Chapter 5

Selena moved toward the car. "Since you've touched this car, it's contaminated as far as I'm concerned. I'll deal with every piece of garbage Julian keeps around him."

She grabbed a crystal vase from a side table and swung it hard at the windshield.

The vase shattered. The car didn't have a scratch. Top-grade armored glass.

Selena stood frozen, staring at the pieces on the ground.

Dylan spotted an iron pipe somewhere, swung it with everything he had at the body panel.

The recoil sent him stumbling, but the car was still flawless. He stood there panting, wiping his forehead.

"What the hell? This thing is built like a tank."

The car hadn't suffered much, but nobody had ever dared to smash it like these before.

I kept my voice cold. "Stop. This car is not something you get to touch."

Selena almost laughed out of sheer irritation.

"God, I can't stand how superior you act. Think you can threaten me? Julian loves me. Even if I wrecked his car, he wouldn't say a word."

Casey tried the door handle.

It opened.

Damn. I'd forgotten that proximity to me unlocks it automatically.

Casey spun around, electric with excitement. "Come on, we'll smash it from the inside!"

My hand clenched and I stepped forward to drag them out, but something caught my foot. I lurched forward.

I looked back. Sara's foot was still out and she was watching me with that same little challenge in her eyes.

By the time I steadied myself, Casey was already inside the car. Selena took off her heel and raked it across the seat. The black leather split open and yellow foam pushed through the tear.

These stupid, reckless idiots.

I was about to move when Dylan locked both arms around me from behind, one after another, just like rats swarming out of a drain.

No shooting in a civilian neighborhood. Damn it!

I drove my elbow back hard, broke his grip, and put my heel into his stomach.

"Aaah! You're insane!"

He doubled over on the ground, moaning, but in those few seconds they'd already gone through the dashboard and center console.

Selena laughed behind me. "That's what you get! Everyone see what happens when you destroy someone else's relationship!"

In that moment, I went still.

There was no point stopping them now. The damage was done.

I pulled out my phone and dialed. "Sandro, come down here with—"

Selena slapped the phone out of my hand.

It hit the concrete and the screen went black.

"Calling who? Your other man? God, Ava. What a shameless bitch you are!"

I looked at her.

"You'll answer for everything you've done today."

"Will I? Let's see who answers first."

Selena reached into her pocket and dangled something in my face: an amber pendant. She'd taken it from the car and I hadn't even noticed.

My voice went flat. "Give that back."

She turned it in her fingers. "This wound you up — did my husband give it to you too?"

I clenched my jaw.

"It has nothing to do with him. It was my mother's."

I'd found it with her at a park when I was a child. My mother had been gone a long time, and that pendant was all I had left of her.

Dylan, still curled on the ground, clapped. "She's finally scared, Selena. Don't let up!"

Selena smiled and raised the pendant.

Her other hand clicked open a lighter.

I moved. "Don't—"

The flame hit before I could close the distance. The amber caught, hissed, and started to change.

The fire was so red it hurt to look at, like the day my mother died.

I walked forward in a daze and took it out of her hand.

The residual heat seared my palm. I held it gently, afraid to press any harder, but it would never go back to what it was.

I realized my face was wet. I hadn't cried since I was ten, and my mother had left when I was ten.

I sat there trembling, trying uselessly to press the amber back into shape, like some clumsy, ridiculous child.

Selena was laughing. "Look at you, Ava. Like a beggar scraping scraps off the floor and too scared to eat them. This is where you belong. Isn't that right?"

When I looked up, everything was red.

I stared at her and said it once, slowly:

"Selena. I gave you a chance. You chose to waste it."

I would make these rats pay for what they had done.

My hand had already closed around the grip of the pistol on my hip when Selena's uncle came shoving through the crowd in a panic. "Selena, apologize to her! Now! You don't know who she has behind her!"

I almost smiled. “An apology now? Too late.”

But Selena still hadn't had enough.

She snapped at him, impatient: "So what? Does her other man outrank the Moretti family?"

The alliance with my family had given the Moretti years of very visible success.

Selena doubled down, pulling out her phone to show around the photo she'd taken: me on my knees, cradling the broken pendant.

"Look at her — her mommy's little trinket melted away. That's what you get for breaking up a real relationship..."

She never finished the sentence.

From somewhere outside came the deep, steady rumble of engines: a convoy. Selena's uncle looked through the window and went white.