Page 129 of Sing For Us

“Where were you the last couple of years?”

“I was gathering men to join the Vicious Vipers again, and…”

I butt in and interlace my fingers. “…it didn’t work. Splendid.”

I stand up and look down at him. Seeing him like this heals a big part of my soul. I used to be on the ground, scared and defenseless when he struck me; now it’s him.

“Your fall from grace is what I’ve prayed for my whole life.” My tone is icy, and I don’t do anything to contain my disgust for him.

“You’re going to bring in the cavalry?” He sits up straight and produces a shit-eating grin. He’s expecting me to kill him in front of a whole audience and in a lavish way; how nice.

“We are the cavalry. I do have one question before we kill you and dump your body in a junkyard.”

He starts breathing heavily.

“Sing for us.”

“So what? You’re going to kill your own father?”

“You can’t manipulate me anymore. And I’m definitely not going to kill you.”

“What the fuck? Who–” I look to Lana, and I wink at her. Then I look back at my father, one last time.

“She is.”

Chapter fifty-one

Lana

Idon't hesitate either. I step forward, my movements smooth and entirely unbothered, and grab him by the collar of his shirt. With a grunt of effort, I haul his body off the floor, dragging him over to one of the high-backed kitchen chairs. I drop him into the seat with a dull thud.

Dario slumps back, looking up at us with terror in his eyes. The trap is closed.

“Words cannot describe how much anguish you’ve caused me. But the love from your son and his team healed me,” I say to him sincerely.

That absolute sincerity makes his head spin. I can see the white-hot fury flashing through his panic. He can’t comprehend it. To a monster who only understands power through pain, our healing is the ultimate insult.

“I deserve more. I deserve to be remembered! I—”

Sara’s shot from the balcony is flawless. Dario’s eyes widen in sheer shock as the paralysis takes hold. His muscles instantly lock up, his knees give out, and he crashes heavily onto his own rug. He is completely awake, completely conscious, but entirely immobile.

Through the high windows, the spring sun streams in, lighting up the dust motes dancing over his paralyzed body. He glares up at me with his jaw locked. A raging misogynist dying on his own floor at the hands of a woman—it is his living nightmare. He wants me to scream at him. He wants me to demand answers, to gloat, to give him a grand stage in his own castle.

My baba was the best in physical combat, but my mama taught me that silence can be a worse killing agent than any physical strike.

I calmly sit down on his chair, crossing my legs. I don't look at him. Instead, I pull out my phone and glance at the time, casually admiring the view of the Sarajevo hills through his window. I treat him like a minor inconvenience—a piece of litter waiting for the morning pickup.

When the clock strikes nine o’clock, I lean down and place the barrel of my gun to his head.

“A woman has shot you, and you’re going to die by the hands of a woman.”

I don't look into his eyes to give him closure. I press the suppressed barrel to his skull and pull the trigger.

His head hits the rug. The great, terrifying tyrant of the assassin underworld, dead before his morning coffee got cold.

The silence that follows the gunshot is clean and entirely ours.

Without a word spoken, we shift into motion. Sara and Adam join us a couple of minutes later, and they’re already rolling up the rug with Dario in it. There is no adrenaline-fueled panicking, no frantic rushing. We move like a single organism, wiping away the existence of Dario like the cockroach he was.