I believe in teeth.
In silence.
In making your enemies vanish so completely their names become taboo.
She sees justice as something noble.
I see it as something you carve out with a blade when the galaxy won’t give it freely.
She wants change.
I want control.
And this… this bloodbath I’ve authored tonight?
It’s not an act of love.
It’s a warning.
A reckoning.
A declaration to every bastard watching from the shadows that if you come for her again, if youtouchher, I will rain hell down so violently your ancestors will scream from their graves.
But that doesn’t mean she’ll forgive me.
Or evenlookat me the same way.
Because no matter what I tell myself—this wasn’t just about protecting her.
It was about reminding the world what I am.
A monster with a memory and a code all my own.
I lower the glaive.
My reflection catches in a pool of blood at my feet.
Eyes glowing. Face splattered. Bare chest heaving.
Reaper. Godfather. Weapon of extinction.
And I wonder—not for the first time—if I’ve gone too far to ever make it back to her.
Not to her bed. I could have that if I pushed.
But herheart?
That’s the part I may’ve burned tonight.
Ellex calls from outside. Says the clean-up’s starting. That the payload’s secured. That the rest of the sector’s already whispering.
I don’t answer.
I just stand in the center of hell I’ve made and whisper one name?—
“Aria.”
And for the first time in years…
