Tristan thrashed against his bonds, his desperate cries splintering the air. “Alright! Alright! I’ll tell you what you want to know!”
I stilled, my grip steady but my mind on high alert. Was he stalling? Or had I finally cracked him?
Tristan gasped, his chest heaving. “My father is… Lord Balthazar.”
A chill coiled through me.
I had suspected it. I had known it.
And yet, hearing it out loud sent an eerie certainty down my spine. The basement felt frozen in time like a bomb had just detonated, and we were all trapped in the shockwave, waiting for the dust to settle.
A stunned laugh escaped my lips. “You?” I shook my head, disgust curling in my gut. “You’re nothing but a pathetic idiot.”
“It’s true!” Tristan sobbed, tears carving fresh tracks down his bloodstained face. “And I’ve done nothing but disappoint him.”
I scoffed. “I can see why. You’re a disgrace.”
I flicked my gaze to Lee and Jack.
Lee shrugged, his expression unreadable—like he wouldn’t be surprised if the sky turned green next.
On the other hand, Jack looked as if he wished the floor would swallow him whole, his shoulders hunched inward like a turtle retreating into its shell.
But my mind was elsewhere.
Balthazar.
That name alone set fire to my veins. He was the monster who had tormented Olivia. He had tortured me. And now, his sniveling, pathetic son sat before me, ripe for the kind of pain his father had inflicted.
My fingers twitched with the urge to hurt him. To make him suffer.
Tristan’s breath hitched. “Will you let me go now?”
I let out a dark chuckle, the sound devoid of humor. “Not a chance in hell.” I crouched in front of him, my voice a venomous growl. “If anything, you just earned yourself a harsher punishment.”
I glanced at Lee, silently asking for approval.
Lee shrugged again as if to say, “Do what you want.”
Every instinct I had screamed to deliver retribution, to make Tristan pay, not just for his pathetic betrayal, but for the sins of his father. But another part of me hesitated.
The rules of this time made no sense to me. Back in the arena, there were no second chances, no mercy. You fought, you won, or you died. Simple. But now? Now, I was supposed to navigate laws and consequences I barely understood.
My stomach churned.
Should I follow my heart—burn him down the way Balthazar burned everything he touched? Or should I follow my head—choose restraint, something foreign, something unnatural to me?
Frustration clawed at my insides.
Indecision.
I hated indecision.
And yet, here I stood, paralyzed by it—trapped between my past and a world that refused to make sense.
Chapter 12
Olivia
