Read End Game for Free Online

my hand. “Put it away before someone sees us.”
    Fuck.
    “Do not fucking stop me, Nick. I need this.”
    I hate the way his eyes wrinkle as he looks at me.
    I don ’ t need your fucking pity.
    “It’s the least you can do after taking my fucking job.”
    “Put the gun away,” he hisses. “Have you lost your mind? Jack told you not to—her death was all over the news. You’ve already beaten the shit out of the guy—”
    I got him after he left the restaurant and he didn’t even fight back when I beat his fucking face in. I beat him so badly that I sprained my wrist, and even then Vince had to subdue me to stop me from killing the guy.
    “It wasn’t enough,” I say in a raw voice. “His brother gets to get up in the morning and do whatever the fuck he wants, but Janice can’t do anything ever again. He killed my sister, and I’ll kill his brother.”
    I take a step forward and his hand shoots out, grabbing me.
    “He had nothing to do with it.”
    Heat flushes over my skin and I rip my arm from his grasp. “I should be able to get rid of that asshole’s brother, and you know it. An eye for an eye. Justice.” I look into the darkened restaurant again, tempted to shove Nick aside and kick open the door.
    It was an agonizing death. A bullet straight to the gut, which ricocheted through several major organs. The paramedics told me that she was crying for me.
    “ Get my brother. I need my brother. ”
    You know how many nightmares I had when they told me that?
    She bled out and died in the ambulance. Janice should have been safe.
    I should have saved her. Fuck, she wanted me and I wasn’t there.I’m in the most powerful crime family in the East Coast, and I couldn’t keep her safe. And for months I agonized about the senseless violence that resulted in her death, the should-haves and could-haves, the gut-wrenching powerlessness I felt when he was sentenced to life in prison. I didn’t want that fucker in jail. I wanted his life in my hands. I wanted to be in a room with him, alone with a pair of pliers and a blowtorch. I never got that. All I have is my loss.
    I can’t believe she’s gone, like actually-never-going-to-come-back, gone. Every day I go through this hellish cycle of denial, anger, bargaining, and depression. I can’t accept it. I won’t.
    Nick spreads his hands. “It’s not like I agree with Jack, but he’s the boss, and he doesn’t want you to whack the guy.”
    “Fuck Jack!”
    Nicky’s fist swings out of nowhere and clips me across the face. Blood bursts into my mouth and I stumble a few steps.
    “Watch your fucking mouth. I’m not fucking around anymore, Joe. Get in your car and go. You need to see the boss.”
    The fury is like an open sore inside my stomach, eating away at the walls. I want to lunge forward and smash the prick’s face in.
    “Don’t give me that look, you prick. I’m just trying to keep your ass from getting killed.”
    One of his hands rests on his hip, where I know he holds a gun. I eye it warily.
    Fine, asshole. I ’ ll do what you say just this one time, but I ’ ll be back here to finish what I started.
    I tear my gaze away from the restaurant and nod to Nicky without another word.
    He doesn’t understand. How could he?
    Janice was a year younger. We were best friends. I used to joke that she was more of a brother than a sister, because she liked doing all the shit I did. We played hockey on the street, went camping, played cards, we went to high school together, everything. She’s in every good memory I have. How am I supposed to go on without her?
    Every day is a struggle just to get up, to find a reason to open my eyes. It really hit me hard when I went to that funeral the other day. Fucking hell, it was the last thing I wanted to do. I felt for that girl. From what I heard, it was very sudden and unexpected, but what I told her was a lie. It didn’t get easier for me.
    * * *
    Nicky is like a shadow next to me, a shadow I long to leave behind.