Page 82 of Total Obsession

Zoey had shown no signs of repeating her sins.

In fact, she'd done quite the opposite. When given fame, wealth, and attention, she hadn't just cast me aside, as she had in high school. She took time out of her day to try and call me. She was concerned for me. She asked me how she could be there to support me.

I'd lost my entire reason for revenge against her, and something else had replaced it.

Something else that I'd never experienced before.

Something else that, because I had no experience with it, I simply couldn't explain. I just knew that I no longer wanted to hurt her. In fact, the idea of her finding out that I had been pulling the strings on her life all this time was sickening.

What I actually wanted now was to live a normal life with her. I wanted out of the cruel, criminal world that had essentially usurped my entire childhood. I wanted to support Zoey in her career, the ones that I had put there in the first place.

I wanted peace and quiet.

Unfortunately, in order to get it, I knew that I needed to get through this last bit of bloodshed.

The moment this was over, though, I was driving straight to New York, and I was going to ask Zoey to marry me.

I pressed Will's name on my phone and waited for him to answer.

"Yeah?" was his classic response.

"I want you to call off everything as far as Zoey is concerned."

"What do you mean, call it off?" he asked.

"I mean I'm not going through with the plan."

"You serious?" Will was in disbelief.

"Yeah," I replied. "I've never been more serious about anything in my life."

twenty-six

AXE

I waited in an unmarked car outside the safehouse at the designated time. For the first time in a long time, I felt nervous. I never had anything to lose or gain when it came to my criminal endeavors. It was just something that I did because it was what I had always done.

However, this time was different. Beau and Primo were the two things that stood in my way of a new life with Zoey. A life I'd wanted since I was a middle schooler.

At the end of the day, when I reflected on all that had happened, I understood that that's where my rage had ultimately come from. It wasn't really because of what Zoey had done to me. It was because I had perceived what she had done to me as ending that dream.

And I so desperately wanted that dream.

And the whole thing rested on the next hour going as planned.

"Beau's arriving now," Will said into my headpiece.

"Good," I said. "Where is Primo?"

"GPS coordinates say that he's about five minutes away."

"That's perfect," I replied. Will and I had agreed that the best plan of attack was to stagger their arrival times by a few minutes. If they both arrived together, the chances of it leading to a shootout would go up. If they arrived one by one, my guys could pick them off as soon as they closed the door behind them.

I watched the feed that Will had wired into my phone of Beau walking up to the safe house. He punched in the combination on the keypad and opened the door. I all but held my breath for the next thirty seconds as I waited for the subtle sound of a gun with a large silencer on it to go off.

I heard the pop just before Will said, "Kill confirmed. Beau is down. Primo is sixty seconds from arrival."

"Is the body blocking the door?" I asked.