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I gulped as my mom patted my knee

“It was lovely to hear your voice today, Reeve Your father and I le day” There was so much kindness and love on her face that I wanted to fold over and clutch uts

My dad grunted his agreement and turned back to the television I took a deep breath and curled htly into my palm

“I uys too It was just hard to be here Tooto have to tell my mom that I nearly suffocated on them and ask her how she hadn’t

“Well, the ht to them”

Conner knew just what he was doing This was going to kill me more effectively than a bullet to the brain or a knife slipped betweento tarnish the reood my parents held on to from Rissa and from me Those th I had gone to, to exact vengeance against Rissa’s killer

“We were so excited when that handsoent knocked on the door and told us there was new information We just knew Rissa wasn’t into all that horrible stuff they said she hen she died”

A cold sweat broke out across my skin and I had to blink slowly and force air in and out of ent lied to you, Mo new on Rissa She died because her boyfriend was a drug dealer and a pimp She died because she loved a bad man and he hurt her She died because she made really bad choices for herself and she was just as messed up as he was at the end”

My asped and lifted her hands to her mouth My dad shot a look at an

I sighed and told ent caly, dark secrets, and he wants me to tell the daughter really is” I had to take a deep breath because the look of horror that flashed across“He wants me to tell you what I did when I found out Rissa was dead He wants ot so lost in the need for revenge and in grief that I made my own bad choices He’s not even a marshal anye but he just used it for his own ends, not to help anyone else He’s a badto hurt a lot of people He forced me to come here and hurt you”

Myback and forth in front ofabout, Reeve? None of this makes any sense” She still had hope I could hear it in her voice If I hadn’t been planning on killing Conner already, I would be now I hated having to be the one to take that hope from her

“I knew Rissa’s boyfriend was the one that killed her, and I kneas going to get aith it Too irl toa baby It was too much Too much hurt, too much pain, too much injustice I decided that he needed to learn a lesson the saht it, so I went and talked to Novak”

My aze away from me She looked at my dad ide eyes and he finally climbed to his feet He lumbered over so that he could put an ar shoulders