The fire crackled in the billiards room where the Hawk men had been playing poker. The air was hot and muggy and laced with cognac fumes.
Tonight, I’d had plans to end whatever changed between Jethro and me forever.
But now...those plans had changed.
Kestrel ran his fingers over my collar. “Relax, little Weaver. It will all be over soon.”
Cut chuckled. “Yes, soon you can go to sleep and pretend none of this happened.”
My ears strained for one other voice. The voice of the man who controlled my heart even though he’d thrown it back in my face.
But only silence greeted me.
Daniel snickered, licking my cheek. “Time to pay, Weaver.”
Someone clapped and in a voice full of darkness and doom said, “It’s time for the Third Debt.”
Two Months Prior
Chapter Two
Jethro
I MEANT WHAT I said before.
I meant it with every bone in my body.
Someone has to die.
I still stood by that conclusion. Only, I’d hoped it wouldn’t be me.
Too bad wishes never come true.
I’d always wondered what it would feel like. How I would react, knowing that I’d failed. I’d lain awake so many nights trying to imagine how I would behave when my father finally had enough. I’d scared myself shitless fearing I wouldn’t be strong enough,braveenough, to face the consequences I’d lived with all my life.
But none of that mattered now. I’d done what I swore never to do and revealed myself. My father knew there was no changing me—he would come for me.
But so fucking what?
She’s safe.
That was all I needed to focus on.
I’d done my utmost to be the perfect son, but I’d been fighting an unwinnable battle. No matter how much I wished I could be like them—I wasn’t. And it was pointless to keep fighting.
Not anymore.
I’m done.
I was done the moment Nila called me Kite and admitted she loved me.
Fuck, that isn’t true.
I was done the moment I set eyes on her in Milan.
I stood looking out the window, gripping the windowsill with white fingers. The view of Hawksridge—of manicured hedges and vibrant rose bushes—was no longer in colour but black and white. Before my very eyes, the sparkle and dynamism of life left me as Nila stepped into the black sedan below.
How could the ebullience of the world suddenly disappear, leaving behind a monochromatic disaster the second she vanished?
