The flight back to Los Angeles felt slower than death.
Maybe because I had too much time to think.
Too much time to sit with the weight that had settled in my bones ever since I put a bullet in Alejandro Valencia's skull.
For years, I'd imagined what it would feel like to kill a man I hated that deeply. A man I had always felt wasn't worthy of breathing the same air as my mother. I'd expected satisfaction… maybe even relief.
But what I felt instead was something colder.
Cleaner.
Like wiping grime off a window and seeing the world clearly for the first time.
I didn't regret it. I didn't ache over it.
I wasn't asking for forgiveness.
He threatened my family.
And men who did that did not get to walk away alive.
Still… Donna's trembling voice lingered in the back of my mind. The way she clutched her robe when she opened her bedroom door, face pale, eyes wet but refusing to break. The way she pressed a hand to my cheek and whispered:
