Chapter 47 Lexi
Lexi
The gunshot still echoes in my ears even though the sound died seconds ago. Or maybe it’s been minutes. Time feels strange, elastic, like I’m moving through water.
My hand is steady. The gun doesn’t shake. I expected it to—expected some kind of physical manifestation of what I just did—but there’s nothing. Just the weight of the weapon and the smell of cordite burning my nostrils.
Gilbert’s body lies crumpled on the ground, blood spreading beneath him in a pool that catches the dim warehouse light and turns it dark, almost black. His eyes are still open, staring at nothing. One hand is outstretched like he was reaching for something in those final seconds.
I should feel something. Horror. Regret. The crushing weight of having just killed my own father.
But all I feel is... satisfied.
The Reaper’s crew materializes from the shadows like they were always there, waiting.
Six men in black, faces covered, moving with the kind of efficiency that speaks to years of practice.
They don’t look at me—don’t acknowledge the gun still in my hand or the body at my feet. They just start working.
One of them crouches beside Gilbert, checking for a pulse I know he won’t find.
Another moves to Vincent’s body on the other side of the warehouse, the corpse I barely registered when I walked in.
They’re staging it, I realize. Making it look like the two men killed each other in some final confrontation.
They add in a few more bodies because time of death wouldn’t make sense.
Koa’s voice cuts through the haze, rough and damaged.
When the hell did he get untied? “I’m making some calls.
Got connections that can make this disappear.
” His face is destroyed—swollen and bloodied.
He pulls out a phone from somewhere and starts dialing, his voice dropping to a murmur as he speaks to someone on the other end.
I watch him, this boy who delivered me to monsters and called it protection. Watch the way he winces when he moves, the way blood drips from his split lip onto his shirt. Watch him orchestrate the cover-up of my father’s murder like it’s just another day.
And I feel nothing.
Revan and Atticus stand nearby, both splattered with Gilbert’s blood. Revan’s knuckles are split open, already swelling. Atticus has a cut above his eyebrow that’s still bleeding sluggishly. They’re talking in low voices, coordinating with the Reapers, but the words don’t penetrate.
All I can see is Gilbert’s face.
Not as it is now—slack and empty—but as it was when I was nine.
I’m hiding in the closet, knees pulled to my chest, hands over my ears. But I can still hear them. Mom’s voice, high and desperate. “Please, Gilbert, I can’t—I don’t want—”
“You think you have a choice?” His voice is cold, controlled. “You think you get to decide?”
The sound of pills rattling in a bottle. The cap being twisted off.
“Open your mouth.”
“No—”
A slap. The sharp crack of palm against cheek. My mother’s gasp.
“I said open your fucking mouth.”
Silence. Then the sound of her crying.
“Good girl. See? That wasn’t so hard.”
I blink and I’m twelve, watching from the hallway as he shoves a needle into her arm, his hand clamped over her mouth. She’s crying silently, tears streaming down her face, and he’s smiling. Actually smiling.
“You’re an addict now, Rachel. You need me. You’ll always need me.”
I’m thirteen and Mom is so thin I can see her bones through her skin. She shakes all the time, can’t sit still. Gilbert controls the pills—doles them out like rewards, withholds them as punishment. She begs. Actually gets on her knees and begs.
And he makes me watch.
“See, Lexi? See what happens when you love someone too much?”
The memories crash over me in waves, each one sharper than the last. Years of suppressed anger, of watching my mother become a shell, of knowing that the man who was supposed to protect us was the one who destroyed everything.
And now he’s dead.
By my hand.
And it feels right.
The right parent died. That thought crystallizes with perfect clarity. Mom didn’t deserve what happened to her. She was weak, maybe, too trusting, too willing to believe that love could fix damage that deep. But she didn’t deserve to die choking on pills he forced down her throat.
Gilbert did.
Gilbert, who was selfish enough to create addicts just so he’d never have to be alone in his sickness. Who saw love as ownership, control as affection. Who looked at his own children and saw either pawns or problems.
Fuck him.
Fuck his plans and his manipulation and his pathetic attempt to make me into a weapon he could wield.
I’m nobody’s weapon.
I’m the one holding the gun.
A sound pulls me from my thoughts—a choked sob that doesn’t sound human. I turn to find Axel on his knees beside Gilbert’s body. He’s not crying exactly, but his shoulders are shaking. His hands hover over the wound in Gilbert’s chest like he wants to touch it but can’t.
“Axel.” My voice comes out flat, emotionless.
He doesn’t respond. Doesn’t look at me. Just keeps staring at the body of our father—the man who destroyed our family, who killed our mother, who was probably planning to kill me and Axel an hour ago.
One of the Reapers approaches him. “We need to move the body.”
“No.” Axel’s voice is barely a whisper.
“Sir, we need to—”
“I said no!” Axel’s head snaps up, and there’s something wild in his eyes. “You’re not touching him!”
The Reaper looks at Revan, who nods. They move away, giving Axel space.
I walk closer, my boots echoing on concrete. “Axel.”
“You killed him.” Still not looking at me.
“He was going to kill me.”
“You don’t know that.”
A laugh escapes me, sharp and bitter. “I don’t know that? I was right outside the warehouse, Axel. I heard him say it. ‘We kill her.’ Those were his exact words.”
Axel’s jaw clenches. “Maybe he didn’t mean—”
“Stop.” I crouch down beside him, forcing him to look at me. “Stop making excuses for him. Stop rewriting history to make him into something he wasn’t.”
“He was our dad—”
“He was a monster.” The words come out fierce, final. “He killed Mom. Slowly over years. He turned her into an addict just so he could control her. So she’d need him. And when she wasn’t useful anymore, he gave her enough pills to stop her heart.”
Axel flinches like I slapped him.
“You know I’m right,” I continue. “You’ve always known. That’s why you worked with him—because you thought if you were useful enough, valuable enough, he’d finally love you the way you needed.”
“Shut up—”
“But he never did, did he? He used you. Just like he used Mom. Just like he tried to use me.”
Axel’s breathing is ragged now, tears finally spilling over. “You didn’t have to kill him.”
“Yes, I did.” I stand, looking down at my brother—this man who should have protected me, who should have been on my side but chose our father instead. “And you helped him. You set me up, brought me here, played your part in his game. So don’t you dare try to make me the villain.”
“Lexi—”
“You were supposed to protect me… like how I protected you.” My voice breaks on the words, the first crack in my armor.
“You were my big brother. When Dad left and Mom died, you were supposed to be there. But you weren’t.
You were too busy chasing your own drugs, your own demons.
And now you want to cry over the man who destroyed us? ”
He looks up at me and I see the moment he realizes I’m not the little sister he remembers. I’m something else now. Something harder.
Something he created by his absence.
“Save him or save yourself,” I say quietly. “That’s the choice you have. You can stay here with his body, mourn the father who never loved you, let the cops find you and ask questions you can’t answer. Or you can walk away.”
“I can’t just—”
“Yes, you can.” I straighten, putting distance between us. “You’ve been walking away your whole life, Axel. This is just one more thing to abandon.”
The words are cruel. I know they’re cruel. But I’m fresh out of mercy.
“You can bury him,” I say, turning my back on him. “That’s more than he gave Mom.”
I walk toward where Koa, Revan, and Atticus are waiting by the exit. They’re watching me, and I can see the questions in their eyes. The uncertainty about who I’ve become.
Good.
Let them wonder.
Let them see that I’m not the girl who needed protecting anymore.
I’m the reason they’re still alive.
Behind me, I hear Axel’s voice, broken and small. “Lexi, please—”
I keep walking.
The warehouse door swings open and rain hits my face—cold and clean. The storm that’s been threatening all night has finally broken, water coming down in sheets.
Koa’s Charger is parked in the darkness, running.
Revan opens the back door. “Get in.”
I slide into the back seat, gun still in my hand. I should probably give it to someone, should probably let go of the weapon that just ended my father’s life.
But I don’t.
Atticus takes the passenger seat, Revan behind the wheel. Koa moves slower, pain evident in every step, but he makes it to the back seat beside me.
The doors close. The engine rumbles.
No one speaks.
Revan pulls out of the lot, headlights cutting through the rain. The windshield wipers beat a steady rhythm—back and forth, back and forth—and I watch the water stream across the glass in patterns that look almost beautiful.
We drive past the warehouse, past the scene of my father’s death, past the moment when everything changed.
In the rearview mirror, I catch Revan’s eyes on me. Watching. Assessing.
“What?” My voice is flat.
“Nothing.” But he doesn’t look away.
Beside me, Koa shifts. His arm brushes mine and I feel him wince. “You good?”
I turn to look at him—at this boy who’s been beaten and broken and is still here. I don’t reply because a part of me is good and the part that remembers all the shit these three put me through isn’t.
The rain keeps falling. The car keeps moving. And I sit in the back seat with a gun in my lap and my father’s blood under my fingernails, wondering when exactly I stopped being the victim and started being the villain.
Wondering if there’s even a difference anymore.