𝘊𝘖𝘕 𝘖𝘍 𝘙𝘌𝘝𝘌𝘕𝘎𝘌 | ᴘʀᴇ ʀᴅʀ2

Chapter Twenty-Five

It was deep in the night, the cicadas singing in the background as Rosalie stood at the edge of camp. She wore her black trousers and button-up, her blonde curls tied back into a thick plait under her father's hat. With shaky fingers, she brought a smoking cigarette to her lips for a slow drag. Her eyes were unfocused as she stared into the distance. The clearing was silent as she stood alone. Everyone else had gone to bed already.

Tonight they would intercept Colm and Cormac O'Driscoll at Lake Catherine. Forswood had been dealt with. The letter they wrote up had already been delivered to the snake, and he was sure to be waiting for them to make a move on the O'Driscoll brothers in fear of losing his own life.

Giving him that letter may have given away the element of surprise if he warned them, but Rosalie didn't care. Even if the brothers knew they were coming, they wouldn't hide away in fear. Not Cormac O'Drisocll. That man who shot her uncle out of anger over a poker game was not one to cower away into his hole.

Rosalie was ready to put an end to this. She wanted to end it all, and deliver justice where it was rightfully deserved.

While everyone else was resting before they left, she couldn't sleep. How could she, when the moment she had been waiting for was just hours away? Finally, she would be able to deliver an end to Cormac for taking her father's and uncle's life. He had taken the last and only people she had ever called family. Ripped them from her grasp and left her sacred and alone like a cowardly animal.

Cormac would pay the price for that with his life.

Rosalie wanted him to see her eyes when he died. Cormac would look upon her with fear as she raised her gun and pulled the trigger, sealing his fate with her bullet. He would realize he was taking his last breath and know that every extra gulp of air he had before this moment was because of Rosalie. He needed to understand that the only reason he was alive and breathing was because she had allowed it, and the reason he would take his last breath was because she took it from him.

She wanted him to feel the fear her uncle did before he was shot, and the pain her father did as he bled to his death from his wounds. She would not make his death a painless one. It would be slow, and she would make sure of it.

The sleepless nights plagued by nightmares had gone on too long, images of her father's pain-ridden eyes as she laid him in the dirt outside of the saloon, the fires roaring high above as she begged him to stay with her. Her uncle's bloodied skull and limp body laying in the poker chair, Cormac's grinning face lingering behind him as he held his smoking gun. She wanted it to go away, and it would. It had to. When Cormac was dealt with, she would have some semblance of peace again.

Rosalie knew she would never have her father and uncle again. She would never hear her father play his guitar, and she would never hear her uncle mutter to himself by the fire as he thought of their next whirlwind scheme. She would never rest her head on her father's lap as he read. She would never hear her uncle's deep snores in the late morning. There would never be a moment shared between them again. Rosalie knew that.

Rosalie also knew that Cormac would pay the price for that loss with his life.

She wanted him to feel the fear and helplessness she had felt when she lost her family. She wanted him to understand that his death was not just an act of revenge, but a necessary act of justice. Rosalie would be the last thing he saw, and her face would haunt him in his final moments, just as his actions had haunted her for months.

"Can't sleep?" Dutch asked, coming to stand by her.

He was also dressed and not in his night clothes. He wore a faraway expression as he stood beside her and looked out into the distance, his arms folded across his chest.