A thick silence settled over the room.
Balthazar stood frozen, pale, stiff, his expression twisted into something I had never seen before—not rage, not malice.
Fear.
My head snapped back and forth between them.
What the holy hell was going on here?
Emily’s wide eyes met mine, reflecting the same stunned bewilderment.
Then Mathias spoke.
Low. Menacing.
“I have waited a long time for this moment.”
Balthazar’s mouth worked, but no sound came out at first. Then, at last, a single, strangled whisper?—
“You… You’re alive.”
“Very much so,” Mathias said, his voice deathly calm. “Unlike your son will be if you don’t return the child to his mother.”
In a blink, he vanished—then reappeared behind Balthazar, pressing a gleaming blade to his throat.
My limbs trembled violently, and the room tilted. I reached out a hand, steadying myself against the wall.
Mathias was the darkness.
Balthazar barely flinched. His gaze roamed to Tristan, then back to Mathias. “You wouldn’t kill my son.”
“Go ahead and test me.” Mathias pressed the blade harder, a thin crimson line blooming against Balthazar’s pale skin. “I would. And I will. Because you put my granddaughter in pain. Now, give the child back.”
Balthazar threw his head back and let out a peal of laughter, his cackles ringing off the walls. His eyes burned with rage, his expression twisting with loathing.
“You have no power here,” he sneered. “Do you think I’m scared of you? You can deceive these two all you like, but not me.”
Mathias didn’t hesitate. He dragged the knife deeper across Balthazar’s throat. “Give. The. Child. Back.”
Balthazar’s sneer faltered as he extended Leo toward Emily. She snatched him up, clutching him desperately to her chest.
Before anyone could react, Mathias disappeared again—then reemerged behind Tristan.
Emily let out a strangled sob and rolled away, shielding Leo beneath the blankets.
Tristan thrashed, his arms flailing in panic. “Father, do something!”
Balthazar lunged?—
Mathias moved faster.
In one swift, brutal motion, he sliced through Tristan’s neck with such force that the head severed cleanly from his body.
I gasped in horror as the rest of Tristan collapsed with a thud.
Mathias caught the severed head by the hair before it hit the floor.
A scream ripped from my throat.
