“You kidnapped me.”
“It’s for your own good.”
My blood ran cold. I stared at her like I didn’t know her. Maybe I didn’t anymore.
“You knocked me out. Tied me up. What part of that is ‘good’?” My voice rose, ragged with panic and fury. “You’re supposed to be my sister!”
Callista didn’t flinch. She looked almost… tired. “And I’m trying to save you.”
No.
No, this wasn’t salvation. This wasn’t care.
This was betrayal wearing my sister’s face.
I stared at Callista like I didn’t even recognize her. Maybe I didn’t.
Her words echoed in my ears, cold and heavy. "I was supposed to marry him."
My stomach turned.
She took a step closer, her eyes glinting—not with malice, but something more dangerous: belief. “It was arranged. Before either of us were born. Our parents wanted to tie our families together, and Hades was the golden ticket.”
I opened my mouth to laugh—some reflex of disbelief—but it caught in my throat when I saw Clint shift in the background, saying nothing. Not denying it.
Callista’s lips curled, not in a smile, but in something brittle. “He never looked at me. In fact, he broke things off, got engaged to someone else. But she left, and then he came back to me. Bastard thought the grass was greener.”
“Then why—why are you doing this?” My voice cracked under the weight of it all.
Her eyes burned as she spit the words like venom. “Because he was obsessed with you. Always. You walked into a room and he’d stop breathing. I’d be in the middle of a sentence, and he’d forget I existed. Why do you think his other fiancee left? He thought it’d be easier without you in his life. Apparently, he was wrong.”
My breath hitched.
Memories slammed into me—how his gaze always found mine, even when we barely spoke. The way his presence shifted when I was near. I had mistaken it for curiosity, maybe protection. I hadn’t dared to believe it was more.
Callista looked like she was shattering piece by piece as she went on. “I tried. God, I tried to make him want me. I played the perfect fiancée. But he wouldn’t even kiss me.”
She laughed bitterly, and it made my skin crawl. “He told me, ‘I won’t touch what isn’t mine.’”
I flinched.
A beat of silence passed between us, filled with every truth I didn’t want to hear. Every reason why this betrayal cut so deep.
“That’s when I knew,” she whispered, her voice going cold. “I couldn’t beat him. But I could break him.”
“You thought I’d help you destroy him?” I asked, stepping forward despite the ache in my chest. “You thought I’d play bait?”
“You were already halfway there,” she hissed. “You fell right into his arms.”
I clenched my fists, heat burning behind my eyes. “I’m not a pawn in your obsession, Callista. I’m not your revenge story.”
She looked at me, eyes full of fury and heartbreak. “No,” she said softly. “You’re his.”
And that, apparently, was the worst thing I could be.
The world tilted, like the ground beneath me had shifted without warning. My pulse thudded in my ears, too loud, too fast, too real.
“You can’t be serious,” I whispered, the tremor in my voice betraying how hard I was trying to keep it together. “You think you can just… end this?”
