Montana Falls (Red Diamonds #5)

Chapter Twenty Five, The Night Of Sapphire’s Death

T he road stretched endlessly ahead, a dark ribbon winding through the middle of nowhere for a journey I didn’t want to be on. The world outside the car was a void—just black fields and shadows swallowing everything in sight and feeling the same way my heart did. Empty. Lifeless. Black.

My girl was dead. Gone . I was never going to see her again. Kiss her. Hold her. Never going to see her smile and hear her laugh. Never be able to tell her how much I loved her, and one day put a ring on her finger and make her mine in all the best ways.

Never going to spend the rest of my life with her at my side, growing old together.

I could barely see the funeral home in the distance, just a silhouette against the inky sky. No one had said a word in the last twenty minutes. The weight in the car was unbearable, like we were being suffocated by our own thoughts, our own grief . All of us had opened our mouths at one point, wanting to fill the void of darkness and despair. But none of us had. None of us could.

My fingers were clenched tight around the steering wheel, knuckles strained as I tried to keep my mind focused on the road. But it was impossible. My head was spinning, still a bit too drunk from the whiskey, even if I was the most sober of us all. Still wrecked from the hours my friends had spent drinking themselves into oblivion after the hospital. After they told us she was gone.

Sapphire .

I could still see the doctor’s face—his mouth moving, saying the words no one wanted to hear. Words that had torn me apart. The bullet had hit her heart. She’d been dead in the ambulance. Dead. Dead. Dead.

She hadn’t made it despite how much we’d all tried to save her.

She’d been gone before Beau had even found out she was hurt, and one of us had time to call his phone and get Ruby to answer it.

We had all lost it. Lincoln had punched the wall hard enough to crack the plaster. Kody screamed curses, Rika holding him back as he’d tried to grab the doctor. Misha had just stood there, frozen, his face pale and blank like he couldn’t even process it. Price had walked outside and gone all the way home without a single fucking word. And me? I’d collapsed right there in the hallway, hands trembling, feeling like I’d been shot too. I couldn’t even remember getting up and going home. Couldn’t remember any of us doing anything at all.

Sapphire was our girl, and we hadn’t saved her. Protected her.

I couldn’t feel or think about anything other than that.

Until Rika had come into the lounge at some point, appearing out of nowhere with a grim expression I didn’t understand. She’d dropped her rifle on the table and turned to Kody, speaking only to him.

“I shot Sapphire. She told me to do it.” She’d stared at him weirdly.

He’d got right to his feet, getting in her face. “What the fuck did you just say?”

“She said she had some crazy bitch plan, and she needed me to shoot her; something about you needing to be in the crowd so her stalker didn’t think it was all a plan and that you’d done it.”

Kody had almost collapsed back onto the couch as we’d all turned to watch their conversation, even though we hadn’t understood it.

“It wasn’t her stalker?” He’d asked her something.

“No, fuckface. I just said it was me.”

He’d glared at her. “Dorika, I swear to fucking god I’m about to swing for you if you don’t explain yourself.”

Rika had grabbed his shirt, yanking him closer as she almost yelled at him. “Then listen to me! I shot her – you know I’m a good shot. Better than you.”

“Debateable.” He’d growled. “What’s your point?”

“I shot her in the shoulder. A through and through that would hurt like a motherfucker and bleed a lot. I never shot her in the heart.” She’d dropped his shirt and offered him her phone, showing the screen to him. “You need to go here. Now.”

“I know this place. We’ve been before.” He’d the read the page as we’d all stood around, waiting for a translation. “Why the fuck do I need to go to a funeral home?”

“I don’t know, I’m just the messenger – now get lost and do it. I’ve been awake far too long and I’m tired.” She’d glared at him a little. “I’m borrowing your bed. Don’t wake me up if you come back unless the house is on fire.”

“If you were in a burning building, I’d let you fucking choke because you just said you shot my fucking girlfriend.” Kody had snapped back before Rika had left, heading into his bedroom with her middle finger pointed at him.

He’d roughly translated their conversation, as he’d ordered us all to hurry the fuck up and leave. And now we were driving to a fucking funeral home at three in the morning because Rika had told Kody we needed to go.

Miguel’s place specifically. Where we’d burned some bodies not so long ago in some ways, an eternity in others.

The gravel crunched under the tires as we pulled into the parking lot; the building sitting eerily still at the end of it. The faint porch light cast long shadows across the ground, making everything look even more sinister, more wrong.

I killed the engine and just sat there, staring at the place. No one moved. No one spoke. None of us knew why we were here or what we were supposed to do.

In the back seat, Lincoln let out a quiet groan, rubbing his face like he was waking up from a nightmare. He had drunk more than the rest of us combined, something I’d never seen him do before. Lincoln never lost control. He was the one who held it together, who picked up the pieces when the rest of us fell apart. But tonight? He had shattered, just like the rest of us.

Kody sat next to me, his fists clenched so tightly in his lap I thought he might break his own fingers. His eyes were hollow, his face pale, but his jaw was set. He wasn’t letting the grief take him under—at least, not yet. But he also knew more of what Rika had told him, so I guessed he had something to make him less… less dead, I guessed.

I felt dead.

“Let’s go.” I ordered, my voice rough.

Misha and Price climbed out of the car silently, their faces grim, eyes glazed with a mixture of alcohol and exhaustion. Lincoln almost fell out, Kody following him and helping him stand upright. I got out last, the night air cold against my skin, sobering me just enough to feel the ache in my chest more acutely as we moved up the path, past the rows of gravestones scattered across the lot for people to look at.

Sapphire was going to need one. Beau wouldn’t be able to buy it.

Beau wasn’t alive either. He was gone.

Off with his matches, guns and knives, slaughtering his way through the darker sides of Diamond Grove and all the cities nearby, taking out anyone he deemed unworthy of another moment of life.

Off playing judge, jury and executioner in the way only a Montana could.

“Are we supposed to go inside?” I asked Kody. “Or just be here in general?”

“Dunno.” He shrugged as he looked around for signs of life. “Rika didn’t say shit other than come here.”

The front door loomed in front of us, dark wood polished to a sickening shine under the porch light. The last time we were here, it had been to get rid of a problem, and the memories of that night sat uneasily in my gut now. Not because of the murder or the fact it signified us going on the start of our adventure.

I’d kissed Sapphire. For real. Not just a thing we both pretended was a mistake. Not just a thing we lied about and said never happened.

My girl had admitted she liked me. I’d done the same. We’d started something that we would never get to finish.

“I guess I’ll knock.” I stopped in front of the door and tapped it three times, my hand trembling slightly as we waited.

The door creaked open. An inch or two, as the person checked who was there. Then all the way when they realized it was us.

I froze. My breath caught in my throat. Every single thing in the world lost all meaning, and I almost collapsed again, my knees going weaker than before.

“ Mi sol, you look like you see a ghost.” Sapphire stood there in the doorway, alive . Breathing. Her short silver locks, messy and freshly washed, and her icy blue eyes—the eyes I thought I’d never see again—burned into mine with a soft, apologetic smile tugging at her lips. She looked tired, but she looked alive. She was alive.

I couldn’t move. I couldn’t fucking breathe. The world tilted, and I grabbed hold of the door for support. She was supposed to be dead. I’d held her in my arms, covered in blood, felt her go cold. The doctors had said she was gone. That there was no coming back.

But there she was.

“Hi,” she said louder, for the other guys who were just as shellshocked as me, her voice soft, like this was all normal, like she hadn’t just torn our world apart. “I guess I should explain.”

I couldn’t think. Couldn’t process what she was saying, or why she was here, standing in front of us like she hadn’t been declared dead hours ago. All I knew was that she was here, and that was all that mattered.

Before I knew it, I was moving.

I grabbed her—pulling her into my arms, holding her as tightly as I could, my face burying in the crook of her neck. I felt the warmth of her skin, the softness of her hair, the rise and fall of her chest as she breathed. And I broke.

“Sapphire,” I choked out, my voice cracking as the tears came. “Jesus Christ, you’re alive.”

Her arms wrapped around me, holding me back just as tight, and I could feel her trembling. I wasn’t sure if it was from fear, or guilt, or relief, but I didn’t care. She was here. She was real. And that was the only thing I could focus on.

I hadn’t lost the only woman I’d ever love.

Behind me, I heard the guys shifting, their breath catching in their throats. No one spoke or moved for a second. Until all hell broke loose and they all converged, a pile of limbs and curses and sobs that we loud enough to wake the dead inside.

“I’m here,” she whispered against my shoulder, her voice barely audible through it all. “I’m so sorry.”

I couldn’t let go. I didn’t want to. All the anger, the grief, the hours of screaming at the sky—it all crumbled away as I held her. I felt like I’d been drowning in a sea of rage and sadness, and now, with her in my arms, I could finally breathe again.

Finally, after what felt like an eternity, I pulled back just enough to look at her. My eyes were red, swollen from hours of crying, but I could see the same raw emotion in her eyes. She wasn’t faking anything now.

She smiled, just a small, tired smile, and took a step back, her hand still gripping mine like she was afraid I might vanish. She did the same for the others, as she was passed around and kissed, hugged, cursed at. Lincoln vowed a lifetime of punishment for her shit. Kody offered the same. Price was violently promising that she couldn’t get out of being his wife, and he’d been fully intending on marrying her ghost. Misha had just been sweet, and kind and all the same as usual, until eventually Sapphire pulled back, and stepped aside.

“Come inside,” she said, her voice gentle. “I’ll explain everything, I promise. I just needed… I needed to be sure that Cassie didn’t know my plan anymore. I had to end it, and I couldn’t have her knowing the truth.”

None of us said anything. We just followed her into the darkness of the funeral home, on a day where everything had fallen apart, and how, somehow, it had all started to come back together.

My girl was alive, and I had never been more grateful. Happy .

Never been more than willing to do whatever it took just to keep her forever.