Page 87 of Beautiful Villain
When the last signature dried, I closed the folder.
It was done.
Provence was mine.
The seller let out a breath he had clearly been holding for months and extended his hand.I shook it.Laurent did the same, grinning in a way that suggested he was surprised to still be alive.
“Congratulations,” he said.“This is… historic.”
“Efficient,” I corrected.
Something warm and sharp spread through my chest.Victory.Control.The quiet knowledge that the world had once again arranged itself exactly the way I liked it.
Gianni Cavalho had lost.
Mikayla was mine.
And everything was finally as it should be.
36
Gianni
Ihad chosen the place with care.
The road cut through the hills like an old scar, far from city lights, far from witnesses, far from anything that could interrupt what I had planned.Just open darkness, low trees, and the quiet, steady hum of engines sliding through the night.Archie’s convoy came into view right on time, a line of moving shadows headed back toward Monte Amiata, smug and unaware.
I watched from the ridge, my men spread out behind him, silent and ready.Through our night-vision lenses, the world below glowed in sharp greens and silvered outlines.Archie’s vehicles rolled forward, confident and blind.
“Now,” I said.
The explosion ripped through the night.
The lead car disappeared in a bloom of fire and twisted metal, lifted clean off the road and flung sideways before crashing back down in a burning wreck.For a split second the hills lit up, trees standing out like black skeletons against the flash, and then the darkness slammed back into place.
Chaos followed.
Brakes screamed as cars collided.Men shouted.Doors flew open as Archie’s men poured out, firing blindly into the black, their bullets carving useless lines through the night.
My men did not waste shots.
Through our goggles, every target was bright and clear.One body dropped, then another, then another, each hit clean and precise.There was no panic on my side.Only method to our madness as we picked off Archie’s men, one by one.
I started down the slope, with only one destination in mind.This had been a long time coming.Too fucking bloody long.
Gravel and broken glass crunched under my boots as I descended.Archie had made it out of his car, his face twisted with fury and disbelief as he shouted orders to men who were already dead, or dying.
I stepped into the open.
Close enough for Archie to see me.
For a heartbeat, the world held still.
Then I raised my gun and fired.
The first shot took Archie’s knee.The second shattered the other.Archie went down hard, a raw, broken sound tearing out of him as blood spilled across the gravel path.
I walked toward him, slow and unhurried.
