Page 199 of Obsessed by My Ex's Mafia Uncle

“And then you happened.” She points the gun directly at me again and my body locks instantly. “You.” Her voice trembles. “After everything I did… after everything I became for him…” Her face contorts. “He looked at you like you were air.”

I shake my head rapidly.

“He loves you,” she spits. “He stopped sleeping around.” She laughs bitterly. “He started smiling again and started acting human again.” Her eyes brim now. “Do you understand how humiliating that is?”

She wipes angrily at tears sliding down her face.

“So yes,” she continues coldly, “I sent the messages.”

My heartbeat stutters.

“I wanted you scared and removed.” She shrugs flippantly. “The truck driver was easy.” She shrugs. “The ambush by men from a rival family was even easier. Men become very cooperative when you promise them that Robert’s empire will collapse at their feet.”

“And Enzo?” My voice breaks horribly.

She goes still for half a second, pain dragging across her face again.

“He was going to be a problem… He would’ve figured it out eventually.”

“You killed him?” I choke.

“I had to.”

The simplicity of it terrifies me more than screaming would have.

“And now,” she whispers brokenly, lifting the gun fully, “I finally get to keep him to myself because I know he won’t survive this one.”

“Atelia please…” I clutch Blue tighter instantly.

“I can’t let him love you.” Tears stream freely down her face now. “I can’t live with it.”

The gun clicks.

I twist, scrambling backward across the sand with Blue crushed against me just as the shot explodes.

Pain detonates through my leg and I scream as the bullet tears through my thigh hard enough to send me crashing sideways into the wet sand.

The pain is unbearable.

Blinding.

“Atelia!” I choke out.

She walks toward us slowly, still crying while pointing the gun.

And somehow that makes it worse because she looks heartbroken while doing it.

“I really did try to love you too,” she whispers.

Then another gunshot shatters through the night.

Atelia freezes.

For one strange second, confusion flickers across her face, then blood bursts from the back of her skull, splashing all over.

Her body collapses forward into the sand with a dull wet sound.

I see him then.