“Father,” Greyson snapped, unable to contain himself any longer.
“Are you protecting this trash?” Maximus’s laugh was cold, cutting. “The scum that tried to murder you? Whose clan killed your brother, my son? How far you have fallen. How disappointingly weak you’ve become.”
“Treating people with basic dignity isn’t weakness,” Greyson countered, trying to rein in his hatred. “Something you’ve never understood.”
“You presume to tell me what I do and do not understand?” His father rose slightly in his chair, leaning forward. “You, who have accomplished nothing beyond what I have given you? You, who exist at my pleasure, who hold power only because I allow it?”
The familiar litany of inadequacy washed over Greyson like acid rain, burning in old scars, festering in wounds that had never truly healed. He felt himself shrinking beneath it, felt the child in him wantingto bow his head, to apologize, to do anything to make the criticism stop.
But he wasn’t a child anymore. He was the only person that could stand between his father and his mother, his sister, and now Shadera. He opened his mouth to speak, but it was too late.
“That’s not true,” Lira said, her voice cutting through the tension. “Greyson has earned everything he has. He’s respected for his own merits, not just because of your name.”
Greyson could hear his heart pounding, could feel the blood rising.
She shouldn’t have said that.
Maximus’s head snapped toward her, and the atmosphere in the room shifted instantly, temperature dropping as if someone had opened a door to winter. “Did I ask for your opinion?”
Elara’s hand moved toward Lira’s across the table, a subtle protective gesture. “Maximus, perhaps we should—”
“Be silent,” Maximus cut her off, not even looking at his wife. His attention remained fixed on Lira. “You forget yourself. You forget who allowed you to have a voice at all.”
“I haven’t forgotten anything,” Lira replied, and Greyson heard the slight tremor in her voice, the fear she was fighting to control. “I wish I could, Father, truly. But there is not a single day that I do not remember the things you’ve done to me or this family.”
Greyson’s eyes flashed toward her. The accusation in her voice, the pain. There was something deeper, something haunting in the way she said it, as if she was intimately aware of how cruel Maximus could be. Greyson’s stomach twisted at the thought of his father’s hands on her. He thought he’d kept her safe, had kept her out of the path of his father’s wrath.
The room went so quiet Greyson could hear the subtle tick of the antique clock on the mantelpiece, counting down the seconds tomassacre. Shadera had gone still beside him, watching his family unravel before her.
“How dare you,” Maximus said, his voice barely above a whisper. “How dare you speak to me with such contempt in my house.”
One moment he was standing at the head of the table, the next he was at Lira’s side, his hand closing around her throat as he dragged her from her chair.
“Maximus!” Elara cried, reaching for her daughter.
Maximus’s hand shot out, his fist connecting with her skull as she rushed for Lira. A sharp wail left her lips as she stumbled to the ground and scurried away from him, clutching the side of her face.
“Stay in your place,” Maximus hissed down at her before turning his eyes back to Lira.
Greyson sprang to his feet, rage propelling him forward. He seethed, fists clenched, ready to strike, but Lira’s eyes—wide and desperate—found his over their father’s shoulder, silently begging him to stop. He stilled, his chest rising and falling frantically as Shadera slowly rose beside him.
Maximus forced Lira to her knees beside the table, his grip on her throat tightening. “You think because I’ve given you responsibilities, because I’ve allowed you some small authority, that you have the right to speak at my table?” His voice was almost gentle. “You are a woman with freedoms I let you keep because I’ve not yet required you to take your Vow. But you are still a woman. I can take those freedoms away at any second, I can sell you off to the highest bidder where you will become another subservient woman whose only purpose is to breed heirs, to take orders.”
“I have no freedom,” Lira spat up at him, the words strangled.
The sound of Maximus’s palm connecting with Lira’s face echoed through the dining room. Her head snapped to the side, the impacthard enough that Greyson heard the distinct crack of her mask against his father’s ring.
Something in Greyson broke. Some final tether of restraint, some last vestige of fear or respect or whatever the fuck had kept him in check all these years. He launched himself around the table, blind with rage, deaf to his mother’s sharp scream as she pleaded with him to stop.
“Greyson, don’t!” Shadera yelled as she tried to catch his arm.
But it was too late. It was already in motion.
He was halfway to his father when Maximus released Lira, letting her crumple to the floor as he drew the gun from inside his jacket. The movement was smooth, practiced—the action of a man who had anticipated this moment, who’d been waiting for it.
“One more step,” Maximus said calmly, “and I’ll add another scar to your collection.”
Greyson didn’t stop.
