything went black.





Chapter Forty


Nixon


“He’s lucky as hell I didn’t beat the shit out of him.” I pounded my fist against the table and cursed.

“Nobody ever said being dead was easy,” Trace’s grandpa chuckled.

“I hate this.”

“It’s the only way. Quite clever, too, might I add.” He took a sip of coffee and drummed his fingers on the table. “It won’t be long now.”