One. Two. Three. Four. Five.
I let out a long breath and my hands stopped shaking enough.
Mami betrayed you. She photographed Nyomi. And Sako was going to help your father take everything you loved. Do not shed one tear for their deaths.
The justification rang hollow in my skull.
Because I also remembered how my mother used to braid Mami’s hair and hum songs during bad storms because she knew Mami was afraid of thunder.
She’d been a sister to me, and now she was a traitor.
Somehow both things were true.
And I had burned her alive anyway.
Her eyes and mouth had stayed open.
Even as her face bubbled and boiled in the flames.
Even when there was nothing left of her features but blackened bone and the sick pop of bursting fluid.
Those empty sockets remained pointed in my direction.
Staring at me.
Accusing.
My stomach twisted.
You did what you had to do. They would have killed Nyomi. Would have taken her.
A cold shiver ran through me.
You didn't have to watch. You could have ordered it and left. But you stayed. You stayed for every second and forced yourself to watch.
I had.
Because if I was going to order someone's death, I owed them the weight of witnessing it. Owed them my presence, my attention, the fullness of my culpability.
That was the code I'd created for myself years ago.
I just hadn't understood until tonight how heavy that code would become.
Sako's confessions had come out in broken fragments between sobs. Names spilled from his mouth like gushing blood from a gaping wound.
Thirty more fucking names.
Thirty more snakes hidden in my organization.
Gardeners.
Cooks.
Guards.
A whole network he'd been managing for fifteen years while pretending to be my friend.
Sighing, I checked behind me and realized the guards took several more steps back, but I caught the glance that passed between them.
