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Roni picked the lock at Jessica’s Manhattan apartment and then Brax looked at Gus. “Say one word,” he said, “and it will be your final words.”

Gus would have dismissed this guy as just some lackey for Roni, but looking in Brax’s eyes told a different story. He was nobody’s lackey. He took his finger and made the lip zip sign. Brax then looked at Roni. Roni nodded. And they slowly, with Roni’s weapon drawn, entered the apartment.

But nobody was home. Brax held onto Gus as Roni made a sweep of the one-bedroom apartment. When she got into that bedroom, however, she saw many McCrae promotional brochures all over the bed and dresser, along with old photos of a woman and a man, presumably her father, and other family members. She grabbed up a few of those brochures and photos and made her way back up front.

“What’s that?”

Roni handed the brochures and photos to Brax. Brax frowned when he looked at the first brochure. “This thing has to be twenty years old. Geez. Why would she be holding onto this?”

But before anybody could answer, the sound of somebody unlocking the apartment could be heard. Brax put the brochures and photos away, Roni aimed her gun, and Jessica Hampton walked into their ambush.

At first she seemed shocked, as if there was no way they could have found out. Until she saw Gus with them. “Don’t blame me,” he said. “They tracked me down too.”

As soon as Gus made it real for her, Jessica dropped her bag of groceries and tried to run back out of the door, but Brax ran her down, grabbed her hair, and dragged her right back inside. “Not so fast, sister,” he said as he threw Jessica inside and slammed the door shut. Roni then tossed her onto the sofa next to Gus.

“You told them?” Jessica said to him.

“I didn’t tell them anything. They found out on their own.”

“Through your sloppiness I’m sure,” Jessica said. But then she turned her attention to Brax. “Hello Braxton.”

“We meet again,” he said. “Funny how I didn’t remember your ass.”

“But I remembered yours. After what you did to my father, I remember yours.”

Brax frowned. “Your father? Who’s your father?”

But his lack of knowledge only angered Jessica. “You know who he is, you bastard!”

“How should I . . .” Then Brax realized her last name. “Cal? Cal Hampton is your father?”

Roni was baffled. “Who’s Cal Hampton?”

“The man he robbed!” Jessica cried out. “He became a billionaire and my daddy died virtually penniless.”

Brax frowned. “What did I have to do with how he died?”

“He was your partner and you pulled the rug right from beneath him. You destroyed him!”

“He was never my partner, let’s get that straight right now.”

“That’s a lie!”

“It’s not a lie! He worked for me and showed potential, yes he did. But when he started stealing from me, then yes, I fired his ass. But he destroyed himself.”

“That’s not true. You locked him out of his own company!”

“His stealing locked him out. And it was never his company. He worked for me period. I don’t know what he told you, but his ass was never my partner. I don’t have partners in any aspect of my life, and I never will.”

Roni heard the words, and they registered with her, but she had bigger fish on her plate. “Why did you get that old man to crash into Brax’s limousine?”

“To kill him,” said Jessica matter-of-factly. “Why else? I want him dead. But he cheated death again.” Then she looked at him with venom in her eyes. “I hate you. I hate you and your bitch!” she yelled out just as she pulled out a gun they didn’t know she had and aimed it at the unsuspecting Roni.

But Brax saw the gun before Roni saw it and jumped in front of Roni, pushing her down as Jessica fired. But he wasn’t nimble enough to get himself out of the way too. He took several bullets for Roni and fell to the floor.

Gus had jumped up and moved out of the way as Roni realized Jessica was still aiming her gun directly at an already downed Brax, as if she was going to finish the job if it was the last thing she did. Roni, on her back, began firing her service weapon at Jessica, shooting her in every spot on her body she could shoot her. She was doing as she was trained to do: She was shooting to kill.

And it worked. Jessica was dead by shot number two, but Roni didn’t know it. That was why she kept firing round after round. Jessica had only fired three more rounds. All three of her final shots missed Brax altogether, but two of her shots hit Gus squarely in the heart. Roni didn’t realize it until she fired her final round and saw that Gus was on the floor too. He wasn’t moving at all.

But Brax wasn’t moving either. And her heart sank. She pulled out her phone as she crawled over to Brax. She called 911. She held him in her arms. She cried out in pain as she rocked his lifeless body. He couldn’t go. She would have no one on the face of this earth if he was taken too.

Help, she kept crying out in what she thought was a traumatic scream, but was barely a whisper.

Help !