Petal shakes her head at her father. “Don’t, Papa. Don’t shoot him.”

At this moment, something inside me unlocks.

At this moment, I know I won’t kill Paolo and make her look at me with that disappointment, hate, and eventually revenge. I won’t restart the vicious cycle with her.

For now, her safety is the most important thing. I pull her by the arm, but Paolo clicks his gun. “I’ll kill you, don’t doubt it.”

“Papa…”

All of us pause when Lucio reaches the top of the stairs and points a gun to Georgina’s chest.

I push her behind me, but it’s already too late.

Lucio pulls the trigger and a loud bang echoes in the hall.

22

Georgina

The sound of gunshots echo in the air, but there's only one that matters.

The one aimed at me.

One second, Lucio is pointing the gun at me and the next, Dad is in front of me and then the sound of the gunshot fills the space.

I shriek as he falls to the floor.

A red spot oozes from his jacket and stains his shirt red.

Lucio’s face contorts, realizing what he’s done.

I fall to my knees by Dad’s side, pressing trembling hands to his bleeding chest.

“Call an ambulance,” I scream at the top of my lungs. “Someone call an ambulance!”

I’ve treated many gunshot wounds to know that patients don’t survive after losing this much blood, especially if their lungs are weak like Dad, but I refuse to believe that. I refuse to look at the logical side of things.

His face turns sticky white and he places his hand atop of mine, his lips turning blue.

“No, no, Papa, stay with me.”

“I-I’m so happy I got to meet you before I died, Georgie…”

“No, Papa. You promised to be with me every step on the way. Stay, please. We didn’t spend any time together.” Tears fall down my cheeks as I press harder.

He winces, but the blood won’t stop. Not even a little.

My dad is dying. I feel it and my heart is slowly but surely breaking because of it.

“P-Papa…”

“I love you, Georgie…” he whispers as his hand turns heavy in mine and his eyes stare at nowhere.

“Nooo, Papa!”

“Paolo…” Lucio’s haunted voice cuts through my grief like a knife. “It’s all because of you.” He points the gun at me. “You’re the reason he’s dead.”

Jasper appears by his side and I know, I just know that he will take the bullet for me like Dad did. He’ll die for me.

I can’t have him do that. I can’t let Lucio take any more people from me.

Rage wooshes inside me like a current. I let it take complete control as I snatch Papa’s gun that fell to his side, aim at Lucio’s chest and fire.

No hesitation. No trembling of my fingers.

As he drops to the ground, his face contorted between shock and horror, everyone else around us seems to freeze for a second.

That man took my mother and now my father.

He ruined mine and Jasper’s lives and now he pays with this.

He pays with blood.

23

Jasper

By the time everything ends, Petal is beat.

She’s still in the same dress from the doomed party, her hair disheveled and her mascara has streaked to the side of her eyes.

Paolo’s men listened to her when she asked them to clean everything up. Even some of Lucio’s men, who now have no place to go, have decided to stay.

Enzo and Angelo are keeping an eye on them in case they change their minds or come after my little Petal.

They wouldn’t have a reason to, and both Stephan and Marco died in the gunfight that took place, so there’s no loyalty to Lucio; there’s only loyalty to Costa, and at the moment, my little Petal is the only Costa alive.

The only Costa alive.

I let that information soak in as I watch her.

She asks one of Paolo’s senior guards to go to the morgue and that she’ll shower and meet him there.

He’s a big man with tattoos and a beard and gives me a quizzical glare when he sees me following her, but thankfully, he keeps his mouth shut.

My little Petal is a bit dazed as she goes into her room. I follow her, closing the door behind us.

For a second, she just stands in the middle of the room, the light coming from the bathroom casting a soft hue on her pale skin.

It’s like she’s taking her time to process what happened, to deal with the loss of her father, with being the only Costa alive. All of it.

My little Petal might have lived a hardened childhood, but nothing could’ve prepared her for what happened tonight.

Every particle of my being is telling me to go there, grab her by the neck, kiss her, make it all go away, but I force my hands into my pockets instead. Even I recognize she needs the time to deal with this on her own first.

A few minutes pass with her standing there, emotionless, almost like she’s in a trance, then suddenly, her hand shoots to her back and she struggles with the zipper, groaning in frustration when it doesn’t come off.

I walk to her and wrap my hand around hers, softly peeling it away and pull down the zipper to the middle of her back.

Her skin comes into view, pale and a bit scratched at the top from all the struggling that happened. In the silence of the room, I allow my fingers to trail over her skin. She’s trembling, her teeth chattering as if she’s cold.

“It’s going to be okay. You’re a strong woman, you always have been.”

A sob erupts from her throat and she abruptly turns around. Her arms wrap around my middle and she buries her face in my chest, crying softly, so softly, it’s barely audible even in the silence.

“It hurts…” She sniffles. “It hurts so much.”

I stroke her hair, pushing it from her face and murmuring soothing words in her ear, like it’s going to be okay, I’m here for her.

She cries harder for what seems like hours, wrapping all her limbs around me and lets the dress pool to the ground.

It’s hard to concentrate when her naked body is molded to mine, and I’m only separated from her by her panties. Her bare tits push against my chest, but I manage to hold her through it.

We end up on the bed, me sitting down and her wrapped all over my lap.

Her face is hidden in my neck as she breathes against my skin and wets it with her tears.

After long minutes of crying, with me patting her back, she finally calms down and sniffles against me.

“It still hurts,” she says through hiccups.

I want to tell her that it’ll get better, but it won’t. She’ll always think of this loss and everything that came with it.

“It’ll continue hurting for a while,” I murmur in the silence. “But you somehow learn to live with it, Petal, because life goes on and you don’t have a choice.”

Her grip tightens around my neck as she murmurs. “M-make me forget, Jas.”

She doesn’t have to ask twice. In one swift movement, I get rid of my pants and boxers and then her panties.

“Look at me, Pet.”