“No other choice?” Godric repeated, incredulous. “You had countless choices. You could have walked away. You could have found your own path, made your own fortune. But instead, you chose murder. You chose to destroy everything my parents built, everything they were, simply because you could not have what you wanted.”
“You know nothing of what I endured,” Luther snapped, his composure finally cracking. “Nothing of the years I spentwatching him – watching your father – take everything that should have been mine!”
“Then tell me,” Godric said, forcing his voice to remain level even as fury threatened to consume him. “Tell me why. Make me understand how you could justify murdering your own brother. How you could go on living after you also killed my mother in your desperate desire for things that weren’t yours.”
For a long moment, Luther simply stared at him. Then, slowly, the tension seemed to drain from his shoulders. When he spoke again, his voice carried the weight of old bitterness, of wounds that had festered for decades.
“I was in love with her,” he said, and there was something almost tender in the way he spoke the words. “Your mother. Amelia. I loved her with everything within me, from the moment I first laid eyes upon her. She was... perfection. Grace and kindness incarnate. And I showered her with gifts and affection, did everything I could to win her favor.”
He paused, his gaze distant, lost in memories that Godric had no desire to witness.
“But the ungrateful woman went and married my brother,” Luther continued, and now the bitterness returned, sharp and cutting. “Of all the men in England, she chose him. My own brother. Do you have any idea what that felt like? To have the woman you love look at you with nothing but sisterly affection while she saved all her warmth, all her passion, for someone else?”
“So, you killed them,” Godric said flatly. “Because she did not return your feelings, you murdered them both.”
“It was not just about her,” Luther insisted, his voice rising. “It was everything. It was always everything with him. Our father doted on him because he was the eldest. The title went to him, the estate, the wealth – all of it, simply because he had the fortune of being born first. And then the woman of my dreams fell into his lap as well, as though the universe itself was conspiring to give him everything while I was left with nothing.”
He laughed, but there was no humour in the sound. Only a hollow, aching emptiness that made Godric's stomach turn.
“It was unfair,” Luther said simply. “So, I decided to make it fair.”
“By killing a child?” Godric demanded; his voice sharp enough to cut. “I was nine years old, Uncle. Nine. What threat could I possibly have posed to you?”
“You were the heir,” Luther said, as though that explained everything. “The plan was perfect – remove your father and you, and the title would pass to me. And in her grief, Amelia would have no one else to turn to. I would be there to comfort her, to support her through her darkest hours. Eventually, she would come to depend on me. To love me, as she should have from the beginning.”
Godric felt bile rise in his throat. The casual way Luther spoke of it, as though orchestrating the murder of his own family was nodifferent than planning a business transaction, filled him with disgust.
“But the foolish woman had to go and sacrifice herself to save you,” Luther continued, his voice hardening. “She threw herself in front of that blade, died protecting a child who should never have survived the night. And suddenly, instead of having everything I wanted, I was stuck with you.”
Behind Luther, Godric could see Nora struggling against her bonds, her eyes wide with horror as she listened to the confession. He wanted desperately to go to her, to untie her and carry her far away from this nightmare. But he forced himself to remain still, to keep his attention on Luther.
“If you despised me so much, why did you not simply send me away?” Godric asked, genuinely bewildered. “You did not need to raise me. You could have placed me with a distant relative, washed your hands of the entire affair. Instead, you kept me close, forced us both to live such miserable lives. Why?”
Luther's smile returned, and this time it was cruel. “Because I did not want to suffer alone.”
The simple honesty of it struck Godric like a physical blow.
“At first,” Luther continued, “I was simply going to use you as an outlet for my hate. A reminder of everything I had lost, everything that had been stolen from me. But then I realized something far more valuable.” He leaned forward slightly, his eyes gleaming. “A boy focused on revenge is remarkably easy tomanipulate. If I shaped you correctly, moulded you into exactly what I needed, I could at least get some satisfaction from my brother's death.”
“You turned me into a weapon,” Godric said, his voice hollow.
“I turned you into justice,” Luther corrected. “Or at least, that is what I convinced you that you were. In truth, you were nothing more than a tool for my own amusement. Watching you grow up consumed by rage and grief, knowing that I was the architect of all your suffering... there was a certain poetry to it, do you not think?”
Godric's hands trembled with the effort of restraining himself. Every instinct he possessed screamed at him to cross the distance between them and wrap his hands around Luther's throat. To make him feel even a fraction of the pain he had caused.
But he could not. Not yet. Not while Nora was still in danger.
“And now?” Godric asked, his voice carefully controlled. “What is your plan now? You cannot possibly believe you will escape the consequences of this. I know the truth. I have the letters you exchanged with Anthony Brown. The ones you sent to my mother and her eventual rejection – which would highlight your motive. Even if you kill me here, the evidence will come to light.”
“Which is precisely why I cannot simply kill you,” Luther agreed, nodding as though Godric had made an excellent point. “No, I realized that death would be too kind. Too quick. After allthese years of shaping you, of watching you become everything I wanted you to be, it would be wasteful to simply end your life.”
He turned then, his gaze settling on Nora with an intensity that made Godric's blood run cold.
“But I can make you suffer,” Luther continued softly. “I can take from you what my brother took from me. I can show you exactly what it feels like to lose the woman you love.”
Before Godric could react, Luther pulled a pistol from inside his coat and aimed it directly at Nora's head.
The world seemed to slow down. Godric could hear his own heartbeat thundering in his ears, could feel every muscle in his body coiling with desperate energy. Nora's eyes met his across the distance, and aside from fear – there something else. Something that looked almost like understanding.
