Emersyn nodded once. “Yeah, or the guilt would eat you alive. I mean, I know you are like some big bad president in the making, but imagine looking back on your life, remembering you got the Spade princess murdered by her own brother.”
This girl was funny and a breath of fresh air from all the bullshit people that normally accompanied a visit to a rival gang’s home. I stepped forward, my height still towering over her, even with her sitting in the laundry chute. Emersyn leaned back casually so she could crane her neck up to meet my gaze. I had just met this girl today, and yet it felt like I had known her my entire life. Our quips flowed off each other like we were seasoned in each other’s humor.
“And what if I don’t care if your brother kills you for doing exactly what I assume he said not to?”
“You do.” Emersyn smirked up at me.
I narrowed my eyes at her. “Do what?”
“Care.” She leaned back on her hands, turning her head to the side and examining me further. “And if you don’t now, you will later. Don’t you know, Kai? The knight always saves the princess in the end.”
I had thought of that moment every damn day since I was thirteen. And then years later, Alec Spade stormed into my office, begging me to save his baby sister. As much as I hadwanted to fight it, to deny him, that memory haunted me. Her voice. Her smirk.
The way she had made the world feel lighter in those few minutes than most people could in a lifetime. No other human had ever come close, not until Acelynn. Now, standing in the wreckage of my sister’s car, staring into those too-familiar blue eyes, I realized the truth I’d been running from.
She had betrayed me, played me like a game of chess. And I would have to put a bullet between her eyes for it.
CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX
acelynn
Kaius’s starewas a weapon in itself. His eyes cut into me with a sharpness that made my chest ache and made my bones want to splinter under the weight of it. It wasn’t just anger in his expression—it was disappointment, betrayal, devastation, all wound together in a look that should have made me crumble to dust on the spot. That should have sent me running for the hills, screaming for distance between us.
But I didn’t run.
I couldn’t.
Something in me was tethered to him, as dangerous as it was, as wrong as it felt to even crave the invisible string when his gaze promised ruin. My eyes burned, the sting of unshed tears threatening to break through, but still I refused to look away. I held his stare, even as my vision blurred, even as the weight of my guilt sank deeper and deeper into the hollow pit of my stomach.
Kaius stepped away from me as though my very presence was poison, and his voice ripped through the air, low and commanding, calling Nolan’s name like an executioner summoning the gallows. I flinched at the sound, not because it startled me, but because of the finality in it. There was no softness left in his tone, no trace of the boy I’d glimpsed in him once, no hint of the man who had promised—if only in subtle looks and half-kept words—that I was safe in his presence.
Then he turned from me.
He stalked back toward his truck, each heavy step echoing like a verdict. When the engine roared to life, it drowned out everything—the chaos around me, the faint voices calling orders, even the frantic rhythm of my own blood as it pounded in my ears. The sound was deafening, a wall of fury and decisiveness that seemed to swallow the world whole. I lifted my hands, raking them back through my tangled, matted hair. The strands caught between my fingers, pulling at my scalp until it burned, but the pain was nothing compared to the storm in my chest.
I tilted my head back, eyes finding the endless stretch of sky above me. Blue. Beautiful. Cruel. The kind of day that should have been filled with laughter, sunlight, and freedom. Not this. Not me standing in the middle of it, suffocating under the weight of choices I could never take back. My throat tightened, a bitter laugh bubbling in my chest but dying before it could escape.
I was a dead woman walking.
Every step I had taken since lighting that match had carved me closer and closer to the grave, and now it loomed before me, wide and waiting. And the truth—the truth that settled cold and sharp in my gut—was that I didn’t care. Not really. What was the point of fighting for a life I never wanted in the first place? Death felt less like an ending and more like a release. Maybe it was selfish. Maybe it was cowardly. But the thought of closing my eyes and letting it all stop—the guilt, the fear, the constantweight of being both pawn and betrayer—was a kinder fate than the hell I had been born into.
I clenched my fists at my sides, nails digging into my palms until my skin threatened to break. I wanted the pain. Needed it. At least it reminded me I was still here, still breathing, still paying the price for the choices I had made, because there was no one else to blame.
Not Kaius. Not Nolan. Not Alec. Not even my father.
It had been me.
I was the one who had lit the match. The one who had taken a single flame and burned my entire life to ash. And now, standing beneath that endless, indifferent sky, I finally understood what it meant to be both executioner and condemned. There was no forgiveness for what I had done. Not from the ones who had burned. And not from him.
The red taillights of the King of Lovelen’s truck blazed like twin embers against the desert sun. I stood rooted where I was, watching as they grew smaller and smaller, cutting down the trail of asphalt until the vehicle swung hard to the right and disappeared from sight. A tug at my arm snapped me back to the present, a sharp jolt against the road-burned skin that made me hiss. My head snapped sideways to glare at the paramedic hovering beside me, his latex-covered hand still reaching as though I were some fragile thing about to fall over.
I ripped my arm out of his grasp, eyes narrowing. “Don’t touch me. I’m fine.”
He gave me a flat, irritated look, the kind men gave when they were used to being listened to. His partner hovered near the open ambulance doors, clipboard in hand, tone softer but no less grating. “We should really take you in to get checked out. Shock, concussion, broken bones—all things that you might be suffering from but just aren’t feeling them yet.”
“I said I’m fine.” My voice cracked like a whip. “I’m not going to the hospital. I don’t have time for that.”
For the hundredth time, I bit down the scream of frustration crawling up my throat. They weren’t listening. No one ever listened.
