Page 127 of Desperate Games

His gasp rattles in his chest. His eyes roll back.

Blood bubbles from his lips as his knees buckle in a gory, grotesque display.

I don’t yank the blade free until he stops wheezing. Then I do, letting him collapse to the floor.

A crimson pool spreads beneath him, soaking into the rotten wood.

Silence.

Then Junior whistles low.

“Well. That was final.”

Connor lights a cigarette, utterly unfazed.

“I’ll get the charges set.”

Andres claps me once on the shoulder, heavy and approving. “You did what needed to be done.”

I wipe the blade clean on Julio’s shirt and sheath it, staring down at the man who thought he could threaten my family.

He thought he was playing checkers.

But I was always playing chess.

And now?

The board is mine.

Chapter Forty-Three-Andrea

I know something’s happened.

I don’t know how, but I feel it.

Like a storm breaking far out at sea. Its thunder is silent, but I can feel it rolling through my very bones.

Remy.

He’s out there, doing whatever he thinks he has to, and I can’t shake the sense that tonight changed everything. For him. For us.

But I can’t dwell on it right now.

Because Callie is curled up beside me in her flannel pajamas, her little hands wrapped around the edges of the book in my lap, waiting for me to read.

“Ready?” I ask, and she nods, eyes already drooping but shining bright at the same time.

I smile and start.

“’Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house, not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse,” I read aloud.

She giggles at that part. “Not even the ones that live in your old apartment, Mommy Andy?”

My heart squeezes. “Not even those, Baby Girl.”

Her laugh is soft, muffled against my arm as I keep reading.

The tree glows in the corner, decked out with glittering ornaments Callie insisted on hanging herself.