Only one way to get it off.
I was to be beheaded.
There’d be no sawing off the collar or picking the lock. The way the clasp snapped so resolutely hinted at a one way mechanism. The heavy noose was now mine...an accessory slowly strangling me by diamonds.
It wasn’t breakable. But I was. So fragile really, when a single sharp blade could cast me from life into the nether. Diamonds were nature’s hardest fortress—the quintessential marriage of unbreakable ice and power.
A new unwanted respect curdled in my stomach. Jethro said his mines.Theirmines. Diamonds were pure, but the method of collection had a chequered history of death and violence.
They didn’t just play the part of untouchables. Theywereuntouchable.
No!
My tugging fingers turned frantic. I arched my neck, searching with an edge of insanity for a weakness in the soldered white gold and gemstones. It had to come off.
It has to.
I didn’t have the strength to die. I didn’t have the martyrdom to let them do this. Not for family. Not for fortune. Not for anything.
I’m weak. I don’t want to die!
Jethro grabbed my wrists, effortlessly pulling my arms away from my throat. My eyes opened and all I saw was malevolent stone. There was no compassion in his light-brown eyes. No sympathy or even guilt. How did he have the power to be so close to me—to grow hard wanting me—and know all along my fate?
Only a special person could do that. A person who wasn’t born of this world, but brimstone and fire. Fromhell.
I struggled in his hold. The collar settled heavily, spreading its heinous ice. “I was wrong about you.”
Jethro placed my hands by my sides, then let me go. He shrugged, running a palm through his thick salt-and-pepper hair. “I’ve been nothing but forthright and honest from the beginning. You’re the one who spun a lie from the truth.You’rethe one who ignored everything I was telling you.”
Turning to face the table, he wrapped a cold arm around my waist. “And now it’s time to face the reality of everything you tried to ignore.”
Mr. Hawk, with his ridiculous tweed and leather outfit, stubbed out a smouldering cigar. “Did you tell her?”
Jethro stiffened. “I forgot.”
His father reclined into the high-backed chair and folded his hands on his stomach. “You were meant to tell her when you put it on.It’s called the Weaver Wailer and it belonged to...”
A loud screeching sound exploded in my ears. My stomach rolled. Vertigo spread its nullifying tentacles through my brain.
It’s the necklace. The one she wore when she came back the final time.
Jethro looked down, trying to capture my eyes, but I wouldn’t do it. Icouldn’tdo it. I kept my vision blank, looking resolutely over his shoulder. “I think you’ve already guessed who it belonged to.” Lowering his voice, he whispered, “The last person to wear this collar was your mother. She wore it for two years and twenty-three days before it was...forcibly removed. It carries not only the diamonds of my bloodline, but also blood from yours. We, of course, clean it thoroughly after every owner, but if you look closely, I’m sure you’ll see the tarnish of their lives given in return for their crimes.”
“Nila, when you’re a big girl, you can wear my clothes, shoes, and jewellery, but you have to grow a little taller before that day.” My mother laughed, looking down at me on the floor of her walk-in wardrobe. I’d not only raided her jewellery box and draped myself in gemstones, but wore a feather boa with a baggy one piece swimming suit and giant high heels. I thought I looked incredible. For a seven-year-old.
Holding up the pearls around my neck, I said, “Promise? I can have these when I’m your size?”
She ducked, pulling me into a hug. “You can have everything of mine. Why?”
I smiled. I knew the answer to this. “Because you love me.”
She nodded. “Because I love you.”
The memory came and went, stealing the firm ground beneath my feet and sending me headfirst into nausea. Spirals, loop de loops, and spin-cycles all churned my brain until I didn’t know up from down.
It wasn’t vertigo this time, but grief.
Crushing, crashing grief. A grief I hadn’t suffered, because all my happy memories of her had been blocked by the wall of hatred. She was supposed to be the bad guy for leaving my father. I’d been safe from hurting. Safe from reliving everything with the knowledge of how precious she was. How tragic her life became and fortwo yearsafter she’d left. Two years we didn’t try and save her.
