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It was the polar opposite of the neighborhood I had visited earlier that day to get the gun from Ricky. I didn’t get distracted by the giant stately homes around me. The whole area reeked of old money.
At any other time, I would have felt out of place. I’d always been insecure about growing up poor. However, today I didn’t care. My only focus was catching Nico as soon as he stepped out of the car.
Patience. That’s what I kept telling myself. I just needed to be patient.
The car never stopped for gas or even seemed to slow down. A few times I thought I was going to lose it. I even wondered if the driver had noticed me. Nervously, I twisted a lock of my hair.
Had they spotted me? It wasn’t as if I went around stalking random dudes on a daily basis. I was new at this.
For the hundredth time, I asked myself what I was doing. I didn’t know. I felt like I was having an out-of-body experience. It was probably just classic disassociation, I told myself.
I felt that Nico had to die, but there was something awfully depressing about my life coming to this end. Why was life so determined to punish me? First my mother and then my husband?
There had to be a little justice in the world. Others lived happy lives, right? Why couldn’t I?
Why couldn’t Jason have lived? I felt crushing loneliness as I followed behind the car.
My life’s circumstances had broken me. I wanted to scream in rage at the world. I spent the years after Jason died hiding from everyone because being a part of it without Jason just hurt so much.
What tenuous friendships I had all pretty much disappeared. I’d taken up running because I needed to get out of the house to feel something again.
I would never forget the first run I went on, how my chest burned just walking briskly down the block. But soon enough, I welcomed the pain of running a mile, then two, then ten, and then I adjusted and got used to it.
I used working out as a means to literally run away from my rage. Clearly, it hadn’t worked, or I wouldn’t be where I was now—following a stranger, determined to kill him.
Besides running, albeit slowly, I didn’t pursue any other interests. The majority of my time at home was spent thinkingabout how unfair the world was, thinking about how I was robbed of everything meaningful in my life.
The life I wanted, the happiness I had known, had been stolen from me by one man.Nico.
We stopped at a light, and I pulled out the gun, liking the heaviness of the cold metal in my hand. Soon enough, the car would pull over. Nico had to get out sometime and when he did, I would be ready for him.
I ignored the check engine light on my dashboard and prayed that I wouldn’t have to drive much longer. I didn’t dare glance at the gas gauge.
I didn’t need it to tell me what I already knew. I needed gas soon, or I would be pushing the car trying to get to Nico.
I had been driving around since morning. It was an old car, prone to minor acts of rebellion. It’d seen better days.
Jason had joked that the car would outlive him. We had laughed at the thought. There was nothing funny about that joke now.
Following Nico’s car deeper in the hills, I let out a soft whistle as I took in my surroundings. “Fancy,” I said aloud to the silent interior of my car.
The properties in this area were even more spread out, and mansions locked behind ornate gates came into view. Majestic trees lined each side of the road, shading my car and the one in front of me. It was a beautiful sight.
Of course, someone like Nico lived out here,I thought to myself bitterly.Life wasn’t fair.
The car that carried Nico finally slowed down. My heart began to race. It was time.
The car in front of me took the first right, and I was about to do the same when I heard tires squeal behind me.
The next thing I knew, someone rear-ended me hard. I held my breath and closed my eyes as my car careened off the road.
CHAPTER FOUR
Dario
She looked pissed.
I tried not to be amused, but I was. Nico was safe, making himself comfy in my brother’s pool house while I figured out what I wanted done with him.