“At least let me help you first,” she conceded, leaning into his palm as her eyes flicked to his shoulder.
“I’m fine,” he lied, ignoring the hot blood spreading down his side beneath his jacket. “This isn’t the first time. I doubt it will be the last.”
Something about those words seemed to break her completely. She surged forward, wrapping her arms around him in an embrace that sent pain screaming through his shoulder. He didn’t flinch, didn’t pull away. Instead, he gritted his teeth and wrapped his arms tightly around her, cradling his little sister against his chest as her tears soaked through his shirt.
“I hate him,” she whispered against his chest. “I hate what he’s done to us. I want him to die.”
“I know.” He brushed a hand down the back of her head. “I know, Li. Go with Chapman. Stay with Callum. I’ll fix this.”
Another lie, perhaps. But one she needed to hear.
She pulled back, fingers brushing his injured shoulder with butterfly lightness. “Promise me you’ll take care of this,” she said, gesturing to the wound.
“I promise.”
Lira turned to Shadera then, the movement hesitant, uncertain. “Thank you,” she said simply. “For in the elevator.”
Shadera inclined her head. “It was nothing.”
“It wasn’t nothing,” Lira insisted. Then, more quietly, “Take care of him. At least for tonight, please keep him safe.”
Before Shadera could respond, Lira turned away, moving toward Chapman who waited in the entryway, his patience infinite, his discretion absolute. Greyson followed her toward the door, opening it andpressing the button to call the elevator, then pulled Chapman back a step.
“No one touches her,” Greyson said, his voice low enough that only Chapman could hear. He pulled his gun out of its holster and slipped it to him. “If anyone tries, even Veyra, you have my authorization to use lethal force.”
Chapman’s eyes reflected his understanding. “Yes, sir. With my life.”
The doors to the elevator opened and in the next breath they were gone, leaving Greyson alone with Shadera in the suddenly too quiet apartment. The absence of others made the space feel larger, emptier, the silence pressing in and suffocating him.
Greyson stood motionless, his control maintained by the thinnest of threads. Now that Lira was gone, now that his focus on her safety no longer anchored him, he could feel something unraveling inside him—a coil of pain and despair that had been wound tight for decades.
Control. Everything in his life had been about control—maintaining it, projecting it, never letting it slip no matter what his father did, no matter what horrors he witnessed on the execution platform, no matter how much of himself he had to carve away to maintain the facade.
The sound of his own heartbeat thundered in his ears, the wound in his shoulder a distant concern compared to the rage building inside him.
It started in his fingertips, a tremor that traveled up his arms, spreading through his chest until his entire body vibrated with it. That control he maintained—always,alwaysmaintained—began to crack, fault lines spreading into gaping voids.
“You should sit,” Shadera said, breaking the silence. “Let me look at your shoulder.”
Her voice penetrated the fog beginning to cloud his thoughts, but he couldn’t bring himself to respond. The sound of his father’s handstriking Lira’s face echoed in his ears. The image of the gun pressed to his mother’s temple burned behind his eyes. The feeling of powerlessness—familiar, suffocating—tightened around his throat.
“Greyson?” Shadera moved closer, her voice sharper now, more insistent.
For the first time in his life, Greyson found himself contemplating not just escaping from his father’s control, but something far more permanent. Something that would end his reign once and for all.
Something snapped.
His fist connected with the wall before he consciously decided to move as a sound more animal than human shredded his lungs. Plaster cracked and gave way, pain shooting up his arm to mingle with the fire in his shoulder. The physical sensation was cleansing, clarifying—a point of focus in the storm.
He tore the mask from his face, hurling it into the mirror above the entryway table. Shards exploded outward like crystalline shrapnel. His hands reached for anything, scrabbled for anything he could destroy. The island stools were next. He picked them up one by one, slamming them against the counter, against the walls, the refrigerator until they were nothing more than twisted metal.
He dragged his suit jacket off his body as his heel connected with the coffee table. It flew across the room, flipping and splintering, as it connected with the entertainment center and shattered the thin glass television screen. The sound was like ice breaking on a frozen lake.
It wasn’t enough.
Nowhere near enough to contain the fury boiling through his veins.
“Fuck!” The word tore from him as his fist connected with the marble island, splitting his knuckles.
