Page 108 of Justice II

“Tell this queen what she wants to know. You’re pretty much fucked but your brother, Aunt Lori, your mother Tanya and grandmother May can live,” Justice replied.

“Got’em,” Prime laughed as he turned to walk away.

Roman was spooked. His eyes grew the size of two full moons. He cared about his family. He loved Julian and I’m sure he would do whatever it took to save them.

“You want the truth, Melody?”

“I would’ve loved that a long time ago.”

“You don’t even know half of it. But yeah, I needed to teach your disobedient ass a lesson for trying to leave me. You wanted to leave me! Filed for a divorce without discussing it. That shit pissed me off so bad that I needed to piss you off. So yeah, I knew you bought a lil gun. Thinkin’ you were gonna protect yourself from me. I disabled the box. Which was easy because your dumb ass used the kids’ birthdays,” he started.

I could feel the heat rising in my body. Tears streamed down my cheeks as I listened to him. During that time I was so stressed. I was undereating. I was running around working on that case. So I didn’t choose a harder-to-crack code.

“Convincing a lil boy to pull the trigger was easy. Told him there were no bullets. You wouldn’t keep bullets in the house with them there. I always encouraged gun play at my house. I used to take him hunting. We’d shoot out back. I knew it was a matter of time before he shot Golden. I thought maybe she won’t die. But either way, you’d be punished for thinking you could divorce me and just move on with your life,” he continued.

How could someone be so callous? I knew it was true but hearing it broke me in a way I didn’t know was possible.

“Another thing, I started the fire at your parents’ house.”

“What?”

“The fire. That was me.”

I looked at Roman, trying to find something in his face that would tell me he was just saying whatever he could to hurt me. He watched me with an expression I recognized. He was waiting to see how much damage he had done.

“You’re lying.”

“What the fuck I gotta lie for now?”

“Why did you kill my parents?!”

“I needed the money. Your inheritance. I knew you would get one. And because you loved me so much, you gave me the start-up capital for my business. You wouldn’t have thought about divorcing me back then.”

My mother and father had left me everything. I had trusted my husband to help me decide what to do with it because I could barely function.

I stepped closer to him.

“You killed them so I could give you their money?”

“Got the company going, didn’t it? Paid off your student loans. Got us in that big ass house that you kicked me out of.”

Justice moved so fast I barely saw him cross the space. Roman’s chair shifted under the blow.

“Justice.”

He stopped, breathing hard. Quest put a hand on his shoulder, and he stepped back.

“Hand me the gun,” I demanded of Justice. He placed a Glock 19 in my palm.

I aimed the barrel at Roman’s head, ready to pull the trigger. Sweat poured from my temples and down my spine. My heart felt like it was going to jump out onto the ground. I couldn’t shoot him.

Not because I didn’t want him dead but because he deserved worse.

“You’re done,” I said as I let the gun fall beside me.

“It’s okay, Melody,” Justice said, reaching for the gun. I turned to this man who promised me the world and looked him in the eye.

“I need him to suffer unimaginably. I want him to be in pain for as long as possible before he dies,” I said to him.