He didn’t move, hugging his dead mother, my second victim—stolen, not at my hand, but by the poltergeists of my ancestors.
“Youkilled Daniel.”
Two choices.
One future.
I was so sick of running. So sick of hiding. So sick of beingweak.
I didn’t run.
I didn’t deny it.
Instead, I held my chin high and claimed all that I’d achieved.
I’d won; they’d lost. So be it if my life was now over.
“Yes. Yes, I killed him. I took his life, I disposed of his body, and I enjoyed every damn second of it.”
Cut gasped.
I smiled.
We didn’t move as the next battle was drawn.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Bonnie
NO ONE WANTED to listen to the story of the sinner. The bad guy. The villain.
No one truly cared about my agendas or goals.
No one could comprehend that my actions stemmed from a place of love, family, and commitment to those I cherished.
Did that make me a terrible person?
Could I not put those I cared about before a total stranger?
People did it all the time.
They murdered to protect themselves and loved ones. They willingly forgot the commandments in favour of how they viewed what was acceptable and what was not.
I was no different.
Those who knew me understood my passion and drive. And those who didn’t. Well, I didn’t give a rat’s arse what they thought.
There were rarely two sides to every story. In my long life experience, I’d come to see the truth. There were multiple sides. Pages and pages of sides. A never-ending battle where humans picked what they believed, causing friction and intolerance. Sometimes the choices were for understandable reasons—not justified or rash or right—just...understandable.
And when I understood that magic, I learned how to create the same spell within my own empire.
There was no right and wrong.
There was no black and white.
Those two simple lessons guided me through my life forever.
My reasons for doing what I did made sense to me. They were my dreams, and I was lucky enough to have the power and authority to press those dreams on others.
