I watched her anger grow like she was siphoning it from the ground. Her jaw was set and the hands she held behind her back balled into fists. I knew this was personal for her, but having your own family member plot over you as a minor to steal from your dead mom was another level of fucked up family drama. My own paled in comparison.

“Too many to count, too many loopholes to get it overturned or looked at by a judge. We had multiple sign off for you to be able to fight it in court.”

“What’s the fucking point of all this?”

Shit, if she had a gun, she might have just pulled the trigger.

“What’s the point of anything? Money. Power. Whatever vice floats your boat.” He spit blood from his mouth to his left. He was clearly tired. “She never gave a why. She just went to work at taking your inheritance.”

“Do we have all the answers we need?” Dave gestured to the sheet on the ground, eager to get on with his portion of events.

“Your birthday won’t matter. She’ll take you down for this. Dead or alive, I’m compromised because she has eyes and ears everywhere with the power she stole from Haines.”

Fallon held up a finger. “How did she steal from him?”

Allen sighed as blood kept dripping from his wound into the puddle below him. “Sex. Secret deals with other big families. You.”

“Me?”

“I don’t have all the details. I’m just one man.”

I couldn’t risk my protective position of her. Gesturing to Reaper, I made hand signals for him to search the place.

“Don’t worry,” I said, pulling Fallon back to my side. “I can figure those out.”

His eyes got bigger when he finally focused on my face. “The Vaughns? All you big families are all the same. Money. Power. Greed.”

I smiled. “You’re the same, too. How far did greed get you? What families?”

He shook his head. “I don’t know. Not my pay grade. Whatever you can find in my files is all I know. It’s bigger than Haines and his Rabbit. You’re up on the chopping block kid.”

Pulling Fallon behind me, I plugged her ears and held her head to my chest while Dave took care of it.

He heaved Allen onto the sheet and tied a zip tie around his neck. Suffocation wasn’t messy and gunshots were far too loud. He wrapped him up and surveyed the heavy man he’d have to drag out of here shortly.

“Boss, there’s a lot of files.”

“Get ‘em to me later,” I said, dragging Fallon out into the night.

​Chapter 42

Fallon

There would not be an end in sight for my insomnia and nausea. The internet would say I’m either pregnant or dying. I was neither. The third option: traumatized.