Chapter Twenty-One
Sunny
I trade the shovel for Bones’s canteen and gulp down several mouthfuls before taking her hand and stepping up out of the hole.
Glancing up at the stars, I breathe a heavy sigh of relief.
He’s never going to hurt me again. It feels good, but heavy, as if the weight of all that came before this moment had to be born in order to understand the cost of my own freedom. I’ll never take it for granted again.
“Are you okay?” Bones says, pausing to meet my gaze.
The question is as reasonable given our current circumstances as it is absurd. “I’m better than I’ve ever been,” I admit, my lips twisting as conflicting emotions swirl through me. “But... I mean... Luka’s dead and we’re disposing of his corpse in the middle of nowhere...”
“And?” Bones prompts.
“And I don’t know how to reconcile it all. I feel happy and relieved but scared and mortified at the same time. This lifestyle you lead as a one-percenter is intense.”
Bones offers me an understanding smile, then returns to digging.
“That’s normal,” she says. “The good always comes with the bad. That’s just life and the sooner you’re able to make peace with that, the better.
” She clears her throat and wipes sweat from her brow with the back of her arm before continuing.
“You know, like how they say we wouldn’t appreciate the beauty of the stars without the darkness of the night?
You just have to accept your lot. And above all else,” she stops to look me in the eye, her expression deadly serious, “remember that that prick was going to do far worse to you. There would have been no peace or kindness, and no reprieve from the mafia’s depravity.
They would have used you until there was nothing left worth keeping, then there’s a decent chance they’d have melted you down in a barrel of acid. ”
My stomach churns at the thought and I stagger to the nearest fat tree trunk for support.
“You’re right,” I whisper. “I keep thinking maybe I’m in the wrong .
.. maybe I could have handled it differently .
.. but he was going to sell me off like a fucking piece of meat.
He didn’t care about me at all. He was a monster of a man. ..”
“A monster is right,” Bones agrees with venom. “That fucker was gifted a far more merciful death than he deserved. Ideally, I’d like to have tortured him and made him really regret his life choices. But such is life, sunshine.”
“The monster’s dead,” I say. “That’s all that matters.”
“And?” Bones presses, a dark smile quirking her beautiful, full Latina lips.
“And ... I’m glad he’s fucking dead,” I announce as I allow my anger to rise.
It resurfaces, boiling over to quell my fear and wash away any unfounded guilt that remains.
“He was an absolute asshole. Fuck him!” I redirect my attention to the rug-wrapped corpse still in the trunk and give it both fingers. “Fuck you, Luka!”
Bones grins and the malicious pride I see sparkling in the depths of her dark gaze thrills me to my core. “That’s my girl. Now, let’s get this fucker buried.”
“Together?” I ask, putting the canteen away.
My dark queen climbs out of the hole on her own and stabs the shovel into the earth beside it.
“Together,” she agrees. About ten minutes of cursing and straining later, we’ve carried and dragged Luka’s dead ass to his final resting place.
Still wrapped up like a burrito in a rug, Bones lines him up at the edge of the hole.
“Do you want to do the honors?” she offers, gesturing to my abuser.
I take a deep breath and nod, then kick his sorry ass into the earth in an unceremonious send off. “I hope you don’t give the worms the shits,” I say, head held high as I look down on the open shallow grave.
“Just beautiful,” says Bones with wickedly feral delight. “Couldn’t have said anything nicer myself.”
At Bones’s insistence, I sit on the hood of the car and zone out as I watch her fill in the hole.
After a time, I dig through Bones’s jacket pockets and find a fresh spliff with my name on it.
Emboldened, I rummage through the other pockets and find a black lighter.
Fuck, yeah. I could definitely use something to take the edge off and help me relax into my new reality.
The sweet smoke fills my lungs as I suck in my first toke.
I hold it for a moment, then exhale, a sense of peace descending over me inside of three seconds flat.
“Damn,” I say aloud with a wry smile. “This is good stuff.” I laugh and cough and then laugh some more.
Bones loses it too, and her laughter is like music to my ears. “Ah, you found it,” she says when we can breathe again. “Yeah, Purple Kush hits hard and fast. It’s a great stress reliever, isn’t it?”
I pass her the joint with a grin of my own and motion for the shovel.
Despite her earlier desire to go it solo, Bones happily trades, and I start filling in the hole.
Every shovel load of dirt brings me one step closer to the end of this nightmare—one step closer to literally burying the past forever.
“Thank you for coming for me,” I say, looking up to meet Maria’s beautiful gaze.
“I thought you were dead ... and I found myself hoping that Marcus might come, if for no other reason than to avenge you. I couldn’t face a world where no one was coming.
I couldn’t even entertain the idea. When I tried, I felt it start to break me. ”
“You’re stronger than you know, baby girl,” my dark goddess says. “But you were never going to be alone. Marcus was coming for you tomorrow, he promised. But you know, me being me, I did what I wanted to. I came early and it seems I was just in time as it turns out.”
I finish filling in the last of the hole, scraping the shovel over the earth to spread leaves and twigs—to make it look natural and undisturbed.
Bones joins me, and in the heavy silence that follows her words, we work as a team to camouflage Luka Floretti’s grave.
When we’re satisfied, we embrace and the waterworks begin.
I shake in Bones’s arms, overwhelmed by everything that’s happened.
“Is it over?” I ask, seeking the reassurance and strength of Bones’s inherent dominance and authority.
Bones takes my face in her hands and kisses my lips softly.
“Sunny, the truth is that shit never stops coming at you in life—never—but this chapter of your story is almost over, yes.” She rests her forehead to mine, and we share a moment against the macabre.
“I can’t promise to protect you from all harm, Daisy Girl, but if you’ll let me, I’ll be right here by your side for this chapter and every one that comes after. ”
My heart races in my chest and the rest of the world fades away, until there’s just us, beneath the stars, somewhere in the heart of the forest. I entangle my fingers and clutch them to my chest as Bones go down on one knee before me.
“Holy shit. Oh, my god,” I breathe. “Maria?” I swallow hard, my heart in my throat. “You’re not actually going to...”
Bones’s eyes sparkle with mischief. “Oh, but I am,” she says indulgently as she removes something gloriously sparkly from the necklace tucked safely away under her black tank top.