“I’m going to make him pay for this,” he whispered against her skin, and his voice held no trace of kindness.
This was the real Callum Thane—the one who lived in the Heart’s shadows, who collected information like weapons, who had been planning Maximus Serel’s downfall since childhood, since the day he’d first seen the evidence of his cruelty on Greyson’s body. “For every mark, every bruise, every moment of fear he’s ever given you. I’m going to destroy him so completely that history will forget he ever existed.”
She shuddered against him, her hands fisting in his soaked shirt. “Promise me.”
“I promise.” He pulled back to meet her eyes, no longer hidden, no longer guarded. “With everything I am, everything I have. He’ll never touch you again.”
Lira was his, had always been his in some ways, even when he’d been forced to let her go. And anyone who hurt what was his would learn why even the dark recoiled from the man who owned the Heart’s secrets.
Chapter twenty-one
I Have A Plan
Morningbruisedacrossthesky—dark purple bleeding into a sickly yellow as Lira woke to find her pain had crystallized into something sharper. Pure, distilled, clarifying anger that settled into her bones like mercury. Heavy and toxic but absolutely necessary.
Her face throbbed with each heartbeat, the gash on her cheek pulling with every small movement. She touched it gingerly, remembering Callum’s lips against the wound, the promise in his voice when he’d sworn revenge. But revenge wasn’t enough anymore. Revenge was reactive, defensive. What she wanted—what sheneeded—was change.
Her legs swung over the edge of the bed, her feet connecting with the cool marble floor as a heavy breath released itself from her lungs. The contact grounded her, a physical anchor in a world that seemed increasingly untethered from reality.
Callum had left a replacement mask on the bedside table and she stared at it for a long moment, a decision to be made. Here, in this house, she was safe. Safe to own her own face, not hide it away from the world.
For the first time in her adult life, Lira looked away from the mask.
She moved through the guest suite and into the main living area of Callum’s apartment and paused at the threshold.
Two men stood in the kitchen area, their postures alert despite the early hour. Security guards, part of Callum’s private detail. Their faces were bare, an act of rebellion on Callum’s part. He refused to live by the Heart’s rules in his own home, refused to make his men abide by them. Their eyes widened slightly at the sight of her unmasked features. In unison they both reached for the masks they discarded on the long kitchen table and Lira threw up her hands.
“Please,” she said softly. “You don’t have to hide. Not from me.”
The men glanced at each other before their eyes came back to her and nodded. She could see the battle in them, trying to force themselves not to focus on her ruined face.
“Ma’am,” the taller of the two said, inclining his head respectfully. “Mr. Thane asked us to inform you that breakfast is available whenever you’re ready.”
Lira nodded, her hand unconsciously rising to her throat. “Where is he?”
“Downstairs in his office, ma’am,” the guard replied. “He’s in a meeting but should be done shortly.”
“Thank you,” she said, moving toward the breakfast tray laid out on the counter. “I’ll wait for him here.”
The guards dipped their chins and retreated to their posts by the door, giving her space while remaining vigilant. Lira poured herself tea from the waiting pot, letting the familiar ritual settle her thoughts. The fine porcelain cup was warm against her palms, a small comfort in a world increasingly devoid of them.
She carried the cup to the window, looking out over the Heart spread below. From this height, the city appeared perfect—platinum spires catching the morning light, streets laid out in precise geometric patterns, everything ordered and controlled. The illusion of utopia, maintained at the cost of blood.
More innocent lives would be lost this morning. The media drones circling the platform where her brother stood like a statue behind two bound and kneeling men told her that. The red cord around their wrists, the red ceremony uniforms of the Veyra officers, seemed angrier today. The color more accusatory.
She’d spent her life standing at windows like this one, looking out at her father’s domain. Crafted press releases that painted the Heart’s brutality as necessary security measures.
Always the dutiful daughter. Always the obedient woman. Always the voice that smoothed over the regime’s crimes for public consumption.
She wouldn’t do it, not anymore.
Something shifted inside her chest, a tectonic movement of emotion that had been building for years. The fear that had been her constant companion since childhood receded, replaced by something hotter, something with teeth.
Rage.
Not the momentary flashes of anger she’d felt before, quickly suppressed beneath layers of training, of fear and self-preservation. This was deeper, more fundamental—a molten core of fury that seemed to burn away the fog she’d lived in for so long.
Lira’s hand tightened around the teacup, her knuckles whitening with the pressure. She watched her own reflection in the window, superimposed over the city below as the execution began. The bruises, the cut, the swelling—visible evidence of what had always been true but carefully hidden.
